The legitimacy of a country depends on the agreement among a group of people in a geographic space who believe they can dwell together in harmony and unity through ratification of international conventions of the United Nations!
And the legitimacy of a democratic government depends on the unity among the three tiers of government: executive, legislature and judiciary in a cordial relationship.
But can a President work in isolation of State Governors and the complement of federating states? Or can his powers be limited to the federal capital territory even when he heads the ruling party?
COUPIST APC PROGRESSIVE GOVERNORS HAVE SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT!
In view of their strategic offices, APC Progressive Governors of Nigeria have begun to overreach themselves by ganging up against Mr President.
For selfish reasons they confused him to double-speak where he was recuperating on hospital bed in London over the contentious Party Convention slated for Saturday 26th March, 2022.
Governor of Ondo State Rotimi Akeredolu alleged that some “yahoo yahoo” governors in the All Progressives Congress (APC), supported Mai Mala Buni, Yobe State Governor to circumvent the will of party members.
He claimed that true APC governors were determined to see the party through the “patchy parts at all cost.”

He also said that the Progressive Governors had challenged the few “Yahoo Yahoo” who were hand-in-glove with Buni to circumvent the will of majority of the party, to carry out their imaginary threats as reported in sponsored stories or leave the party!

In addition he said that the swift response and prompt action taken by Mr. President in no small way salvaged the great party from internal scavengers and that the party survived a civilian coup largely inspired by mischief and incurable lust for power through artificial barricades.
Governor Akeredolu claimed that the renegades short-lived arm-twisting of Governor Buni and probably some pocket filling elements within the corridors of power to supplant the President’s will through fake letters endorsements as well as “Black Market” injunction (procured since November 2021), were despicable.
They manipulated the President to sack the Chairman of the Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), because they alleged he planned to scuttle the Party’s Convention to his advantage BUT only for him (the President), to discover that he was misled and has quickly re-instated the Chairman to organize the National Executive Committee (NEC), meeting which will lead the National Convention slated for 26th March, 2022!
AKEREDOLU AND HIS COHORTS SHOULD COVER THEIR FACES IN SHAME!
It now turns out that Governor Akeredolu was the real coup leader and this kind of attitude can only happen in a PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM - THE NIGERIAN MODEL!
The mythical power around those governors are dispelled and destroyed forever due to, pride, arrogance, superiority mentality which were designed to agitate internal wrangling and national confusion!
NIGERIANS HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN THAT APC IS THE MEGA PARTY OF ALL OVER- SPENT, RE-CYCLED AND CORRUPT POLITICIANS WHO ARE ON THEIR WAY OUT TO ALLOW FOR FRESH AIR OF UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT TO DEBUT IN 2023!
Please join this campaign for a POPULAR REFERENDUM to decide all RESTRUCTURING AGITATIONS that will produce a PRIME MINISTER and not a PRESIDENT IN 2023! - by Dr David Olufon.

Crimes cover up had been the bane of good governance in Nigeria since the first post military Constitution was enacted in 1979. Cover ups were institutional, they were bare-faced, they were intimidating and executed with impunity!
Twenty years after the aborted 1979 “Shagari Experiment” each democratic administration from 1999, was more brazen and determined to chart the path of deliberate robbery of the common patrimony with such audacity and assurance that accomplices would cover one another’s back even when it could end up in prison incarceration!

The Judiciary which should be the constitutional arbitrator in conflicts between the Executive and the Legislature would normally prefer to support the highest bidder while the investigative and law enforcement agencies deliberately work at snail speed to create loopholes for cases to be quashed and cases thrown out for lack of solid evidences!
Financial crimes in Nigeria take as long as 10 to 15 years to prosecute and in the long run the criminals were usually discharged and acquitted - especially in high-profile cases!
It was very easy for KEEPERS OF THE TREASURY to collude with internal forces to rob the treasury and confuse the citizenry by pointing accusing fingers in the wrong directions!

When custodians of law and order whose primary duty and responsibility is the security and welfare of the people renege in their assignments and now open official doors to pen/armed robbers through deliberate connivance and collusion, then such government is already tottering towards the precipice and will surely collapse!

ON 13TH DECEMBER 2020, WE PUBLISHED IN OUR 383RD EDITION OF THE ZION B-BC NEWSLETTER THE FOLLOWING TITLE: “THIS GAME OF DECEIT WILL BE THE DOWNFALL OF BUHARI’S APC!

BELOW ARE SOME EXCERPTS:
“Nigerian citizens must perhaps be the worst sinners in the world for them to be persistently hurt, bruised, harassed and persecuted by political representatives who should normally protect them according to the law but have instead employed cohesive institutional instruments to destroy their collective psyche and deny them of inalienable fundamental rights as enacted in the 1999 constitution.
“Over the years of independence and Republican status citizens have been permanently relegated to the background - the bottom of the ladder - where they now have to look up to their so-called representatives at all tiers of government to eek a living albeit, to live LIFE, in spite of the fact that ‘sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom the government derives all its powers and authority!’
“All major or minor decisions/policies were usually conceived, incubated, mooted and executed between the executive and the legislative and forced down the throat of hapless citizens irrespective of their education, qualifications, positions, achievements, expertise, professionalism, experience etc, etc, as if at 60-year-old Nigeria is not part of the 21st century ICT compliant world but in a remote planet where feudal overlords hold sway.
“We also mentioned that the petroleum downstream sector, government’s subsidy scam of 21 consecutive years has made billionaires of all cadres of the ruling class since independence, is still very much trending because it is very difficult for very greedy politicians to take their hands off the honey pot!”

HAS ANYTHING CHANGED SINCE THAT PUBLICATION?

Things have changed for the WORST! The Buhari Administration had consistently declared that government subsidy on petroleum products would be totally abolished while the products prices will be determined by international market forces.
BUT instead, inconsistencies and confusion had been the order of the day year-on-year because the Petroleum Products Pricing Marketing Company (PPPMC), had consistently dictated and announced fuel prices of petrol which is known as PMS, diesel oil and kerosene prices till date.
Prices of petroleum products became an all-comers affair and everyone sold at prices conducive to them from N165 Naira official price per litre to between N170 naira, N200 and as of 13th March 2022 Petroleum prices have risen to between N300 and N400 Naira per litre at the black market while pump price goes for N200 or N250 as the marketers wished!
FOR 40 DAYS (2nd February, 2022-13th March, 2022) – THE NIGERIAN OIL CARTEL, under the Watch of the substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources, President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, organised and deliberately planned nationwide fuel scarcity as an INSTITUTIONAL SIEGE against the fundamental rights of citizens to socio-economic dividends!

The clandestine drama was hatched in October 2021 when the finance minister announced that deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector would commence from June 2022!
AND Whereas, the plan was mooted to give DANGOTE PETROLEUM which is coming on stream later this year 2022 the platform to sell according to its whims and caprices from NGN 400 Naira or above according to International prices – especially when the Russia-Ukraine War has orchestrated Crude to between USD$100 and $105 US dollars per barrel!
FOLLOWING PUBLIC OUTCRY BUHARI REVERSED HIMSELF BY SUSPENDING PETROLEUM SUBSIDY FOR 18 MONTHS TO OUTLIVE HIS TENURE AT A COST OF NGN3TRILLION TO NNPC – THE SOLE IMPORTER OF REFINED PETROLEUM PRODUCTS?
And whereas, Federal Government is acquiring 20% minority stakes of USD4 billion in the DANGOTE REFINERY AND PETROCHEMICAL which has capacity to produce, 650,000 barrels per day ( bpd), to terminate foreign importation and SUBSIDY? Truth will prevail over CORRUPTION!

WHO ARE GOVERNMENTS’ COLLABORATORS?

Having created weak institutions deliberately in order to perpetuate all corruptive tendencies, the door was already opened for Civil servants to collude with the Executive and the Legislative which are in direct control of formulating disbursement of funds and making laws for budgeting and execution of budgets to manipulate figures in naira and Kobo dollars/euros, pounds sterling etc, to take advantage and create a cesspool for corruption to thrive seamlessly.
Nigerians do not need to look for the reasons why government has found it very difficult to diversify to agriculture, to build health institutions of international standards, to improve education and allot at least 26% of annual budgets to that sector, to continue allocating and awarding phantom projects which were never executed in the power sector and for continuing to embrace medical tourism as a matter of fundamental rights with government funds at all levels of administration because all such monies have been diverted two private pockets!

CODE OF CONDUCT BUREAU (CCB), SHOULD CHECKMATE THE UGLY TREND,!

And whereas the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), and Tribunal Act Chapter 58 Law of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN), 1990 gave the Bureau the mandate to establish and maintain a high standard of public morality in the conduct of government business and to ensure that the actions and behaviour of public officers conform to the highest standards of public morality!
CCB would carry out its onerous duties by ensuring that all Public officers whether elected, appointed, recruited, or contracted must collect a mandatory form from its offices across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), fill and return such forms duly signed to confirm that the declarant could vouchsafe that every declaration was to his or her conviction was true and correct.
Every declarant is required by law to declare his or her assets liabilities actually owned including overseas properties stating their values in foreign currencies at the material time and not anticipated assets/liabilities including that of his spouses who is not a public officer and children under 18 years and submit to the Bureau within 30 days of the receipt of the forms.
And declarants must personally go and swear to the declarations before a high court judge nearest to his work station before submitting to the Bureau.

CODE OF CONDUCT TRIBUNAL (CCT), SHOULD SYNERGIZE WITH EFCC AND ICPC TO ENSURE PROBITY, SANITY & JUSTICE!

Not much has been heard of the Code of Conduct Tribunal), Chairman and the activities of the Federal Government's Agency under his watch since he was embroiled in a social mis-conduct in a public place, in March 2021!
Honourable Justice Danladi Umar was alleged to have assaulted a security guard, brutalized him, slapped him in the face and ask him to kneel down and thereafter used his leg to hit him on the chest and inflicted body harm on him during the Senate hearing of a petition brought against the CCT Chairman by a PDP Senator representing Plateau North on behalf of the alleged victim.
The petitioner is asking the Senate to investigate the matter to ascertain the role of the Honorable Justice Danladi in the alleged unwholesome drama to ensure Justice to the security guard Mr Clement Kargwalk.
The petition being handled buy a panel set up by the Committee on Ethics Privileges and Public Petition was also handed a viral video which recorded the alleged assault and have been circulated all social media sites.
However in a twist off sequence of events it was said that the chairman rushed to a police station to report an assault on his person which prompted the petitioner to be invited for interrogation.

According to media reports, Honorable Justice Danladi Umar always claimed to be hospitalized at each occasion of the Senate hearing while the matter remained unresolved till date, 13th March, 2022 almost one year ago!
CCB should advertise collection of assets declaration forms by public officers with the caveat of 30th JUNE, 2022, deadline collection date in order to avert false declarations especially when all eyes are on the PETROLEUM WINDFALL!
ONE KOBO OR CENT MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO BE STOLEN FROM THIS GOD’D PROVIDENCE TO KICK-START THE PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN 2023 BY HIS SPECIAL GRACE! AMEN.

[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

#CAMPAIGN FOR REFERENDUM AND NOT VIOLENT AGITATIONS! -DR. DAVID OLUFON.

MERCENARY NIGERIAN POLITICIANS MUST BE CAST OUT NOW!

The introduction of an expensive presidential system of government in Nigeria from 1999 was a deliberate choice by the Military to placate their civilian accomplices who were virtually sidelined for almost 30 years from their livelihood, fundamental rights of association and politicking!
First, the military which was the security arm of democratic government had, through series of coup-de-tat between 1966-1999 gotten accustomed to unconventional disbursment of funds through annual budgets and have freely spent monies which were never accounted for!
Second, it was obvious that all military generals and other high-ranking officers were all very very rich at the time of handover and also had much money to vie for political offices as it were.
It was common knowledge that a unicameral Parliamentary system of government was more viable at that point in time to build an all inclusive representative government that would be INSTITUTIONALLY DRIVEN!
Having experienced both military and democratic forms it is now very glaring that with the exception of very few Nigerians, the primary concern of the political class in government is how to make money at the expense of ethics, morals, pains and agonies of the hapless citizens whom they ride roughshod!
They have no scruples and can be aptly described as mercenaries: professional soldiers of Fortune who's modus operandi is to be hired to partake in any conflict for personal profit and gains rather than for any political interest.
And the Nigerian terrain which allows for much money in a presidential system has birthed emergency millionaire politicians who have made so much money from the unruly system and can afford to perpetuate electoral fraud, malpractices, rigging and mayhem to ensure victory at all costs at every election!
THE TIME TO EXPUNGE PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM THROUGH INVOCATION OF REFERENDUM IS NOW!
Nigerian Women and Youths have greater advantage to serve under a cost-effective Parliamentary System where adequate qualifications, dilligence, capabilities, dexterity are recognised in voting to choose the right candidates.
Presidential system has mortgaged Nigeria’s future to unpaid FOREIGN DEBTS being claimed to execute unidentifiable INFRASTRUCTURES by consecutive Administrations!
AND yet, not less than 13.9million youths are unemployed while over 10million children of school age are still roaming the streets.
We implore all Nigerians to join this campaign and collectively demand through REFERENDUM to shut down the SENATE and request for a brand new unicameral parliamentary Constitution that will produce a PRIME MINISTER in the year 2023!

Globetrotting to Nigerian Presidents especially incumbent Major General Muhammadu Buhari who must travel all over the world before he finally bows out of political office in the year 2023, has gotten a boost through excess funds now accruing from international crude oil bench mark which sky- rocketed to between $100 - $104, due to economic fall-outs of the Russia-Ukraine War!

The president’s penchant for international fora took him to Kenya on Tuesday 1st March 2022, to participate in a special session in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Environmental Programme UNEP), which held 3rd to 4th March 2022, in Nairobi, the State, Capital and from the conference to London on 5th March, 2022, where he would receive medical attention for two weeks but out of the blues made a detour and returned to Abuja!

UNEP is officially credited to have (for half a century), coordinated worldwide effort with member states to address collective, universal and persistent environmental challenges and also proffering solutions with supporting findings must have caught the attention of the President who MUST be there in person to gain world attention at the detriment of Nigeria’s multi-faceted insecurity and socio-economic challenges!

The retired (but tourism-friendly), Major General could have designated his Vice President or one of his most senior ministers in the cabinet to represent him but that will never happen because the oil windfall must be squandered with IMPUNITY!

It has been reported by the electronic media and tabloids both in Nigeria and overseas that President Buhari has embarked on not less than 78 foreign trips since he assumed office, spending up to 285 days outside of the country which included those in the United Kingdom for medical attention!
These reports have not been denied by his All Progressives Congress (APC), Administration which has shown impunity in running the affairs of Nigeria from 2015 till date.

This particular journey which gulped several millions of dollars only to discuss a theme tagged “Strengthening UNEP For The Implementation Of The Environmental Dimension Of The 2030 Agenda For Sustainable Development”, came in the heels of his earlier planned trip for medical attention in the United Kingdom.

According to his special adviser he was to proceed to London after the conference in Kenya to London for routine medical checks that will last for a maximum of two weeks.

As usual he was accompanied on the trip by the Minister of Foreign Affairs the Minister of State for Environment, National Security Adviser, Director General National Intelligence Agency, Chief Executive Officer of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission and many others who were not disclosed!
In spite of complaints from Nigerians that the president had been reckless in depleting the foreign reserves through frivolous journeys to all the continents of the world in the last seven years, President Buhari would not listen to anyone because he strongly believes that he has every right to spend the taxpayers money as he pleased!

BUHARI RESCHEDULE LONDON MEDICAL TRIP TO SUNDAY 6TH MARCH, 2022!
In an unusual and an unprecedented U-turn the President without prior notice or information from any government source, appeared at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja from Kenya on Friday the 4th March 2022 to the surprise of Nigerians and his handlers!

And according to one of his media aides, Garba Shehu, the President had to return home for the fact that the Conference ended earlier than scheduled and also that “he had to return and pick up some things!”
But we think differently for the following reasons.
(1) According to Section 145 of the of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 the President should communicate with the National Assembly (NASS), whenever he was proceeding on any form of vacation for his Vice President to act in his stead!
(2) If the Major General who left Nigeria on Tuesday 1st of March 2022, had proceeded to London from Kenya on Friday 5th March 2022, to stay for two weeks or more in the UK for medical treatment then he might exceed the 21 days stipulated in the Section 145(1) of the1999 Constitution as ammended!
(3) By so doing he would so have contradicted the relevant section of the constitution which would be an infringement on his part and this is exactly what he is trying to avoid.
(4) In addition to the above the President is trying very hard to prove to Nigerians and world at large that he was only going for a medical check up and not for a major treatment and was still fit to go up and down with the presidential jet at the expense of the masses who are the taxpayers!
(5) We should not forget that this Head of State travelled with an entourage of not less than 20 or more people on each lourney who collected estacodes and other allowances! We were told that TWO executive presidential jets were involved in transporting the President and his entourage to and fro!
(6) The President who has now TRAVELLED TO LONDON ON SUNDAY 6th March 2022, told the media VERBALLY that Vice President, Professor ‘Yemi Osinbajo would be in charge of administration without any form of CORRESPONDENCE with the National Assembly!


NIGERIANS DEMAND FOR CRUDE OIL WINDFALL ACCOUNTABILITY!
There was a windfall of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria in the year 1990 during the Iraq invasion of Kuwait referred to as the GULF WAR which was believed to have fetched over $12.6 billion United States dollars and which the Babangida military junta has not accounted for till date!

The SOVEREIGN PEOPLE of Nigeria have begun a conversation for RIGHTEOUS ACCOUNTABILITY now that it is less than one year for Buhari as SUBSTANTIVE Minister of Petroleum Resources to depart office; and that the EXCESS CRUDE OIL ACCOUNT is swelling by the day due to the Russia Ukraine War it was appropriate and imperative for APC government, to set up a Special Task Force under the Ministry of Finance to jointly handle records of all productions, liftings, exportations etc, carried out by the new Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Limited which should be a very TRANSPARENT Organisation!

BUT President Buhari’s apologists have begun to disabuse the mind of the Nigerian public, political watchers and economists that the WINDFALL WOULD AMOUNT TO NOTHING because the nation is highly indebted and most of the accrued monies from the crude oil will be used to upset all FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC DEBTS which have accumulated to over NGN40 trillion naira as at the end of December 2021!

REFERENDUM IS THE ONLY ANTIDOTE TO ACCEPTABLE RESTRUCTURING OF THE NIGERIAN PROJECT CONVERSATION!
Through referendum it will not take more than two weeks to shut down the Senate and to reduce the House of Representative members from 360 to 74 and to constitute a Constituent Assembly which will draft a BRAND NEW unicameral parliamentary constitution that will be used by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct parliamentary elections which will produce a Prime Minister in 2023!

It has now dawned on all people that amendment of the constitution by the so-called legislators what's a fluke as they have connive to eliminate the womenfolk from politics and governance.
How can any country believe that it can survive without the contributions of the women folk who had distinguished themselves locally and internationally in all the disciplines of life at the United Nations in the United States in the United Kingdom in Ireland to name a few.
Nigerian women are holding positions of authority in the Diaspora and they have contributed so much to the economy of this nation because they are honest and righteous than their menfolk who are wolves in sheep clothing!
All gender issues that were listed among the 68 items considered during the last Constitution Amendment exercise on 1st March 2022 by the National Assembly where legislators voted against and the women who were left in the lurch in spite of all lobbyings!
Rwandan Parliament for instance is the first country in the world with a female majority in Parliament (a numerical strength that supersedes the Beijing Affirmative Action of 1995! Cuba is second to Rwanda.
Arise Nigerian Women and let’s demand for REFERENDUM to shut down the SENATE and produce a Parliamentary System of Government to be headed by a Prime Minister in 2023! United we stand, Divided, we fall!
[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

In a sequential approach to the military invasion of Ukraine on Thursday 24th February 2022, by Russian Forces, the Chinese government had shown cammaderie and solidarity to President Vladimir Putin: FIRST through a visit to Moscow by President Xi Jinping.
On the very first day of Russian invasion of Ukraine the Chinese government dispatched its Air Force with a fleet of jet bombers to fly close to Taiwan which it has been laying claim to for several years back as part of its own territory.
The planes were repelled just like the earlier 39 that threatened Taiwan airspace on January 29, 2022. SECOND: Up to the weekend 27th February, 2022, Chinese government had deliberately refused to classify the invasion of Ukraine as an aberration against a sovereign state among the United Nations of the world.
It is not in dispute that Russia and Ukraine have had a long relationship as compatriots; people who are bonded together through their culture language and social interactions for a period of about 1,000 years. Both countries like many others which eventually formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics between 1922-1991, were governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, since the 1905 Rebellion against the Aristocratic Monarchs of Czars! In fact, they were like twin brothers because they shared the same corridors as neighbours and peacefully dwelt together until the breakup of the Soviet Union on December 31st 1991.
This dissolution of the Soviet Union into 15 independent republics should have cemented the bond between Russia and Ukraine but that was not to be so because Putin will forever hold the United States of America (USA), liable and responsible for the systemic break-up during the period of the COLD WAR which began from the end of World War 11 up to 1991! Ukraine’s strategic position of being also very close for comfort to Turkey – a gateway to Europe and the Arab nations, had always infuriated Russia which is passionately/crazily Anti-West and with Putin in the saddle of The Russian Government, (in, out or on the periphery) for a period of not less than 20 years, had become very ambitious and dictatorial!

PUTIN CANNOT RESURRECT SOVIET UNION!
Russia has constantly displayed questionable force at every opportunity especially around what remains of it’s geographic entity - and especially among its BRETHREN, in Crimea, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, an independent Republic (which is a Central Asian country), which shares Eastern borders with China and Russia.
Putin's strategy had always been to annex all the existing 15 surviving former Soviet Union (now, independent and sovereign), countries if it were possible and then become a NEW GOBACHEV of the 21st Century!
EASTERN UKRAINE had suffered devastating military assaults since 2014, from Russia which foisted some rabble rousers and renegades to illegally and forcefully occupy and contested ownership of sovereign land with the legitimate government! Of course the rebels were militarized by Russia which kept denying all atrocities, crimes and criminalities of their provocative and heinous surrogates who were emboldened in July 2014 to shoot down a commercial passenger aircraft that killed 283 passengers – including children and infants!

PUTIN CLAIMS UKRAINE’S INVASION WAS TO SAVE THE ILLEGAL OCCUPIERS!
And whereas Ukraine's incumbent President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is neither a puppet nor stooge and would not give pseudo rebel Republics any breathing space unlike his predecessor who was removed for romancing with Kremlin which gained foothold in the Crimean Peninsula through organized Separatist Insurgency Agenda of President Putin in East Ukraine! The forceful creation of two rebel republics – Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in East Ukraine cost the loss of 14,000 people AND to defend them from “abuse and genocide” in the hands of Ukraine is now costing a full scale War which had already consumed thousands of thousands of lived and needs urgent divine intervention!
Putin claims he is “defending the Republics which requested for help on February 21, in accordance with Article 51 of Part 7 of the UN Charter with approval of Federation Council of Russia and in pursuance of the treatise of friendship and mutual assistance ratified on February 22 with the Republics”!

BUT RUSSIA REMAINS THE UNDERDOG OF THE UKRAINE INVASION!
Who was the bully, who was the fault-finder, who was the accuser, who was the one that raised false alarm, who fired the first shot, who is the spoiler, who feels insecure, who the liar, who is the agent provocateur, who is the household enemy?
RUSSIA is the answer to all of the above questions Russia is a perpetrator of evil, Russia is the one that has refused to factor God into all the decisions made from 2014 till date. Russia is the present day Babylon and it’s surely going to fall and will never rise again! PUTIN like Satan said in his heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of north I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high! Yet thou shall be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee saying is this the man that made the earth to tremble that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
All the kings of the nations even all of them, lie in glory, everyone in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. Thou shall not be joined with them in burial because thou has destroyed thy land, and slain thy people; the seed of evil doers shall never be renowned.
Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. For I will rise up against them said the Lord of hosts and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant and son and nephew, said the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern and pools of water and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction said the Lord of host. Isaiah, 14:12-23.

IS RUSSIA FULFILLING PROPHECY?
The Gospel according to St. Matthew 24:6-10, lends credence to Russian aggressions and BETRAYAL of its KITH AND KIN; but then at the appointed time Russia will definitely give account of its stewardship!

RUSSIA'S MILITARY STRENGTH IS NOT AN ADVANTAGE!
Russia amassed thousands of troops against Ukraine and has recklessly deployed it’s arsenal against the innocent people to forcibly SHED THEIR BLOOD whereas God the Creator did not make them JUDGE over the attacked Nation!
KUDOS TO US, FRANCE, BRITAIN, GERMANY, OTHER NATO ALLIES FOR THEIR SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE AT THIS VERY CHALLENGING PERIOD! SHAME UNTO CHINA – THE BLACK SHEEP!
As it is written: “I returned, and saw under the SUN that the RACE is not to the Swift, nor the BATTLE to the STRONG, neither yet BREAD to the WISE, nor yet RICHES to Men of UNDERSTANDING, nor yet FAVOR to Men of SKILL; but TIME and CHANCE happen to them all.”(Ecclesiastes. 9:11).
We encourage our Ukrainian BRETHREN to be strong and courageous for the battle is of the Lord. These evil Russians that have besieged you currently will all PERISH and you shall see them no more for JEHOVAH SAOBATH WILL FIGHT FOR YOU AND YOU SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE! SHALOM.
[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

#CAMPAIGN FOR REFERENDUM AND NOT VIOLENT AGITATIONS! . –DR. DAVID OLUFON.

PEOPLE OF NIGERIA MUST RESIST FURTHER CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS.

National Assembly legislators have completed plans to vote on 1st March 2022, in respect of about 67 amendments to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that would conservatively gulp not less than NGN5 billion naira to execute considering the fact that past exercises ended in fraud and futility.
It is an open secret that the way to go is to draft a brand new constitution that will give Nigeria a parliamentary system of government because It is cost effective unlike the Military Presidential system which had virtually drained the entire resources of Nigeria as a nation and labelled it as horribly corrupt and poverty-stricken geographic entity.
Unicameral parliamentary system is antidote to CORRUPTION and INSECURITY in Nigeria.
To produce a new constitution in Nigeria is not a big deal. As long as competent drafters are appointed to handle all the legal frame work through the instrumentality of a REFERENDUM.
Retired Military General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who succeeded late General Sanni Abacha, drafted the 1999, Constitution within 11 months, conducted the General Elections and handed over power to retired General Obasanjo.
The Nigerian Senate which is trying to play hide and seek in this new demand by the citizens of Nigeria to whom sovereignty belongs has no place to hide any longer because a Unicameral Legislature will no longer accommodate the Red Chamber anymore.
In other words THE SENATE HAS TO BE SHUT DOWN and that is why the legislators are foot-dragging and refusing to listen to public opinion in respect of the agitation for A NEW CONSTITUTION that will usher a Prime Minister in the year 2023 instead of a president which all the money bags are clamoring for.
Former Minister of Education MRS. OBY EKWESILI insisted at a recent public hearing that referendum was the only means to produce a brand new constitution which will address all social political challenges in the country.
However the crafty senators are bent on going on with the constitutional amendments which whether they like it or not will hit the rocks as usual.
Nigerians are wiser and cannot be hoodwinked by lawmakers who are out to protect their own interests at the National Assembly instead of representing the citizens.
The only choice open to the citizens now is to demand for the invocation of the doctrine of necessity.
On Tuesday 9th February 2010 the National Assembly was forced to introduce the doctrine of necessity in order to empower the then vice president Ebele Jonathan to act as President of Nigeria to avoid a vacuum in governance.
Umaru Yar Adua failed to transmit a letter to National Assembly and hand over to his deputy according to section 145 of the 1999 Constitution while away on medical treatment abroad from 25th November 2009 to Tuesday February 2010
That exemplary decision stood out the 6th National Assembly as a very patriotic body of lawmakers who loved the people of Nigeria more than monetary gains.
The faulty 1999 military constitution did not make provision for the political solution of the doctrine of necessity.
This terminology which means the justification and application of an illegality as a legal procedure in order to justify a very much desired necessity is not far-fetched.
Doctrine of necessity was first applied in Pakistan on 24th October 1954, then in Grenada in 1985 and also Nigeria 9th February 2010.
Right now Nigerians are demanding that the doctrine of necessity must be applied to get referendum and a new constitution which will produce in 2023 a Unicameral system of government and a Prime Minister.
We now call on all well meaning Nigerians to support this campaign for referendum BUT not through violent agitation.
Nigerians should mobilize to join the movement to actualize that the coming general elections MUST be conducted with a new Unicameral Parliamentary Constitution that will produce a Prime Minister.
SENATE PRESIDENT DAVID MARK WAS THE HERO OF THE 2010 DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY.
In his speech, he said that National Assembly acted to empower vice president Ebele Jonathan as acting president on the 9th February 2010, because the doctrine of necessity must be invoked to avoid a vacuum in governance.
According to him the doctrine of necessity requires that we do what is necessary when faced with a situation that was not contemplated by the constitution.
And that is precisely what we have done today … in doing so we have as well maintained the sanctity of our constitution as the ultimate law of the land.
The constitution never envisaged a violation that will create a leadership vacuum like we found ourselves since November 23, 2009.
Senate leadership amended the critical aspect of omission in the 1999 constitution to be in tune with present the reality.
Late President Musa Yar Adua failed to transmit a handover letter to National Assembly for his deputy,Ebele Jonathan to act as president according with section 145 of the 1999 Constitution from 23rd November 2009 to 9th February,2010.
IN THE 8th NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, 77 PATRIOTIC SENATORS AND A SIZABLE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE MEMBERS CLAMORED FOR REFERENDUM AS THE ANTEDOTE TO SOLVING ALL RESTRUCTURING AGITATIONS.
WE CALL ON THEM TO ARISE AND SHINE TO ENSURE THE DEMAND IS ACTUALIZED WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY.
Where there is a will, there is a WAY.

IT seems that Nigerians have come to terms with the extravagant lifestyle attached to Presidential system of government even at very austere periods when the economy is on the downward trend!

President Buhari claimed in 2015 that he inherited an almost empty treasury yet he was able to raise large sums of money for him and large entourage to commence international journeys which have continued unabated in his two-term engagement of executive impunity!

At the last count, the retired Major General had travelled overseas for about 54 times in seven years with large entourage of ministers, special advisers, politicians, governors and business men!

And yet Nigeria is classified as the poverty capital of the World! How can a poor country afford to spend millions of millions of USD$ dollars on foreign trips on each occasion? How can a president continue to embark on foreign trips to go and beg for money in order to take care of infrastructures in his own country even though he has enough natural resources which remain un- harnessed? Yes Nigeria is a peculiar Nation! The reason for this misbehavior of Nigerian presidents is not far-fetched because they were military people who decided to usurp democratic powers having perfected Corruption of the economy through martial laws during their 30 years of military aberration!

It was ex-president Obasanjo who was tagged as an executive globetrotter of Africa during his eight years and he spent millions running to billions of US$ dollars globetrotting the world with the retinue of large delegations at the expense of the poor masses!

The Military never gave account of the 30 years junta to anyone till date when the change of baton occurred between soldier and soldier!
Presently another ex-military general who is the incumbent president of democratic Nigeria now retired major general Muhammadu Buhari has followed suit of his predecessor General Obasanjo and in spite of the fact that the Omicron virus of Covid 19, is still very much around the globe this president is still travelling across the world under one guise or the other!

On the one hand the government of President Buhari will tell the world that the country needed a lot of foreign funds to build up infrastructures yet it is an open secret that Nigeria’s total foreign debt portfolio borrowed by his administration between 2016 and 2021 have been majorly spent on frivolous and unexecuted contracts whereas large chunks of the foreign debt totaling NGN13.8 trillion naira had been spent on salaries allowances and all manner of emoluments government officials of the executive legislative and judiciary.

President Buhari just returned Saturday 19th February, 2022, from Belgium where he attended the EU-AU Summit on Continental cooperation on all sectors of the economy financing for sustainable and inclusive growth, energy transition, climate change, etc, and this trip according to observers is about the 54th international journey made by this President and tons of the members of his kitchen cabinet!
But to the downtrodden masses he gave the Greek Gift of IMPORTED ADULTERATED PETROL WHICH DAMAGED ALL AUTOMOBILES, MOTOR CYCLES, GENERATING MACHINERIES ETC, AND TOOK AWAY THEIR ENTIRE MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD!

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019 till date the World Health Organization (WHO), disclosed that at least 202 countries have been identified as being affected with the scourge yet the President of Nigeria was not discourage and has been able to travel to about one fourth portion of world countries spending borrowed money to carry out untenable economic agenda! However, in spite of the fact that he had travelled to virtually all the major countries of the world, there is exceeding INSECURITY, exceeding poverty and squalor among the TALAKAWAS domicile in the land of Nigeria!

FOREIGN COUNTRIES ARE NOT FATHER CHRISTMAS!

We still wonder why Nigeria has not been blacklisted by foreign countries from which it has borrowed so much money if they did not have hidden agenda!
There was a time when political watchers said that Nigeria was very close to recolonization by world powers especially China which had dominated Africa with so much Aids through Road/Rail infrastructures and massive exportation of all its manufactured products into the African market, especially Nigeria which has refused to harness it's natural resources.

We argued that neither China nor any other developed countries of the world had any intention of recolonization in Africa or elsewhere but then attention was drawn to the fact that all the contracts that were signed by African governments including Nigeria have clauses which indicate that once there was a default of agreement in the contract the contractor will take over such infrastructure built with borrowed money and solely run such enterprise until all borrowed money are recovered and that put paid to further argument on the matter because if all foreign countries take over all infrastructures in any Third World country in this 21st Century then it is clear that Africa will go under the direct governance of NEO-COLONIALIST POWERS!

The question is, have all past and present Nigerian leaders – especially the incumbent who have supposedly borrowed money to build the nation’s infrastructures ever thought of posterity? Have they ever cared to reflect how such heavy amounts of debts will be repaid? Have they ever thought of the Youths who will eventually take up the mantle of leadership paused to consider that excessive borrowing of the present would tantamount to future delay in institutional development of the country?

NIGERIAN LEADERS SHOULD NOT HAVE INDULGED IN BEGGING FOR FOREIGN LOANS!

Imagine if all 36 State Governments of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory could turn attention to solid mineral deposits in their various locations, harness and develop them into very useful products of international standard, their Internal Generated Revenues, (IGRs) will rise astronomically and there would be no need for every Governor to always rush cap-in-hand every month to Abuja to collect Crude Oil revenue allocation from the Treasury Single Account (TSA)!

It is common knowledge that conservative Nigerian governments do not lay emphasis on Human Capital Development but on Human Idolizing: they prefer to eulogize one President after the other and continue to sing praises of whatever he had done with the common patrimony instead of bringing him to accountability so that people will see very clearly whether he was self-serving or patriotic!

Lip service has always been paid to diversification from crude oil - the only foreign-exchange-earner product to Agriculture by conservative governments and strategic institutional decay of all States infrastructures have become visibly manifest due to glaring corruption in the system!

It is therefore incumbent that all right-thinking Nigerians should join hands to campaign for total removal of the corruption-ridden and very wasteful Presidential system of government in Nigeria and the installation of a Unicameral Parliamentary system of government which will produce a Prime Minister and diligent Legislators from all over the Constituencies to take care of the business of governance in the country from 2023 onward!

The movement for that CHANGE begins now and nobody should shy away because begging/borrowing is anathema to any country and to all people!.
What can a beggar nation do without support from other nations? Nigeria as a Third World nation chose to live large as a FIRST WORLD nation like UNITED STATES OF AMERICA without any form of institutional structures on ground and totally neglected human capital development!

CAN FAKE NIGERIAN POLITICIANS BUILD SOMETHING ON NOTHING?

But the incumbent president says he will continue to borrow until he leaves office in less than 1 year!
Beggar nations can only bark they cannot bite. Nigeria can be likened in this discourse to a beggar nation! Beggars have hands but will never work with them!
They have eyes but never see with them; ears but can never hear; nose but can never smell! A beggar is a slave and the head of a beggar nation is the chief slave who goes about shamelessly to beg for monies he could have raised from within his own domain.
Beggars cannot smell the abundance of natural mineral resources buried in their soil! Beggar prefers to export his raw materials: cocoa beans, groundnuts millets, etc, to refine them at exorbitant costs overseas in foreign countries and then import them back for sale instead carrying out all those processes by himself and making 100 per cent gains!

It is in Nigeria that refined petroleum products are subsidized with trillions of naira every year and instead of government to build new REFINERIES, keeps REFURBISHING old ones as corruption thrives on in a free-for-all environment!

JUDGMENT IS AT THE DOOR!
The Lord who searches the reins and hearts will give unto every one of you according to your works. AMEN!

[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]




I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

MyVILLAGEpeople:
This one don collect brown envelope and start to misyarn.

reading will make you more knowledgeable than you are already. Make a objective criticism or a positive comment.

#CAMPAIGN FOR REFERENDUM AND NOT VIOLENT AGITATIONS!- DR. DAVID OLUFON.

NIGERIAN POLITICIANS SHOULD STOP UNDER-ESTIMATING THE PEOPLES’ POWER!

In spite of the innumerable flaws contained in the 1999 Military Constitution of Nigeria, the crafters could not deny, but confirmed that SOVEREIGNTY BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF NIGERIA from whom the government through the Constitution derived all its powers and authority!

IT is common knowledge that military organizational charts are vertically-integrated in a unitary format, so the 1999 Constitution handed over to the Nigerian people at their disengagement from partisan politics on 29th May, 1999 was devoid of contributions from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Civil Service Organizations (CSOs), the Labor/Trade Unions or impute through a National Conference, Plebiscite or even a Referendum to iron out controversial areas!
Greater powers are vested to the centre i.e. the Presidency, more that the Federating States through the 68 items on the Exclusive Legislative List! For instance, all lands in the country were grabbed in the military fashion through the obnoxious LAND USE ACT, 1978, which nationalized the land thereby depriving the citizens of decent/adequate accommodations and farm lands that could serve as collaterals for banking transactions.

The social contracts which include rights to potable water, food security/sufficiency, access roads, arable lands for massive agricultural diversification of the economy, employment opportunities, national living wages, pension facilities to the aged and retired workers etc, are mere window dressing!
The entire Constitution was written in the masculine gender to marginalize the women who have greater statistics in the national population of about 200 million people and the pronoun, "he" is regarded as UNISEX;

Other notable flaws can be found in State Creation process/procedure; Electoral organizers are expected to be members of political parties; the Judiciary and Ministry of Finance where professional and political offices are merged into one office to create more confusion; lack of a defined autonomous status of Local governments; ambiguous fiscal and revenue-sharing formula between Federal and State governments etc, many of these confusions have been re-defined at the apex court with very little reprieve! THERE ARE SO MANY OTHER CONFLICTS IN THE 1999 CONSTITUTION THAT ARE FAR MORE THAN THOSE LISTED ABOVE AND CANNOT FIND SPACE IN THIS PAPER!

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION OF SOVEREIGNTY TO THE PEOPLE!
Quoting from Section 14: [The Government and the people] –
(1) The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice.
(2) It is hereby, accordingly, declared that-
(a) SOVEREIGNTY (ultimate, absolute power) belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority:
(b) The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of Government; and
(c) The participation by the people in their government shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.

SOVEREIGNTY in political theory is the ultimate overseer or authority, in the decision making process of a State and in the maintenance of order. This ultimate inalienable power belongs to the PEOPLE OF NIGERIA whom the military had reduced to PAPER TIGERS in their own country through a forged document which is completely alien to the people!

THE TIME OF IGNORANCE IS PAST! Join the campaign to demand for REFERENDUM through our lawmakers in the National Assembly (NASS), who will INVOKE THE “DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY” TO PRODUCE A UNICAMERAL CONSTITUTION AND A PRIME MINISTER IN 2023 INSTEAD OF ANOTHER MILITARY PRESIDENT!!
THE CITIZENS’ SOVEREIGNTY WILL BE ASSERTED NOW WITHOUT ANY CIVIL UNREST!

A Nigerian Writer has likened the incumbent Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege to the biblical Moses who was raised by God to liberate the children of Israel who were in bondage in the land of Egypt!

He claimed that the Urhobo-born All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator, representing Delta Central and the ruling party’s South-South leader is “a truly good fighter, a large-hearted detribalized and compassionate man”!

In further accolades, he was described as a “sharp, inquisitive, versatile person who loves humanity and shuns primordial sentiments of ethnicity, religion, and not gender biased!
Well said but We wonder whether Senator Omo-Agege was the same person who on 4th June, 2022, at a National Public Hearing on the Alteration to the Provisions of the 1999 Constitution in Abuja, said that it would be unconstitutional to embark on any process to provide an entirely new law without an alteration to Section 9 of the said Constitution when the DEMAND FOR A BRAND NEW CONSTITUTION THROUGH REFERENDUM TOOK CENTER STAGE?

1) He deliberately began an argument in respect of Section 9 of the Constitution which states that an alteration could not be passed in either House of the National Assembly unless the proposal is supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of all members of that House and approved by resolution of the House of Assembly of not less than two-thirds of all the States.
2) Senator Omo-Agege’s brickwall also brought into the fore similar steps to effect alterations to Section 8 which deals with new States Creation, Boundary Adjustments and New Local Governments and Chapter IV which deals with Fundamental Rights, which “shall not be passed by either House unless the proposal is approved by the votes of not less than four-fifths majority of all the members of each House, and also approved by resolution of the Houses of Assembly of not less than two-thirds of all the States.
3) And yet one more huddle! For the purposes of Section 8 and of subsections (2)(3) of Section 9, the number of members of each House of the National Assembly shall, notwithstanding any vacancy, be deemed to be the number of members specified in sections 48 and 49 of the Constitution which stipulate the numerical strength of each House at 109 and 360 members respectively.

OBI EZEKWESILI’S REQUEST FOR BRAND NEW CONSTITUTION THROUGH REFERENDUM!

Former Minister of Education, Mrs. Obi Ezekwesili insisted at the hearing that Referendum was the only means to produce a brand new constitution which would address all socio-political challenges in the country!

But Senator Omo-Agege’s indisposition to the subject matter had dampened the popular clamor for the application of REFERENDUM to peacefully resolve all contentious arguments in respect of TRUE FEDERALISM AND RESTRUCTURING OF THE NIGERIAN PROJECT.

NASS “DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY” FOR VICE PRESIDENT JONATHAN SHOULD ALSO APPLY TO REFERENDUM FOR RESTRUCTURING NIGERIA!

In an unfolding drama on Tuesday 9th February, 2010, the National Assembly (NASS), by introducing “doctrine of necessity”, empowered Vice President Ebele Jonathan to act as President of Nigeria in order to douse a very delicate and sensitive situation that could snowballed to a national incendiary and it was so resolved!

Late President Umaru ‘Yar Adua failed to transmit a letter to NASS and hand over to his Vice (according to Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution), while away on medical treatment abroad from 25th November 23, 2009!

That exemplary decision stood out the 6th NASS as a very patriotic body of lawmakers who loved the people more than the lucre of office because the 1999 Constitution DID NOT MAKE PROVISION FOR THE POLITICAL SOLUTION OF DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY!

This terminology which means the justification and application of “an illegality as a legal procedure to justify a very-much desired necessity” had been successful applied in other countries! In the case of Vice President Jonathan, he was the bona-fide deputy to fill the temporarily vacant seat of his principal who failed to do the needful as stated in the preceding paragraph and eventually passed on in a foreign country!

CONSTITUTIONAL SOVEREIGNTY TO THE PEOPLE!
Section 14. [The Government and the people] – (1) The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice.
(2) It is hereby, accordingly, declared that-
(a) SOVEREIGNTY (ultimate, absolute power) belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority:
(b) The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of Government; and
(c) The participation by the people in their government shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.

COMMENT: According to Section 14 (2)(a) SOVEREIGNTY in political theory is the ultimate overseer or authority, in the decision making process of a State and in the maintenance of order. This ultimate power belongs to the PEOPLE OF NIGERIA whom the military had reduced to PAPER TIGERS in their country through a forged document which is completely alien to the people!

QUESTION: If some of the people felt marginalized or short-changed in any aspect of governance and request for a popular referendum to quickly put the issue to test and resolve it, should any other political consideration whether present or absent in the Constitution take precedence over SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE? And yet the same Constitution says government derives all its powers and authority from sovereignty of the people! Has contradiction not popped up in this narrative?
There is no confusion in the assertion – the truth is that most Nigerian politicians are dubious, crafty and very insincere when large sums of illicit funds could accrue to them in the process of manipulation of the letters of the Constitution!

REFERENDUM could be applied to decide any matter pending before the executive, the legislature or from among the people before it is given consent of the law in order to avoid break down of law and order!

BREXIT – Britain’s approach to exiting membership of the European Union (EU), in 2016 took TWO REFERENDA and the resignation of British Prime Minister David Cameron to decide! Was that not democracy in action?

RESTRUCTURING in Nigeria should be decided through referendum along a revisit to (1) Recommendations of APC’s Committee On Restructuring Of Nigeria Chaired by Governor Nasir El Rufai and submitted to President Major General Muhammadu Buhari since January 2018 (now FOUR years on his table); (2) 2014 National Conference Recommendations and (3) A refurbished 1963 Republican Parliamentary Constitution that would go a very long way to pacify and satisfy all tribes and tongues in a manner to sustain permanent peace, equity, fairness, justice etc!

DEPUTY SENATE PRESIDENT OVIE OMO-AGEGE [APC, DELTA CENTRAL], IS A FRIEND OF THE GENERAL!

Senator Omo-Agege, a very close ally of President Major Muhammadu Buhari, who became a house-hold name since 18th April, 2018, through the RED CHAMBER MACE ROBBERY SAGA, does not believe in the RESTRUCTURING OF NIGERIA THROUGH REFERENDUM which will fast-track all contentious issues as mentioned in earlier paragraphs!
In the 8th National Assembly (NASS), Omo-Agege, was arrow head of “Parliamentary Support Group in Senate for President Muhammadu Buhari, which backed the President for withholding assent to the Electoral Act Time Table as amended by Saraki-led Senate for the 2019 Presidential election to come last instead of first according to INEC; with a view to unseating the incumbent! It is strongly believed that Omo-Agege was suspended for 90 Legislative days by Saraki for upsetting his strategy and that in a swift re-action of power play, he (Omo-Agege organized thugs to forcefully remove the MACE – symbol of authority from the Red Chambers on 18th April, 2018) – but he vehemently denied the accusation and was never prosecuted in any court of law until the demise of NASS 8th Assembly!

WILL THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY SPONSOR THE BILL FOR REFERENDUM AS BEING DEMANDED BY THE PEOPLE OF NIGERIA WHO POSSESS SOVEREIGNTY?

If Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege is truly the biblical Moses, there could be no better time than NOW to tell his principal President Major General Buhari that this is the right time to bend to the demands of the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF NIGERIA for popular referenda to iron out all the grey areas of contentions restructuring and place Nigeria once again on the pedestal as the true Economic Giant of Africa!
The only MIRACLE for peace and stability for Nigeria in conducting the 2023 General Elections is through a brand new Unicameral Parliamentary Constitution that will produce a PRIME MINISTER for the New Nigeria of our dreams! “A stitch in time saves nine!”

[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

#CAMPAIGN FOR REFERENDUM AND NOT VIOLENT AGITATIONS TO RESTRUCTURE NIGERIA. [NO. 6.] - DR. DAVID OLUFON. 7th February, 2022.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY IS A CORRUPT BODY: EXPOSED BY HON, ABDULMUMIN JIBRIN AND ICPC!
ANNUAL BUDGET PADDING BY NIGERIA’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY (NASS), LEGISLATORS WAS EXPOSED BY HONORABLE ABDULMUMIN JIBRIN, A HIGH-RANKING MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE IN OCTOBER, 2016! THE BARE-FACED BRAZEN ROBBERY OF THE SINGLE TREASURY ACCOUNT (TSA), BY LAW MAKERS IN BOTH RED AND GREEN CHAMBERS HAS CONTINUED TILL DATE UNABATED!
Reproduced below is the unedited statement of the Legislator:
"HOW WE SHARED NIGERIA MONEY BY HON. Abdulmumin JIBRIN: I got N650 million as my running cost as the Chairman of Appropriation Committee, Speaker Yakubu Dogara got N1.5 billion, His Deputy Yusuf Lasun got N800 million, House Majority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila got N1.2 billion; Deputy Majority Leader Buba Jibrin got N1.2 billion. House Whip Alhassan Ado Doguwa got N1.2 billion, Deputy House Whip got N700 million. House Minority Leader Leo Ogor got N1.2 billion, Deputy Minority Leader Onyema got N800 million. Minority Whip got N700 million, Deputy Minority Whip got N700 million. I have documents to back up all these.”.
"TO ALL HONOURABLE MEMBERS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ABUJA.
My dear Colleagues, BURDEN OF PROOF OF EVIDENCE: RUNNING COST OF HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
"I wish to draw your attention to the fact that since you suspended me yesterday and the suggestion of the Ethics Committee report that my allegations were generalized and without proof, I have come under intense public scrutiny and pressure to prove that there exist systemic corruption in the House. I have taken it as a responsibility to prove to the public that the House is a den of systemic corruption. As colleagues, I have bound with many of you and built a life-long friendship.
"I have some of you that I hold in high esteem. If you end up at the receiving end of the actions I will be taking up in the next few days, I want you to know there is nothing personal but commitment and fervent desire to ensure that corruption is wiped out of the House and reforms that will restore the battered image of the House and take back the House to the Nigerian people is implemented……etc, etc.
ICPC ACCUSES LAWMAKERS OF SIPHONING MONEY BY USING MEDICAL OUTREACH, AGENCIES!
Senators and members of the House of Representatives have been accused by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC) of using medical outreach to divert and steal public funds in a report released January 30th, 2022.
Investigations by the Commission revealed that most of the Federal lawmakers had re-christened their constituency projects as medical outreaches because it was difficult to track the amount spent on the exercise on account of its fluid nature and confidentiality of medical records!
According to the report they also padded the 2021 Budget with over NGN500billion naira and also inserted over 1,000 controversial projects in the Budget! In the 2022 Budget, the lawmakers reduced the provisions of about 10,733 projects and introduced 6,576 new ones totaling NGN36,59 billion for NASS Projects in the Service Wide Vote (SWV) – a huge sum of money which is kept aside for unseen expenditure!
Service Wide Vote which is domicile in the Federal Ministry of Finance is ANOTHER BIG FRAUD LIKE PETROLEUM SUBSIDY and under the watch of President Major General Muhammadu Buhari!
DURING THE PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC 16 YEARS FAILED ADMINISTRATION [1999-2015], NASS BUDGET AND ALL OUTRAGEOUS ALLOWANCES – WERE KEPT TOP SECRET!
Join the campaign to shut down the SENATE on or before 3st March, 2022, through POPULAR REFERENDUM in order to establish a UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENT that will produce an egalitarian and secure nation. Please share all over the INTERNET and watch out for No. 7 Edition.

YOUTH SUPPORT FOR PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM BY 2023 WILL NEUTRALIZE INSECURITY IN NIGERIA PERMANENTLY!

The covetous Nigerian political class whose only stock- in-trade is to perpetuate itself in office till death has surreptitiously moved to break the ranks of the Youths through the divide-and-rule tactics!

It is evident that Nigerian Youths are warming up to vie for political offices, appointments and also to acquire positions in party administrative structure as the 2023 General Elections approach, especially in the two major political parties – All Progressives Congress (APC), and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), BUT from all available information, they are being sidelined!

For instance, some APC Youths are lamenting over marginalization by the Caretaker Committee dominated by older members who deliberately debarred them from necessary/relevant information before and during party primaries held to pick delegates for the Convention slated for 26th February, 2022! So also are the Youths in the PDP!

HAS APC FORGOTTEN THAT BUHARI SIGNED NOT-TOO-YOUNG-TO-RULE BILL INTO LAW WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING?

Before the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari signed the “Not-Too-Young-To-Rule Bill” on 31st May, 2018 into law, he got a fool-proof assurance [a caveat], from Nigerian Youths that their political ambition as future leaders would not jeopardize his second term bid in view of the opposition’s desperation to derail him at all costs during the Presidential Election of 2019!

INSECURITY STEMMED FROM INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION!

It is common knowledge that the Nigerian insecure environment has reached an unacceptable crescendo but from all indications the All Progressives Congress (APC), seven-year administration has equally failed like its previous PDP predecessors in taming the monster!

Except for Nigerian political jobbers, it is crystal clear to averagely educated citizens that the choice of presidential system of government by the Military (1979-2022), that craves for enormous funding, for an emerging democracy and a developing third world African country like Nigeria was deliberately ill-conceived to provide a veritable ground for corruption to thrive!

And that Nigeria is acclaimed through international indexing as World Poverty Capital, could not be contested for obvious manifestations of massive corruption in all sectors of its economy – and among players within the three tiers of government who have become ridiculously wealthy through the very attractive Presidential Oligarchy at the expense of the over 95% of the poverty-stricken mass of citizens!

In spite of the economic deficits due to hyper inflation claimed to have reduced from 17.68% to15.63%, a badly-devalued currency at NGN415 naira to USD$1 dollar, consecutive debt-ridden budgets from 2015 to date, external debt portfolio of NGN38.00 trillion naira, and annual debt-servicing sum of NGN1.02 trillion naira from January-September 2021 and unemployment statistics of 33%; the President and his cronies have carried on business as usual! They print, borrow and spend monies “yanfun yanfun” (anyhow), like they have any credible source of income outside of CRUDE OIL
PROCEEDS AND THE ONE MILLION PROPAGANDA PADDY RICE PYRAMID OF ABUJA –now being sold to millers across Nigeria!

OTHER APC PRODIGAL EXPENSES AT AN AUSTERE TIME SUCH AS THIS!

1) The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with an annual budget of NGN40 billion naira requested NGN305 billion to conduct the 2023 General Elections and has collected NGN100billion advance; (2) Politicians have been granted permission to spend various amounts of money ranging from NGN5billion to NGN70million naira – which is the least, for election financing to actualize their dreams as followsa) Campaign finance, for a Presidential aspirant was raised to NGN5 billion naira, - a 400% increase from the former NGN1billion!(b) Governors – NGN1billion.(c) Legislators, NGN100million & 70million respectively a grand plan to EXCLUDE, THE YOUTHS, WOMEN, AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, from governance at all levels of the political process!
2) Civil Servants have been granted 100% New Duty Tour Allowance at this austere period!
3) National Assembly (NASS), is considering 55 Amendments to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that would conservatively gulp not less than NGN5billion naira in execution considering past exercises!
4) Accusation by Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), that lawmakers are siphoning money by using medical outreach, and agencies as cover-ups!They were also accused of padding the 2022 Budget with an amount totaling NGN36.59 billion naira for National Assembly’s projects in the Service Wide Vote!
5) Mr. President has reiterated for the umpteenth that he would continue to borrow from internal/external sources to boost Presidential System NEEDS, for salaries, allowances and CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES until he bows out in 2023!

THE CRITICAL MASS OF NIGERIAN YOUTHS SHOULD COME TO THE RESCUE NOW!

Nigerian Youths made an unambiguous but very articulate statement through #EndSars protests in October 2020 that citizens could no longer be governed by charlatans and the mediocre whose permanent interest in politics is aggrandizement and not diligent service to the polity!

It is worthy of note however that sanity prevailed in spite of disputed number of casualties on both sides and that Federal Government accepted and have implemented the FIVE-FOR-FIVE demands which bother on disbandment of Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS), Enhancement of Police Salaries etc, but REJECTED TRIBUNAL RECOMMENDATIONS over the indictment of security forces in a manner that exposed APC’s inconsistent policies in respect of the security and welfare of the down-trodden talakawas!

TIME FOR YOUTHS TO ACTUALIZE THE NEW NIGERIA DREAM TO DUMP PRESIDENCY FOR PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM IS NOW!

The campaign to dump Presidential System for UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM has gained momentum and bi-partisan Nigerian Youths MUST JOIN THE MOVING TRAIN NOW! PLEASE FIND BELOW THE REASONS WHY PARLIAMENTARY IS BETTER THAT PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT!
1) It is unicameral – one House known as Cabinet form of government and also “Responsible Government.”
2) It is cost friendly, cost effective because legislative aspirants need not campaign across the entire country BUT within their locality – their constituencies!
3) All successfully elected parliamentarians would appoint from among themselves the leader the Party with the majority votes as Prime Minister [PM], who becomes Head of Government.
4) In a Unicameral Legislature, there are two Executive posts, namely: the PM (the real executive) and the ceremonial executive who serves as figurative Head of State and concurs with Cabinet activities as obtained when Nigeria became a Republic between 1963 and 1966, during the administration of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and President Nnamdi Azikiwe.
5) Day to day Cabinet proceedings are not run on the pages of newspapers or other media networks like in a presidential system. From time to time members of the public are briefed as appropriate by the PM or any delegated minister of the Cabinet!
6) There is no specific tenure of office for the PM as it obtains in a presidential system. A PM remains in office for as long as he or she performs creditably! It could be one month or three; one year or three years as the case may be! It could even be ELEVEN YEARS like the “Iron Lady”, late Mrs.Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990)!
7) The Executive PM who is a product of the Legislative is responsible to the Legislators (his colleagues the parliamentarians), with whom he shares a collective responsibility of the whole Council because he and his Ministers are elected from among other members of Parliament (always addressed as the Lower House or in Britain as the House of Commons), because the so-called common but very efficient citizens who dwell among their peers are able to run efficient and effective governments! Towards the close of the last Quarter of 2021, the British Government encouraged its citizens to apply for loans of one digit interest (because it had a deep vault), to purchase personal houses while Nigeria’s presidential operators are even borrowing from dormant/dead citizens accounts to pay salaries of civil servants!
A Prime Minister could resign at any time instead of being kicked out through “A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE”!

CONCLUSIONS:

THE PARLIAMENT AT FEDERAL, STATES, REGIONAL OR GEO-POLITICAL ZONES MUST BE ESTABLISHED WITH THE SUCCINCT SUPPORT OF ALL NIGERIAN YOUTHS THROUGH POPULAR REFERENDUM!

Nigeria’s general elections are just one calendar year away therefore the following steps MUST be taken to achieve a sustainable Parliamentary System in Nigeria from 2023.

Step One. The SENATE must be shut down on or before 31st March, 2022.
Step Two. House of Representatives (HOS), should be pruned from 360 to 74 (ie, two representatives from each State and the Federal Capital Territory).
Step Three: Members of the HOR working with a secretariat of digital administrative team would convoke a Constituent Assembly that will craft a NEW PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUTION within the Second Quarter (April – June 2022).
Step Four: The Parliamentary Constitution will give detailed analysis of how the new system will work out in the 774 Local Government Areas of the country as set out in the heading of this section above.
Step Five: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), will swing into action from June 2022, to prepare for elections according to constitutional guidelines that would usher a PRIME MINISTER INSTEAD OF A PRESIDENT IN 2023!

IT TOOK ELEVEN MONTHS FOR GENERAL ABUBAKAR PRODUCE THE 1999 CONSTITUTION AND EX-GENERAL OBASANJO AS PRESIDENT!
Military maximum ruler, Sanni Abacha died 8th June 1998; General Abudulsalami Abubakar took over, produced the 1999 Constitution, registered new political parties, conducted fresh elections with military fiat that produced ex-General Aremu Obasanjo who was sworn as President on 29th May 1999 - all within a period of ELEVEN MONTHS!

IN THE ABSENCE OF MILITARY FIAT, NIGERIANS HAVE THE OPTION OF REFERENDUM TO ACHIEVE THE PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM IN NIGERIA IN TWELVE MONTHS (FEBRUARY 2022 TO FEBRUARY 2023! AMEN!

[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]




I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

#CAMPAIGN FOR REFERENDUM AND NOT VIOLENT AGITATIONS TO RESTRUCTURE NIGERIA! DR. DAVID OLUFON.

THE 9TH SENATE MUST BE SHUT TO ELECT A PRIME MINISTER IN 2023!

Shutting down the Nigeria Senate in this first quarter (January-March, 2022), and pruning the House of Representative members from 360 to 74, is the FIRST STEP to achieving the much-desired Parliamentary system of government in Nigeria and it should neither be a big deal nor an innovation!

All consecutive National Assembly (NASS ) bi-cameral legislators since 1999, had constituted the drainpipe of the Nigerian economy because of the illicit/criminal monetary largesse that accrue to them annually without consideration to the country’s financial state and the pains of the poverty-stricken masses whom they pretend to represent!

Following massive protests over Senate financial excesses veteran politician (1999-2022) and Senate President Ahmad Lawal at a public event in Abuja on Monday 13th December, 2021, disclosed that Senators/Representatives collect NGN52m and NGN32m, respectively as annual running allowances. According to him, the monthly salary of a Senator was NGN1.5m and that of a Representative was NGN1.3m! He told participants in a paper he presented at the First Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture Series that the alleged NGN13m that dominated public domain some years back was a Senator’s quarterly office running allowance while that of the Representative was NGN8m, which according to him were the lowest in any presidential democracy in the world! At that amount, each Senator collected NGN3.25m monthly while his House of Representative counterpart collected NGN2m! In 2016, Senator Shehu Sanni, (then of the All Progressives Congress, APC) unveiled the secrecy behind Senators’ running allowance which was then NGN3.5million and whereas Senator Mrs. ‘Remi Tinubu claimed she got NGN3.8m - monies being paid from BORROWED FOREIGN LOANS! These narratives are completely opposite to Senator Lawan’s claims! Every lie has a terminal date!

The Appointed Time Is Now!
President Buhari should follow the example of his SENEGALESE counterpart, President Macky Sall, who on 19th September 2012, with the support of very patriotic Legislatives, SCRAPPED THE SENATE and saved USD$15million dollars which was ploughed to mitigate citizens’ losses following FLOOD DISASTERS and also to re-invigorate the nation’s economy instead of junketing the world for financial assistance!
FOR NIGERIA, REFERENDUM IS THE SOLUTION, NOT PREDATOR LEGISLATORS!

Please join this campaign for Peaceful Referendum that will ensure justice, fair play, equity and will permanently ERASE INSECURITY from Nigeria!

Share on the social media: Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram etc, and watch out for No. 6 Edition that will further expose NASS as a corrupt body according to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related crimes Commission (ICPC)!

Although members of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) and the out-going President of Nigeria were very much alert of the precarious signals that could trigger a fresh recession and civil commotion if government pressed the wrong button to rock the Petroleum Sector at such an infuriating time of a two-digit figure inflation of prices of goods and services that have robbed citizens’ of social obligations to their families but still, as a political strategy in October 2021, announced an impending total removal of fuel subsidy in June 2022, the mid pre-election year!

It can no longer be hidden that the Nigerian naira has been devalued, and that the purchasing power of citizens’ have hit rock-bottom as both local/foreign commodities were at all-high increase in most cases between 350%-700%!

It is inconceivable that in a pre-general election year, an incumbent government would want to rock the boat through an unpopular policy that could jeopardize their chances of continuity in 2023, except for very obvious campaign strategy!

And through the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, the plan was hatched when she informed the nation that the 2022 Budget would accommodate fuel subsidy for only six months (January-June)!
Her counterpart, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources corroborated the statement that the accented Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), of August 2021, clearly provided for complete deregulation of the downstream sector through total removal of the subsidy from June 2022!

A SUDDEN U-TURN BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS SUSPECT AND CONFIRMS DELIBERATE INSTITUTIONAL COMPLICITY!

A sudden u-turn by the Federal Government on Tuesday 25th January, 2022, has brought to the fore a statement credited to Senate President Ahmed Lawan on Tuesday 18th January 2022, after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari that: “The President did not authorize anyone to remove subsidy!”; and within six days of his statement government announced the suspension of removal for 18 months (June, 2023), for the in-coming administration to handle as deemed fit and proper while the implementation of the PIA has been put on hold for necessary amendments to that effect be made by the National Assembly (NASS), to pay fresh subsidy of NGN3trillion through a non-incorporated NNPC?

The decision for total removal of subsidy is contained in the PIA passed by government in August 2021!

BENEFITS OF PMS, DIESEL, KEROSINE LUBRICANTS ETC, TO THE DOWN-TRODDEN NIGERIANS!

It would amount to an understatement to extol the innumerable advantages of petrol, (PMS), kerosene, diesel, condensates which can neither be exaggerated nor over-emphasized as LIVE-WIRE to the over 90% of the poor masses whose livelihood depended on those crude oil refined products!

The over 100 million generating sets always fueled to provide energy in the face of permanent blackout through inefficiency of the public power supply, and volumes of the products also consumed daily by the multitude of official 41.5 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), comprising of at least 41.4million micro enterprises and 73,081 small and medium enterprises; all category of automobiles and articulated/haulage vehicles!

COULD BUHARI BE JINXED OVER SUBSIDY CORRUPTION?

President of Nigeria, Major General Muhammadu Buhari did not study Petroleum Technology in all of the military institutions he attended both at home and abroad, yet between 1976-1979, during the illegal occupation of Nigeria by his comrades, he was saddled with the portfolio of Commissioner of Petroleum and Natural Resource and first Chairman of the NNPC, which was instituted in 1977!

According to Military Wiki General Buhari as Head of State between 31st December, 1983 to 27th August, 1985 he was said to have “curtailed oil theft and used counter trade policy to barter seized illegally bunkered crude oil for needful goods like machineries, enabling it to export above its OPEC quota.” His Minister for Energy was late Professor Tam David-West.

BUHARI ALSO SERVED AS PTF CHAIRMAN UNDER GENERAL ABACHA’S JUNTA!
Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) was a body created by Abacha’s government and funded from the revenue generated by the increase in the price of Petroleum Products to pursue developmental projects around the country.

A 1998 Report in New African adjudged PTF under Buhari as “transparent” but also noted that critics believed that a 20% revenue allocation of its resources to the Military would not be accountable for!
From all of the above analysis, General Buhari should be regarded as a GURU OF NIGERIA OIL INDUSTRY with his long experience in the field from 1976 to 1998 (22 years), and should anyone wonder or be surprised that he kept the substantive ministerial petroleum portfolio to his chest in his two terms to closely monitor and prevent fraud supposedly!

WHAT IS FUEL SUBSIDY IN NIGERIA?

Fuel subsidy is the difference between fixed pump price and the market rate through landing cost of imported refined crude oil products borne by government to cushion the negative economic effects on the poor masses.

Fuel subsidy is failure and exhibition of ineptitude by the Federal Government to refine crude oil but export it overseas and eventually import the finished products in form of PMS (petrol), Diesel oil, Condensates, etc, at exorbitant landing costs beyond the pockets of an average Nigerian!

Nigeria has been subsidizing fuel since the 1970s to ensure Nigerians purchase petroleum products below the global price according to successive administrations!

During the Jonathan’s and from the inception of Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC), Administration, We opposed and criticized the Petroleum Subsidy FRAUD; castigated both governments for deliberate institutional dereliction of duties and ineptitude across board but all to no avail! BUT we know that the day of accountability, reckoning and divine judgment is closer that the pseudo Nigerian rulers might ever envisage!

Below are some excerpts from past publications:
ZBB-C Newsletter Vol. 3. No. 92. Of 17th May, 2015 We have never changed our position that the whole gamut of petroleum subsidy is nothing short of a MONUMENTAL FRAUD AGAINST THE NIGERIAN MASSES, and we still maintain our stand for the following salient reasons:
An oil producing country as Nigeria should have no business in importing finished products if a God-fearing management rules the nation.

Refineries would normally be the first consideration as soon as oil exploration and exploitation commenced.
Oil blocks should not have become Party patronage issue of who is closest to Mr. President as it has been since 1999, when the outgoing government began to rule but should be allocated to States of the Federation and responsible business groups instead of individuals as it is presently practiced.

The present scenario of the Petroleum Sector portrays a deliberate and well-calculated plan of a cabal in government to buy up Nigeria with wealth stolen from its ‘belly’ and they almost succeeded if it were not for divine intervention!

In one night the PDP raised over N22 billion for their presidential campaign and one large-hearted contributor who was said possess an oil block, donated N2billion for himself and a friend!

Starting with former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, no PDP administration has built a refinery in 16 years!
Outgoing President, Ebele Jonathan, admitted that 60% of subsidized petroleum products was smuggled out of the country by fraudulent marketers and their collaborators in government!

ZBB-C Newsletter, Vol.3. No. 102. 26th July, 2015.
While addressing Nigerians In Diaspora Organization (NIDO), members in America and Canada at a parley in New York, in July, 2015, President Buhari made the following remarks:
*He accused former Nigerian ministers of selling about one million barrels of crude oil per day and of diverting the gains to personal accounts.
He also alleged in the US that “250.000 barrels per day of Nigerian Crude are being stolen and people sell and put the money into individual pockets” adding that the US and other developed countries were assisting Nigeria to trace such accounts.

“We will ask that such accounts to be frozen and prosecute the persons. The amount involved is mind-boggling…we will trace and repatriate such money and use the documents to prosecute them.”

“As Minister of Petroleum, NNPC (i.e. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) had only two traceable accounts of payment to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), now everybody is doing anyhow.”
He expressed doubt if fuel subsidy was ever removed; transport, housing and food prices would go out of control and the average worker would suffer untold hardship. Who is subsidizing who? They say “remove subsidy”….they want petrol to cost N500 naira per litre.
“If you are working and subsidy is removed, you can’t control transport and market women, the cost of food, the cost of transport.”
“I will study if there’s need to remove subsidy with my experience and see what I can do.”
He lamented that “corruption in Nigeria has virtually developed into a culture where honest people are abused.”

WHAT DOES BUHARI EXPECT FROM NIGERIANS FOR ALL HIS DECEITS?

Would Nigerians rejoice that he suspended a fraudulent subsidy regime under his watch in spite of his exemplary resume of 29 YEARS of experience in the OIL INDUSTRY SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY or applaud him for planning to PERPETUATE APC IN GOVERNMENT on a platform of FALSEHOOD? President Buhari should thank his stars FOR NOT SETTING NIGERIA ON FIRE AS A DEPARTING LEGACY – because the gimmick backfired and the JOKE IS ON BUHARI AND APC!

Shame to Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigeria (IPMAN), which was ready to reap where it did not sow; shame to APC which has faked the Doctrine of Welfarism and Utilitarianism since 2015!

“THE LORD DETESTS LYING LIPS, BUT HE DELIGHTS IN PEOPLE WHO ARE TRUSTWORTHY.” (Proverbs. 12:22).

[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

The fallibility of the human race has been responsible for all inconsistencies of the social order, disagreements, arguments and oppositions when very credible/meaningful engagements should have prevailed over sentiments!

Man remains the pride of creation and his Creator. He was created with much love and gifted with the silver spoon to be fruitful, multiply, subdue and have dominion over all of other creation before him according to divine order!

“Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”!
The regrettable 30-month Biafran or Nigerian Civil War which origin could be traced to the very first military coup in Nigeria, spear-headed by officers of the Igbo stock began on 6th July and ended on 15th January, 1970, with the declaration of “No victor, no vanquished!”

Late Lieutenant Colonel Chukuemeka Odumegu Ojukwu’s mind- set that the Igbos were being marginalized in the scheme of administration, distribution of amenities and natural national resources by the Northern junta at the helm of affairs, declared the then Eastern Region of Nigeria as another sovereign nation outside of Nigeria to precipitate a war!

Determined that geographic Nigeria must remain one entity according to the declaration at independence in 1960 and also following the failure of many peace moves/agreements foisted by the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) to ensure peace retired General Yakubu Gowon, then military Head of State resisted the secessionist move and wounds/scars of war have refused to heal to date!

THIS EDITOR WAS AMONG THE PRESS DELEGATION THAT TRAVELLED WITH GENERAL GOWON TO ETHIOPIA, ADDIS ABABA EARLY IN 1967 TO BROKER PEACE WITH COLONEL OJUKWU’S DELEGATES WHICH REMAINED ADAMANT UNTIL WAR BROKE OUT IN JULY 1967!

However it is worthy of note that arrow-head of Biafra’s attempted secession late Colonel Ojukwu, before his death pleaded with the Igbo nation to let by-gone be by-gone and for everyone to support the popular doctrine of “TO KEEP NIGERIA ONE IS A TASK THAT MUST BE DONE!

The late Igbo leader returned to Nigeria from 12-year self-exile in Ivory Coast (Cote de Voire), to a hero’s welcome, in 1982, re-instated into the Nigerian Army, collected all of his remunerations and emoluments, recovered all of his late Father’s properties, married a former Nigerian beauty queen, enjoyed a peaceful family life, supported a political party, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), pleaded with all Igbos to vote for the party during the 2011 Anambra Governorship Election as a honor to him, and he eventually died peacefully on 26th November 2011, and buried in Nigeria with full military honors!

ONE UNITED NIGERIA IS A DIVINE ORDER THAT SHOULD NO LONGER BE CHALLENGED BY THE IGBOS!

Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), led by Nnamdi Kanu, now on trial on 15-count charge bothering on treason/treasonable offences is a proscribed group by the Federal Government of Nigeria, for still agitating for secession [fifty years after the Biafra War], from the State of Nigeria in a MOST VIOLENT AND BARBARIC MANNER that is threatening the very existence of the lives and properties of other ETHNIC GROUPS numbering about 369 across the nation!

Nnamdi Kanu was just a toddler of about three years when the regrettable war ended in January 1970; he was born 25th September, 1967!
Whosoever narrated the unfortunate Biafra War history to him as he grew up did a very damaging evil to his psyche for him to grow up with so much unforgiving anger in his spirit – in spite of persuasion for peace to reign in the South East Geo-Political Zone by the EMINENT ELDERLY OHANEZE INDIGENOUS PERSONALITIES!

And the most unfortunate aspect of THE VERY INCITING CAMPAIGN FOR SECESSION by KANU is that his followers have become more OBSESSED than himself and have also formed mushroom splinter groups that are even more vicious than the IPOB!

These groups operate like DEMONS from the PIT OF HELL in manner they unleash TERROR, the barbaric types of heinous MURDERS, ASSASSINATIONS, KIDNAPPINGS, SLAUGHTERING & DECAPITATION OF IGBO INDIGENES BY THEIR OWN KITH AND KIN – the kinds that have never been witnessed in IGBO LAND, ALL IN THE NAME OF SECESSION?

This Editor from childhood had enjoyed very cordial peer group – schooling/professional relationships with Igbo friends with very fond memories – they are still my very good friends to date!

IGBOS ARE ASSETS TO THE NIGERIAN EQUATION – THEY ARE NOT LIABILITIES!

The Igbo tribe is ubiquitous. Their people are everywhere all over Nigeria, all over the world – in the villages, cities, counties, in the metropolitan and suburbs doing business; occupied in one every trade on planet Earth!

They are the business people in the Diaspora and contracting business deals across board in all countries. They are business-minded people who bequeath the art of commerce/industry from generation to generation! I remember that as far back as the early eighties when CHINA was not very visible in universal commerce/industry, YOUNG IGBO YOUTHS WERE ALWAYS ON THE AIRCRAFT TO THIS FAR EAST NATION AND ALSO TO HONG KONG, SINGAPORE, TAIWAN, JAPAN ETC, !
How did I know? I interacted with many of them – barely twenty-year-olds when changing aircrafts - between 1980 and 1985 at Frankfurt Airport, Germany, simply dressed in T- Shirts, jeans, sneakers and jackets and revealed that most times they could be in the air for over 35 Hours! Definitely those kids are among the over 3,000 billionaires of Anambra and others in Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, and Abia who are not bragging about their wealth! Igbo billionaires compare favorably with their Chinese counterparts in the 21st Century Rocket Science universe!

There is a popular adage which states that WISE PEOPLE should desert communities where Igbos are not domicile because such places will be unprofitable for business and commerce!

IGBOS are calling the shots in all area of the industry as of today – aviation, automobile, transportation, manufacturing, hospitality, fashion, agriculture and mass production of agricultural produce, cosmetics, science and technology/scientific inventions, pharmaceuticals, crude oil exploration, entertainment, tourism, information communication technology (ICT,) education, the teaching profession, (I fondly remember my Igbo History teacher at 0bokun High School, Ilesa, Western State. now Osun. He taught me the subject for only two years and I scored CREDIT in my WAEC in 1963! I was a Science Student until the last two years when I had the only option to cross into an Arts institution before my first external examination).

HISTORICAL FACTS AND ANTECEDENTS OF THE IGBOS!

Prior to the unfortunate Biafra War in which between one to two million people died through war and starvation while properties estimated at millions of British pounds were destroyed on both sides, Igbos Eastern Nigeria extended to Niger Delta, and all the Riverine States of Delta, Cross River, Balyesa, Akwa Ibom, and Abia, were under the military control of the aborted secession bid of Col. Ojukwu!

By implication of geographical location Eastern Region owned all the OIL FIELDS eventually discovered by the military after the war in from 1970 upwards ; BUT COULD THEY BOAST OF ANY WINDFALL FROM OIL PROCEEDS DURING THE 30 YEARS OF MILITARY ABERRATION AND EVEN NOW IN THE 21 YEARS OF A DIARCHY CUM PSEUDO DEMOCRACY?

The Igbos have every right to shout that they are being MARGINALIZED but Not that they want to secede from Nigeria.

Igbos are SENIOR CO-OWNERS OF A PROSPEROUS INDUSTRIOUS, COMMERCIAL NEW NIGERIA OF OUR DREAM WHICH WILL EMERGE IN 2023 ACCORDING TO DIVINE REVELATION!
An Igbo politician is very qualified to become the NEXT PRIME MINISTER OF A UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENTARY NIGERIA!

The investments of Igbo entrepreneurs into the Nigerian Project are so enormous that it would amount to monumental loss to opt for secession!

IGBO Elders of no mean stature in Nigerian politics have met with Major General Muhammadu Buhari to seek for a political solution to resolve Nnamdi Kanu’s travails in the courts BUT they need to move further to appeal to the numerous SPLINTER GROUPS OF IPOB (We are told that they are over 200 of them), to sheath their swords!

The Igbos that this Editor has known were peace-loving and very industrious people. In my few days of life, I have never witnessed this kind of monstrous and bestial brutality being meted by Igbos against fellow Igbo brethren.

We want all Igbos (elders and youths), to support the CAMPAIGN FOR THE SHUTTING DOWN OF THE SENATE TO PAVE WAY FOR A UNICAMERAL LEGISLATURE IN THIS FIRST QUARTER OF 2022 THROUGH THE EMPLOYMENT OF A POPULAR REFERENDUM THAT WILL USHER A PRIME MINISTER, COME 2023!

From this platform an Igbo Prime Minister will be our first choice in 2023! When we are bonded in peace and UNITY, victory will flow seamlessly!

[Please share among friends on social media, face book, twitter etc, for wider coverage.




I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

The race to the number one seat, Aso Villa, Abuja in 2023, will not be determined by “Owners of Nigeria” but by the SOVEREIGN OWNER OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH for no man shall prevail by the arm of flesh!

“God changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding. He reveals the deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells in Him.”

Pre-election year 2022 was inundated from the onset with the frenzied declarations of Nigerian Presidential aspirants of various genres who had waited impatiently to see the senile incumbent depart and make way for fresh blood with cerebral/digital ideas!

As at the last count, not less than ten politicians from both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and opposition parties have publicly announced their desires while others who wait in the wings are being prodded by overzealous supporters to throw their hats into the ring!

Fortunately for them 2023 is an all-comers affair because the 1999 Military Constitution did not make provision for retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari to seek a third term in office and he is in a dilemma on whom to declare as successor because according to him, “such anointed candidate might lose his life before his time!”

The scramble for the topmost political positions outside of the presidency has also gained such momentum of the 2007 “do-or-die” brazen posture of ex-President Obasanjo who was determined that his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), must win at all costs no matter whose ox was gored!

However on resumption in office late President Umaru Yar’ Adua confessed that “the election that brought him to power had shortcomings and was fraught with flaws!”

HAS ANY ASPIRANT THOUGHT THAT PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY IS THE DIVINE WISH FOR NIGERIA?

Was it not high time the Will of God be done in Nigeria? In a parliamentary system of democratic governance of a state, the executive derives its democratic legitimacy/relevance from its ability to command the support/confidence of the legislature (typically, a parliament to which it is accountable.)

The head of state is distinct from the head of government in contrast to the presidential system where one person usurps both offices and wields draconian powers as being witnessed in Nigeria since 1999!

Parliamentary democracy which is cost-effective elects a ceremonial head of state whose role is always cordial with the head of government who has been chosen from among the legislators and sits daily with them in parliament to run the affairs of government through collective decisions.

The presidential system is very different ball game in that one man decides the fate of the entire population and arbitrarily dispenses scarce resources and squanders such in collusion with a corrupt legislature and the civil servants, because he does not derive his democratic legitimacy from the legislature!

INEC FIXES SIX BY-ELECTIONS FOR FEBRUARY 2022 IN THE FACE OF INCESSANT INSECURITY!

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has fixed Friday 26th February 2022, for the conduct of by-elections for six federal/state constituencies shortly after the Federal Capital Territory Area Council Elections scheduled for Saturday, 12th February, 2022, with a view to having sufficient time to prepare and focus on logistics for the Ekiti /Osun gubernatorial elections and by extension for the 2023 General Elections – all in the midst of chaotic and unceasing insecurity situations across the country.
In all of these political calculations, the “gladiators” remained absolutely focused on their very selfish inordinate ambitions and armed to the teeth to grab both elective/appointed positions at all costs!

And whereas the Ekiti/Osun Governorship elections slated for June and July 2022 respectively plus the Ekiti East 1 State Constituency election sandwiched in-between on the same day as the governorship election of 18th June 2022, are veritable landmines which the Federal Government has not paid enough security attention especially when the nation’s Chief Security Officer dismissed STATE POLICE as an option in solving insecurity - because the Electoral Act 2010 Laws (as amended), would still remain in operation as the harbinger of open doors to multiple forms of malpractices!

Although in a recent media interview, President Buhari promised to sign the new Electoral Act into law if the offending clause “mandating political parties to conduct their primaries through direct elections was removed,”

it is very uncertain that his intentions were genuine considering the slow legislative process which was yet to commence because the National Assembly (NASS), was still on annual vacation and also, the fact that he has less than one-and-a-half-years to finally quit office!

NIGERIAN POLITICIANS BELIEVE IN THE ARM OF FLESH – NOT IN GOD OF CREATION!

“In God We Trust” is the official motto of the United States of America and of the US State of Florida. It was adopted by the US Congress in 1956, replacing E Pluribus Unum (In Many, One), which had been the de facto motto since the initial 1776 design of the Great Seal of the United States. The inscription was signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th US President to appear on all papers, currencies, coins etc, in recognition of the Almighty God as sovereign over His creation!
The US without an iota of doubt or argument is the most etc, successful world nation - politically, economically, militarily, digital information technology, scientifically, space exploration, etc!

In the case of Nigeria, which is a SECULAR STATE, (meaning a non-religious nation), the motto is, “In arm of flesh we trust”, and the difference between the two nations is a distance between the earth and the moon! While America takes the lead in virtually every classification, indexing, comparative analysis; Nigeria takes the rear or last positions as the worst nation – poverty capital of the world, terrorist destination that should be avoided as plague by foreign investors, tourists, scientists, etc.

ALL POLITICAL ASPIRANTS HAVE BEEN CONSULTING WITH MR. PRESIDENT, PARTY CHAIRMEN, INFLUENTIAL PERSONALITIES AND “OWNERS OF NIGERIA” – BUT NOT WITH GOD, THEIR CREATOR! Question: Who is the owner of Nigeria except the Almighty God! (Psalm 24:1). [Please find below relevant verses of the divine discourse with carnal minds in Psalm 2:1-12].
1) ‘’Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2) The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
3) Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4) He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5) Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6) Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7) I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
9) Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
10) Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
11) Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12) Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”

NIGERIA IS AT THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE TO PARLIAMENTARY UNICAMERAL DEMOCRACY ACCORDING TO DIVINE PLAN!

With a unicameral parliament in place and the scrapping of the SENATE concluded, a Brand New Constitution will take care of all resolved issues of National Restructuring through a popular REFERENDUM then all presidential ambitions will fizzle into illusion!

Citizens of Nigeria would neither be deceived nor browbeaten any more by the antics and desperation of President Buhari and his FAILED All Progressives Congress (APC), administration to further perpetrate the very wasteful military presidential system beyond the year 2023! Presidency will perish with Buhari’s APC!
“Where there is a will, there is a way!”


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

#CAMPAIGN FOR REFERENDUM AND NOT VIOLENT AGITATIONS! -DR. DAVID OLUFON.

NIGERIA’S MILITARY PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM IS A CURSE – ANATHEMA!
Nigeria did not emerge as a democratic independent nation in 1999 but in 1960!
Through trials and errors, a 1963 Regional Constitution which had a semblance of (cost-effective), Parliamentary System emerged to place the country on strong economic footings.
Those were the days and years of Groundnut Pyramids from the North, (not the propaganda one million Rice Pyramids which General Buhari unveiled in Abuja on Tuesday, 18th January, 2022), in the midst of high inflation, poverty and unbridled reign of INSECURITY!
Also in multiple abundance, were Cocoa Beans (West), Palm Oil/Rubber (East/Mid-West), which were the economic produce trees that fetched strong currencies as foreign exchange revenues for structural developments across the country.
Visible economic buoyancy was pronounced all over the land, such that social vices of crimes/criminalities were very minimal and free movement of goods and services enjoyed commercial patronage by governments/the private sector and virtually all able-bodied adults were all gainfully employed!
Agriculture maintained its rightful place as Nigeria’s main forex earner until soldiers with pre-meditated agenda emerged with barrels of guns and changed the successful narrative of the GREEN LUSCIOUS/ARABLE LAND TO A BLOOD-DRENCHED/LOATHSOME TOPOGRAPHY TILL DATE!
Crude Oil replaced Agriculture, which was discarded as the major national economic source, and for 30 years, the military plundered the nation in the crudest martial aberration and paid lip service to the latter through institutional propaganda code-named “Operation Feed The Nation” or “Green Revolution”, according to their whims and caprices!
IT’S TIME TO DESTROY THE DIARCHY AND CARRY OUR DESTINY TOGETHER!
Diarchy or duumvirate is a form of government characterized by co-rule ie, jointly ruled by military and civilian components lawfully, surreptitiously without the latter’s consent or de facto - by force!
Nigerians need to break the shackles of diarchy which became a way of life from the first coup in 1966 and the only way out is to DISBAND THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY THROUGH POPULAR REFERENDUM; INSTITUTE A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY TO DRAFT A BRAND NEW PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUTION WHICH WILL EMBODY ALL LEGITIMATE DEMANDS FOR THE NATION’S RESTRUCTURING! THE MILITARY DOES NOT OWN NIGERIA!
This ubiquitous military has overstayed its welcome! It should be jettisoned through a REFERENDUM so that Nigeria can have PEACE at last!” From the Executive to the Legislature except for the Judiciary, it holds sway! “Enough is enough! Two captains cannot navigate one boat!”
Please join this campaign by sharing on the social media and look forward to NO.4 Edition coming out shortly. We MUST together SALVAGE our country from the hands of military predators!

In spite of the fact that Debt-servicing has taken a large chunk of the 2022 Budget Appropriation and that the Concurrent swallowed up Capital estimates, covetous legislators still smuggled into the debt-ridden document, a sum of NGN735.8 billion to “execute dubious and illegitimate CONSTITUENCY PROJECTS!”

According to media reports, the latest whooping NGN17.13 trillion Bill signed into law on 31st December, 2021, by the President was the sixth to be so inflated under President Buhari’s watch! The President had submitted a proposed fiscal budget of NGN16.391 trillion to the National Assembly on Thursday 7th October, 2021!

The visibly shocked President Buhari lamented that the lawmakers “reduced the amount allocated to some projects but added over 6,500 projects of their own to the 2022 budget”!

In the past six years consecutive budgets have been criminally inflated by the National Assembly Legislators as follows: (1) 2017: NGN143 billion; (2) 2018: NGN500 billion; (3) 2019: NGN86 billion; (4) 2020: NGN260 billion; (5) 2021: NGN505 billion; and (6) 2022: NGN735.8billion; all of which were surreptitiously inserted without consultation with the Executive until the very day of presidential signature when it would be impossible for the him to refuse or withhold assent!

OVERSIGHT OR OVER-STEALING?

Nigerian legislators have always hid behind some stipulated sections of the 1999 Constitution which they misinterpret as permitting them to butcher, remove, insert, pad, re-invent, re-create, re-arrange or and generate fresh projects of their own to rubbish the original annual painstakingly, meticulously prepared Executive document which they were privy to and involved in its initial preparation!

***“IN Section 4 (1) - (9) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, legislators are empowered (in a nutshell), (a) to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to the Constitution, to the exclusion of the State Houses of Assembly; and (b) matters in the Concurrent Legislative List and any other matter with respect to which it is empowered to make laws in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 Federal Constitution.“They are also backed by law to carry out legislative oversight functions on both the Private and Public Institutions, especially the Ministries Departments and Agencies, (MDAs), for the purposes of CHECKS AND BALANCES, to ensure probity, equity in appropriation and execution in budgetary transactions of government at the Federal platforms.

“AND under Sections 88 (1) (2)-89 (1) (2), legislators have powers to conduct investigations into any matter or thing with respect to which it has power to make laws; and the conduct of affairs of any person, authority, Ministry or government charged, or intended to be charged with the duty of or responsibility for executing or administering laws enacted by NASS and disbursing or administering moneys appropriated or to be appropriated by NASS; EXPOSE CORRUPTION, INEFFICIENCY OR WASTE IN THE EXECUTION OR ADMINISTRATION OF LAWS WITHIN ITS LEGISLATIVE COMPETENCE AND IN THE DISBURSEMENT OR ADMINISTRATION OF FUNDS APPROVED BY IT ........ETC!

In all of the above, the Constitution did not expressly permit legislators to butcher budgets to suit their illicit and licentious lifestyle; AND NEITHER DID IT MAKE PROVISION FOR THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY (NASS) TO BE MONITORED AND OVER-SIGHTED OR CHECKMATED BY OTHER ARMS OF GOVERNMENT!

As a result of this LACUNA, they have become busy-bodies and meddlesome interlopers and have struggled very unsuccessfully, to take over Presidential functions and power from the EXECUTIVE at every opportunity, through spurious interpretation of their oversight functions, when constitutional INTERPRETATION OF LAWS is the sole function of the JUDICIARY and PROSECUTION OF OFFENDERS, RESTS SQUARELY WITH THE EXECUTIVE ARM OF GOVERNMENT!

TIME FOR EFCC TO OVERSIGHT THE LEGISLATORS AND BRING THE CRIMINALS AMONG THEM TO JUSTICE!

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), boasted of 2,220 convictions across all its commands in the year 2021 which represented a 98.49% success rate in spite of challenges of criminal prosecution in court.

This outstanding achievement is the highest ever recorded by the anti-graft agency since inception in 2003 and it is worthy of celebration in spite of the fact that there was no mention of any high-profile cases involving those who are squandering the nation’s very scarce resources on CARNAL FRIVOLITIES!

POSERS FOR EFCC CHAIRMAN ABDULRASHEED BAWA!
1) Have the functions of EFCC as the lead financial crimes agency of the Nigerian government been limited to prosecution of petty crimes committed by miscreants since his appointment?
2) It is an open secret that INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA has been the bane of good governance since inception and that the real culprits are seated in the LEADERSHIP ECHELON!
3) Is the EFCC chairman unaware that the unbearable spate of insecurity in Nigeria is the brazen institutional robbery of the nation’s TREASURY by the “custodians” through their cronies?
4) Is Abdulrasheed aware of organized financial crimes being perpetrated daily in the Three Arms and the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), are regularly exposed in the public domain by patriotic Non-Governmental Agencies (NGOs), but were neither investigated nor prosecuted because the personalities involved were the “untouchables”?
5) The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice told the whole world that in a period of 2001-2019), budgetary allocation and income from statutory and non-statutory sources totaling a sum of NGN6 trillion naira which was received by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), went down the drains with no projects to show for the humongous amount! In those long years, was the EFCC in limbo in spite of the fact that the Commission operated 362 unhidden Bank Accounts and citizens’ unceasing outcries and allegations of embezzlement against NNDC officers?
6) And whereas the duties of EFCC include but not limited to general investigation, investigation of money laundering, advance fee fraud, bank fraud, economic governance, terrorists financing, countering terrorism, fighting corruptions relating to finance as well as economic funds, miscellaneous offences and other crimes relating to economy and finances, investigations and prosecution, judicial investigations within the mandate of the Commission according to international standards.

ICPC IN 2021 ACCOSTED, ARRESTED AND CONFISCATED, ILLEGALLY ACQUIRED PROPERTIES FROM CIVIL SERVANTS IN PURSUANCE OF ITS MANDATE TO ELIMINATE CORRUPTION IN THE POLITY!

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC) recently exposed and arrested civil servants in pursuance of its official mandate of elimination of corruption.
In our recent publication 434th Edition of 5th December, 2021, We highlighted some sterling achievements of that agency as testified to the Chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye himself. Please read below some excerpts of the Chairman’s success story which have been published in the media:

“ICPC CHAIRMAN IS NEW WHISTLE BLOWER WHO CANNOT BE GAGGED!

The Independent Corrupt Practices and related Offences Commission (ICPC), Chairman Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, has confirmed that there was gross abuse of personnel budget as duplication of projects by some Federal Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs), amounting to NGN20,138 billion!
He disclosed that a review by his anti-graft agency revealed that duplication and padding occurred in the implementation of the 2021 Budget which involved about 257 projects adding that ICPC was investigating Ministry of Labour for corrupt employment/ issuance of fake letters of employment and fraudulently enrolling them on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and posting them to unsuspecting MDAs to work!
Also on the ICPC searchlight are the University College Hospital, Ibadan and corrupt staff members of MDAs suspected of massive illegal recruitment!

In his privileged position as an academic and head of such an anti-corruption government institution, Professor Owasanoye’s claims which include but not limited to; massive budgetary scams, unilateral increase in wages, indiscriminate travels resulting in high inflation of personnel budget among other financial improprieties reflecting huge wage bills up to about 70% of annual budget can neither be faulted, wished away nor dismissed!
He also disclosed that ICPC was prosecuting one of the leaders of the syndicate from whose custody several fake letters of recommendation purportedly signed by the Chief of Staff to the President, Honourable Ministers, Federal Civil Service Commission and other high-ranking Nigerians!

In addition CPC also recovered an advance of NGN51billion naira promissory notes from various Real Estate developers dominated by top public office holders who are the fraudulent investors in Abuja, the nation’s capital!

ICPC RECOVERS 300 HOUSES FROM TWO CIVIL SERVANTS IN ABUJA!

In the October, 2021, the ICPC Chairman disclosed at a Public Hearing on Real Estate, organised by the HOR Ad Hoc Committee on Investigation of Operations of Real Estate Developers in the FCT, that the anti-graft agency recovered over 300 Houses from two civil servants in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FTC)!

He expressed dismay that public officers were using real estate developers as conduits for illicit financial flows!
It is therefore gratifying that the House of Representatives (HOR), has already moved to confirm all recent findings of the ICPC boss which were contained in his welcome address at the 3rd National Summit on Diminishing Corrupting in the Public Service and Presentation of Public Service Integrity Award held at the State House Conference Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Tuesday 30th November 2021.”

THERE IS URGENT NEED FOR INTER-AGENCIES CO-OPERATION AND SYNERGY OF OPERATIONS!

The EFCC and ICPC Chairmen failed to mention that they synergised in any of their operations which yielded such sterling results but merely gave credit to themselves and their agencies!

It is now very pertinent that a national orientation for collective performance geared towards collective gains be inculcated in all agencies of government both at Federal, States and Local Government Areas and in no time, the common enemies of the societies – terrorists bandits, armed herdsmen etc, will be annihilated for PEACE to reign in Nigeria again.

“It is good for brethren to dwell together in unity ...... “(Psalm 133:1-6).

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

heniford2:
Your wasting your energy typing something that most youth will not read

The few ones that will read will gain more knowledge for their own good.

There is no doubt that the negative ripple effects of sixteen consecutive years of maladministration (1999-2015), by the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (PDP), management team have made minced-meat of assumed claims/achievements, in most areas of the economy and security which President Buhari’s Change administration of six years is gloating about, considering the fact that the over 200 million Nigerian population have condemned him for non-performance!

The following facts are verifiable: that during the PDP era, Nigeria in the year 2000 became the leading petroleum marketer in Africa and was economically upgraded as follows:
1) That CRUDE OIL played a pivotal role and the country’s oil and gas exports of that year accounted for more than 98% of export earnings.
2) Garnered eighty-three per cent (83%), of Federal Government’s revenue.
3) Generated more than 14% of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
4) Provided 95% of foreign exchange earnings, and
5) Accounted for about 65% of government’s budgetary revenues!

However within the FIFTEEN YEARS (2000-2015), of economic buoyancy and national affluence the extravagant lifestyle of political leaders coupled with brazen institutional corruption reversed the trend and fortunes of the nation to deprive the masses of the people of all basic amenities of life!
Unemployment of able-bodied youths, contrary to human rights provisions gave birth to poverty, decadence, degradation and gave vent to crimes/criminalities which attracted international negative indexes in respect of massive corruption through leadership mismanagement of the MONO PRODUCT crude oil accruals, and foreign exchange earnings!

The appalling situation was further compounded when suddenly in December 2013, international crude oil prices plummeted from USD$110 dollars to USD$28dollars until the dramatic emergence in 2015 of APC which inherited a battered economy and an “almost empty treasury”!

WHICH WAS WORSE - 30 YEARS OF MILITARY LOOTING OF THE NIGERIAN TREASURY OR 16 YEARS OF PDP’S BRAZEN INSTITUTIONAL ROBBERY AND CORRUPTION?

The startling revelation that 55 Nigerians in position of authority stole over NGN1.34 trillion naira within a period of 8 years (2006-2013), was never denied by the obnoxious PDP damagers, BUT only very few rogues among them were successfully prosecuted by the Buhari Administration which declared war against corruption right from inception in 2015!

TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL INDICTED NIGERIA AGAIN!

In January 2021, Nigeria dropped from 146th to 149th position in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), released by Transparency International (TI), as a result of glaring failure in the anti-corruption campaign! Nigeria was classified as the second most corrupt country in 2020 – an indication that APC Managers were as bad as their predecessors!

In spite of the classification however, the President and his handlers have scored the leadership very high by claiming that the avalanche and myriads of socio-economic/security/corruption challenges which were inherited from consecutive PDP previous administrations had been largely decimated!

For instance the President and his lieutenants claimed that the Boko Haram’s insurgency which debuted from August 2009, and metamorphosed into a terrorist group was technically defeated between 2015-2016, when Federal troops recovered 17 Local Governments Areas (LGAs), of the Bornu North East State from the terrorists!

BUT contrary to that claim, as of January 2021 to date of this publication, the renegades were collecting taxes from farmers and traders in the North East Bornu including neighbouring North West and North Central States before they could venture into their farms!
(B) Because farmers from those regions have been hampered from cultivating the land by Boko Haram terrorists, armed herdsmen, bandits/gunmen, who kill and slaughter them at random, food scarcity and inflation of goods and services have remained an albatross to legitimate administration - a development that has made non-sense of the Central Bank of Nigeria interventionist agricultural “Anchor Borrowers Programme” which over TWO million farmers are believed to have benefited! Government has played down on rumours of a slide into another economic recession!
(C) Although the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC), administration claims that “normalcy had returned to those regions except for dastardly attacks on soft targets by the terrorists who still wanted to remain in contention”, it is an open secret that those claims are fallacies and cheap propaganda!

APC’S SCORECARD IN 2021 - COMPLETION OF POWER/ROAD PROJECTS ETC!
*Construction of the abandoned Mambilla Hydro Power Project, Taraba State, commenced in earnest in 2021 and Minister of Power assured Nigerians of early completion and delivery.
*Construction of of the AKK Gas Pipeline, OB3 Gas Pipeline and the expansion of the Escravos – Lagos Pipeline, commenced in the first half of 2021 and ongoing.
*Ease of doing business through liberalisation of the Power Sector which allows for increased private sector participation to generate and sell power has been encouraged to expand the economy.
*Work was intensified on the Second Niger Bridge under construction in Onitsha, South East, which should be completed and delivered in 2022.
*Strategic damaged major bridges across the country are being repaired while in some States new ones are being constructed.
*The National Social Housing Programme got attention with completion of 13 Housing Estates in 2021.
*Construction of forty-Seven (47) ongoing road projects including those leading to major Ports from 2020-2021, are being completed and delivered.
*Refurbished Lagos, Kano, Maiduguri and Enugu International Airports were commissioned in 2020.
*Agricultural rural mechanisation scheme to spread over 700 Local Government Areas (LGAs), over a period of three years, was launched in 2020, to boost massive diversification to agriculture and increase the nation’s internally Generated Revenue (IGR), outside of CRUDE OIL!
*Launching of a Livestock Development Project Grazing Model in Gombe State, where 200,000 hectares of land has been identified began in 2020 and still ongoing.
*The training of 50,000 workers to compliment the country’s 7,000 Agriculture extension workers to increase the workforce to 75,000 began in earnest in March 2021 to boost quality of agricultural produce.
*The Lagos-Ibadan and Itakpe-Warri rail lines were commissioned in the first quarter of 2020.
*The Ibadan-Abuja and Kano-Kaduna rail lines also commenced in the first quarter of 2020.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SOLDIER AND A DEMOCRAT!
QUESTION: How can President Buhari who had been a soldier from his mother’s womb suddenly claim to become a “reformed democrat” because of politics? As soon as he completed his WAEC, he joined the Nigerian Army and reluctantly left when he was forcefully retired with the rank of a Major General through a military coup which ousted him as Nigeria’s Head of State 27th August, 1985!
A soldier is a person who voluntarily submits himself for the service of his country and takes an oath of allegiance to die in defence of his nation’s territorial integrity in the line of duty!
A soldier is immune to fear, frivolities, timidity, empathy etc, in the line of operational duties – especially in war situations! He is ready to kill or be killed! Soldiers hardly enjoy life after retirement because of their regimental mentality!
“ORDER IS ORDER” – is the soldier’s marching order having been programmed to obey orders without question - live and die without questions! Professional soldiers can neither be good administrators nor politicians after retirement by virtue of orientation to “Vertical Order From Above” operational command which they will always expect all citizens to imbibe!
Army power play transcends beyond the barracks! Retired soldiers dare not confront or disobey their superiors –they MUST remain subservient for life!
Retired Genenal Aremu Obasanjo – has publicly told the world that President Buhari was his “junior in the Army” and that he had every right to criticise or correct his actions in government! Buhari has NEVER disputed the fact nor talked back at his superior!

President Buhari’s propaganda that he is a reformed democrat is untenable. It’s nothing but a brazen deceit - a fluke! Since he assumed office he stuck to his 2015 Investiture declaration: “I am for everybody and I am for nobody” – and true to his words, he listened to nobody except the cabal of old friends mostly from the army!

BUHARI’S AUTOCRATIC AND OVERBEARING CHARACTER!

The soldier President is intolerant of opposition or dissenting voices because to him, “Order is Order”! To this septuagenarian soldier the Rule of Law is a paper tiger..... a ruse of law!

DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM DUBBED DECREE 4 I984!
During his short tenure as military Head of State from (31 st December, 1983 – 27th August, 1985), Major General Buhari enacted an anti-media law: “Protection Against False Accusations Decree” referred to as Decree 4 which gave his military regime powers to shut down newspapers and radio/tv stations adjudged to be hostile or detrimental to the administration!
It is believed that he intends to subtly re-introduce a similar or worse law to gag the Press through the Press Council Bill!

NOT-TOO-YOUNG-TO-RULE ACT PROPAGANDA!

President Buhari merely signed the Not-Too-Young-To-Rule Bill into law before the 2019 General Elections for very selfish reason and ambition to clinch a second term in office!
He does not seem to believe in the divine order of succession of the young generation of Nigerians as future leaders otherwise he would have spoken, pacify and counsel them as a loving father on 20-10-20 during the #EndSarsEndPoliceBrutality Youth Protest instead of abandoning them to soldiers bullets which sent some of them to untimely deaths!

ANTI-CORRUPTION.
His anti-corruption campaign has turned out to be a political stunt because all those who have either been fingered for the crime, or are already facing prosecution in the law courts are glaringly protected with the connivance of the Courts once they defected to the ruling APC and are treated with kid gloves! Nigerians will not be second class citizens in their country anymore! “Soldier go, soldier come but barrack remains!”


WHAT WILL BUHARI BE REMEMBERED FOR WHEN HE DEPARTS OFFICE “DO’OLE” ON MONDAY, 29TH MAY 2023!

The Grape Vine says, he would be remembered as a “Leopard that cannot change its spots;” because all of his travails are self-inflicted and his “good works” of Change Agenda are just few drops in the ocean – SHI’KEE NA!!




I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

“E PLURIBUS UNUM” – FROM MANY, ONE!- Dr David Olufon.

"E Pluribus Unum", is the United States of America's Latin motto which appears on the nation's coins, currencies and many of its public monuments; which means, "From many, one"! America, a nation of immigrants of different nationalities boasts of a population of over 300 million people of diverse tribes, languages, cultures, castes and traditions with which it has built a united nation in which the American citizen's welfare remained government's priority of action and with such an uncommon policy, is globally classified as the best democracy in about 300 years of existence as an independent nation!
When the Nigerian Military eventually handed over to politicians in 1999, they left behind a very clumsy constitution which further divide instead of uniting the over 500 tribes, about 250 languages, enacted and established a unitary presidential system instead of a true federalism!
Unlike the US, Nigeria’s diversity was deliberately allowed to fester through divide-and-rule land mine bequeathed by the colonialists!
BUT the citizens are now agreed to resolve all controversial and nagging political issues through REFERENDUM! [Please join this campaign that will resolve the nation’s myriads of violent agitations and introduce a period of everlasting PEACE.] Share and look forward to next edition (NO. 2), in the coming days.

With his refusal to assent the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2021, within the constitutional 30-day provision into law, President Buhari has lost the last providential opportunity to leave any legacy for the posterity of Nigerians!

The truth is that in the absence of INDEPENDENT CANDIDACY enactment in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, DIRECT PRIMARIES for picking political parties candidates for elective offices is the only alternative for credible elections – not INDIRECT or CONSENSUS!

But the President was influenced by the cabal to veto the very credible and harmonized document passed by 469 Citizens’ Representatives of the National Assembly and forwarded for his assent on 19th November, 2021, because it violated the “spirit of democracy”?

Who whispered to Mr President that Direct Primaries would induce “plethora of litigation from party members/stakeholders or that the process would fuel corruption and encourage over monitorization? Who told him that Direct Primaries was undemocratic and could raise credibility issues, undue interference, huge financial burden on political parties, INEC, the economy and Security Agencies?

Under President Buhari’s watch, Nigerians have suffered the worst kind of governance in all ramifications! His fight against corruption just like the war against insecurity died on arrival from 2015 to date because he allowed rebellious Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), defectors to take over the National Assembly (NASS), throughout his first term in office! A very terrible mistake which gave his detractors ample opportunity to deplete all of his strategies which were taken over by the cabal that held him by the jugular and stifled all efforts of recovery!

His manifestoes fell like a pack of cards from the onset in 2015 and even though he won the second time according to prophecy from the Servant of God in ZION, he became the lame duck due to his selfish choice of an oligarchy administration, suffocated with nepotism, separatism, marginalization and tribalism!

BUHARI WAS NOT THE MESSIAH AS THE PEOPLE THOUGHT!

His desperation to occupy the number one seat between the years 2003 and 2015 made the citizens to believe he would deliver them from the PDP Taskmasters who inflicted so much pain on the people and the economy for 16 long years; that HE WOULD AIM TO BECOME A RECIPIENT OF THE PRESTIGIOUS “MO” IBRAHIM FOUNDATION AWARD; but his regime turned to be the worse!

The “near empty treasury” which PDP left in 2015 was ravaged by NASS APC “mixed multitude” in collusion with civil servants of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), and the only option open to Mr. President was to travel cap-in-hand all over the world every year to borrow money from stronger economies!

In addition to all of these institutional maladies, he believes he could block the masses electoral emancipation through his veto but has failed to realise that he and his cabal have lost credibility because SOVEREIGNTY in the execution of the 1999 Constitution –in spite of all its flaws – still belong to the PEOPLE who are set to invoke the option of REFERENDUM to settle all pending issues in respect of RESTRUCTURING OF NIGERIA!

NASS SHOULD ABORT HOLIDAY RECESS TO VETO PRESIDENT BUHARI!

The President has already lost the last opportunity to redeem his battered image due to wrong choices and ineptitudes of his administration through his refusal to communicate NASS within 30 days stipulated for assent by the Constitution in line with Section 58(4)!
The 1999 Constitution did not specify any window for NASS to collect the unsigned Bill at the expiration of 30 days, from the President, attend to his whims and caprices and then re-forward to him for assent!

The only constitutional line of action is for the NASS muster two third majority of the house, veto and call off his bluff and the document automatically become an Act of Parliament!

***PRESIDENT MAHAMADOU ISSOUFOU OF NIGER WINS 2020 IBRAHIM PRIZE FOR ACHIEVEMENT AFRICAN LEADERSHIP!

The “Mo” Ibrahim Foundation Award for Achievement in African Leadership first winner emerged in 2007, when Major General Muhammadu Buhari, made a second attempt to clinch the Nigerian presidency. Way back in 1984-1985, when he was military Head of State, the duo of Buhari and his second in command, Brigadier Idiagbon initiated some radical socialist measures which endeared them to Nigerians and which scorecard eventually secured his desire!

If President Buhari had maintained that socialist tempo from 2015, by now Nigeria’s economy would have been very buoyant, with peace and tranquillity reigning supreme. He would also have been a sure candidate for the “Mo” Foundation Award after retirement from politics – but all of that is now wishful thinking!
Alas, the 2020 “Mo” Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership has been awarded to Mahamadou Issoufou erstwhile two-term President of the land-locked, Republic of Niger as the sixth recipient.
The Prize Committee in its citation praised his exceptional leadership after inheriting one of the world’s poorest economies, facing seemingly insurmountable challenges but fostered economic growth under very challenging circumstances of violent extremism, increasing desertification etc.
He was adjudged for leading his people on the path of progress through poverty eradication which decreased from 48% to 40% during his 10-year tenure and paved way for a better future through exceptional leadership!

“Mo” Ibrahim expressed hope that President Issoufou’s LEGACY would inspire generations of African leaders.

“Mo” IBRAHIM’S VISION AND MISSION!

Sudanese-British businessman, Engineer Mohammed “Mo” Ibrahim, founder of Celtel, an African-based Mobile Telecommunications Company (1998-2007), initiated the “Mo” Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which awards USD$5million to African Heads of State who deliver security, health, education, and economic development to their constituents and democratically transfer power to their successors.

According to Wikipedia, Ibrahim has pledged to give at least, half of his wealth to charity by joining “The Giving Pledge” – a campaign body – dedicated to encourage extremely wealthy people to contribute a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. As of August 2020, the pledge has 211 signatories from 23 countries. Most of the signatories of the pledge are billionaires and as of 2016, their pledges are estimated to total USD$600 billion dollars.

According to Forbes 2011 Billionaire List, 75-year-old Mo Ibrahim is worth USD$1.8 billion making him the 692nd richest person in the world. He was selected for the TIME “Top 100” List in 2008, and was ranked first in the annual Powerlist of influential Black Britons and credited for “transforming a continent”!

The first recipient of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership was former Mozambique President, Joaquim Chissano (2007), followed by President Festus Mogae of Botswana (2008), President Pedro Pires of Cabo Verde (2011), President Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia (2014), President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia (2017), and the latest recipient, President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger (2020)!

THE ROLE OF IIAG.

Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), established in 2007, provides an annual assessment of the quality of governance in 54 African countries and with the most comprehensive collection of data on African governance the IIAG provides a framework for citizens, governments, institutions and the private sector to accurately access the delivery of public goods and services and policy outcomes across the continent. As well as being a tool to help determine and debate government performance, the IIAG is a decision-making instrument with which to govern.

The Foundation defines governance as the provision of the political, social and economic goods that a citizen has the right to expect from his/her state and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens.

The IIAG assesses progress under four main conceptual categories: (1) Safety and Rule of Law, (2) Participation & Human Rights, (3) Sustainable Economic Opportunity and (4) Human Development.

These four pillars are populated with data that cover infrastructure to freedom of expression and sanitation to property rights. IIAG is a key initiative of the “Mo” Ibrahim Foundation. It has been published annually since 2007, with launch events in various African cities, including Accra, Cairo, Dakar, Johannesburg and Nairobi.
Was it not high time that emerging patriotic Nigerian political leaders and their counterpart billionaires across the continent took a cue from “Mo” Ibrahim, IIAG and Nigerien President Issoufou to improve on the life of the poor masses and entrench peace in their ?

***2022 DEFICIT BUDGET OF NGN16.4TRILLION JERKED UP BY LEGISLATORS TO NGN17.12TRILLION!

Like the past budgets from 2015 to 2021, the just approved 2022 financial document of Wednesday 22nd December, 2021, by the NASS was in total deficit! The sum of NGN3.8trillion naira is appropriated for Debt Servicing; NGN6.83trillion (41.7%) for Recurrent Expenditure while NGN5.4 trillion is for Capital Expenditure!
International Crude Oil benchmark price was increased from $57 to $62 dollars in anticipation of a proposed increase in revenue expenditure! Daily oil production rate was pegged 1.86million per barrel and the increase of NGN700 billion to the over-burdened budget according to the legislators, was to accommodate “some other requests of national importance which have not been captured in the budget estimates and which could not be covered by the revenue increase”!

SHOULD ANYONE BE SURPRISED AT THEIR TWISTS AND TURNS?

Is anyone surprised about the increase? Of course not! It is an annual ritual for the law makers to carry out “oversight functions” of padding, re-writing, re-inventing, inserting, and injecting fresh unexplainable and untenable items/figures as buffer funds to still laden their numerous outrageous allowances!

BUDGET BREAKDOWN:
*Defence/Security – NGN2.41trillion (15%).
*Infrastructure – NGN1.45trillion (8.9%).
*Education: NGN1.29trillion (7.9%).
*Health: NGN820billion (5%).
*Social Development & Poverty Eradication – NGN863billion (5.3%).

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Prov 14:12).

Merry Christmas to all our readers across the world. May the Spirit of Jesus Christ dominate your lives in this Yuletide Season and into the New Year 2022! Shalom.



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

It is very glaring that Nigerian legislators have deliberately misinterpreted oversight functions as license to appropriate humongous salaries, allowances, constituency votes that are alien to the constitution to augment legitimate monthly salaries of NGN1.5m and NGN1.3m naira respectively!

They clandestinely re-wrote, re-invented, amended, or padded annual budgets submitted by the executive at their whims and caprices for the sole purpose of aggrandizement! Although in the 21 years (1999-2021), of the fresh attempt to practice transparent democracy, the National Assembly (NASS), salary structure has remained very controversial and very secretive, the 469 Legislators’ flamboyant, expensive and stupendous lifestyle in the midst of over 190million poverty-stricken Nigerians had always exposed them as the proverbial ostrich which buries its head in the sand for safety!

With legislative impunity unbefitting of the
CITIZENS’ REPRESENTATIVES, the lawmakers completely sidelined the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the constitutional agency which fixes salaries of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), set up a parallel NASS Finance Section to allot and disburse their salaries and allowances which was always between NGN115-150 billion naira of annual budgets!

EVERY LIE HAS A TERMINAL DATE!

At a public event in Abuja on Monday 13th December, 2021, veteran politician (1999-2021) and Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, disclosed that Senators/Representatives collect NGN52m and NGN32m, respectively as annual running allowances. According to him, the monthly salary of a Senator was NGN1.5m and that of a Representative was NGN1.3m! He told participants in a paper he presented at the First Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture Series that the alleged NGN13m that dominated public domain some years back was a Senator’s quarterly office running allowance while that of the Representative was NGN8m, which according to him were the lowest in any presidential democracy in the world!

At that amount, each Senator collected NGN3.25m monthly while his House of Representative counterpart collected NGN2m! In 2016, Senator Shehu Sanni, (then of the All Progressives Congress, APC) unveiled the secrecy behind Senators’ running allowance which was then NGN3.5million and whereas Senator Mrs. ‘Remi Tinubu claimed she got NGN3.8m - monies being paid from BORROWED FOREIGN LOANS! These narratives are completely opposite to Senator Lawan’s claims!

HAS THE EXECUTIVE EVER COMPLAINED OF NASS EXCESSES?

The Executive and the 9th NASS Legislators work hand in gloves! Although Senator Lawan was quick to state in a recent paper that the Red Chamber legislators were not a “rubber stamp” appendage of the Chief Executive Officer,
President Buhari, but the citizens are too wise to believe such brazen lies! Every demand from both side of the divide was always treated with express dispatch to avoid confrontation and allow for smooth running of government according to inside sources unlike what obtained under the Saraki/Dogara debacle of the 8th NASS!

According to Senator Lawan the legislative allowances were to cover running costs which included but not limited to medical services; professional consulting; vehicles/office equipment, consisting of computers, printers, photo copying machines, television sets, etc, maintenance; books, magazines, newspapers; local/international travels, etc, BUT failed to mention that:
The legislators got presidential approval of NGN55billion naira to purchase exotic FOREIGN CARS/ JEEPS; and,
Collected N37BILLION TO RENOVATE THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY COMPLEX, AND IN RECIPROCITY, the Senators were also quick to approve a foreign loan of USD$ 22.7 dollars for the president to execute fresh critical infrastructures across Nigeria
in May 2020, and subsequent loans in 2021!

Another N850 billion loan which was a conversion of a planned external loan to domestic borrowing (in a “rub my back …I rub your back” gesture), in spite of the negative fallout of the Coronavirus pandemic on the economy! ** * **BUT the nation’s DEBT PROFILE SINCE 2015, which is very close to NGN9TRILLION NAIRA AND STILL RISING MUST BE CONTINUALLY SERVICED ACCORDING TO CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT IF NOT RE-NEGOTIATED!!

ALL LOANS (from 2015-2021), according to the President were (a) To finance the Budget deficits, (b) Financing of critical projects and (c) Supporting some States of the Federation! [The same old STORY and with no concrete INFRASTRUCTURES TO MATCH ALMOST NGN9TRILLION DEBT ON HAND!]

Please find below some excerpts of our 2017 Christmas 288th Edition dated 24th December, 2017, in respect of abuse of constitutional provisions by legislators!

THE IMMENSE CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS OF NIGERIAN LEGISLATORS!

“In Section 4 (1) - (9) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, legislators are empowered (in a nutshell), (a) to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to the Constitution, to the exclusion of the State Houses of Assembly; and (b) matters in the Concurrent Legislative List and any other matter with respect to which it is empowered to make laws in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 Federal Constitution.“They are also backed by law to carry out legislative oversight functions on both the Private and Public Institutions, especially the Ministries Departments and Agencies, (MDAs), for the purposes of CHECKS AND BALANCES, to ensure probity, equity in appropriation and execution in budgetary transactions of government at the Federal platforms.“Under Sections 88 (1) (2)-89 (1) (2), legislators have powers to conduct investigations into any matter or thing with respect to which it has power to make laws; and the conduct of affairs of any person, authority, Ministry or government charged, or intended to be charged with the duty of or responsibility for executing or administering laws enacted by NASS and disbursing or administering moneys appropriated or to be appropriated by NASS; EXPOSE CORRUPTION, INEFFICIENCY OR WASTE IN THE EXECUTION OR ADMINISTRATION OF LAWS WITHIN ITS LEGISLATIVE COMPETENCE AND IN THE DISBURSEMENT OR ADMINISTRATION OF FUNDS APPROVED BY IT ........ETC!

WHO OVERSIGHTS THE CORRUPT LEGISLATORS STILL WALKING FREE?

But outside of these spheres, the legislators have become busy-bodies and meddlesome interlopers as they struggle very unsuccessfully, to take over executive functions and power from President Muhammadu Buhari at every opportunity, through spurious interpretation of their oversight functions, when constitutional INTERPRETATION OF LAWS is the sole function of the JUDICIARY and PROSECUTION OF OFFENDERS, REST WITH THE EXECUTIVE! Should Nigerians wonder why Ibrahim Magu's confirmation was rejected twice and why Senator Ali Ndume was suspended for SIX LEGISLATIVE MONTHS OF 181 DAYS because he contradicted his colleagues? Legislators that are claiming relevance through the Constitution have messy antecedents: *Not less than 15 Senators are under EFCC investigations for corrupt enrichment; * Saraki has been ordered for re-trial at the CCT, for fraudulent declaration of assets between 2003-2011, when he served as Governor of Kwara State; * Corrupt ex-governors are members of the "hallowed chambers"; and * Some of them conspired to forge the Senate Rules to get into office by hook or crook!

TIME TO EXPOSE THESE ENEMIES OF THE MASSES IS NOW!

We advocate that the WHISTLE BLOWERS in conjunction with the NGOs, CSOs, Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), Stand Up For Nigeria (SUN), SERAP and all downtrodden Nigerians whose sweat and blood constitute the common wealth being looted by these reckless and heartless politicians, should dig out the legislators' SKELETONS and expose the OSTRICHS, whose heads are buried in the sand!

LET'S NAME, SHAME THE CROOKED LEGISLATION WHO ARE HIDING BEHIND OVERSIGHT FUNCTIONS TO CAUSE HAVOC AND KILL THE OBNOXIOUS AND ANTI-CITIZENS NGO AND CIVIL SOCIETY COMMITTEE OF NIGERIA BILLS, PENDING AT THE NASS, NOW!
"Righteousness exalts a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs. 14:34).
TO SHUT DOWN THE SENATE IN 2022 THROUGH POPULAR REFERENDUM IS A TASK THAT MUST BE DONE! [The following piece was first published in our Edition 414th of 18 July, 2021; please copy and circulate on the Social Media to garner support for an URGENT REFERENDUM that will usher permanent peace to the nation!]

“BUT WITH THE REFERENDUM’S SIMPLE “YES” OR “NO”, TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ALL CRIMINALS WILL DROP THEIR WEAPONS AND NIGERIA WILL EMBRACE EVERLASTING PEACE AGAIN!

Should the Nigeria SENATE be disbanded and shut down? YES!
Should a UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT with 74 or less members be established to replace the DOLLAR-GULPING PRESIDENTIAL REGIME? YES!
DEVOLUTION OF POWERS to the States through Resource Control/Self Governance SO THAT STATES SHOULD PAY NEGOTIATED PERCENTAGE TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT? YES!
STATE POLICE AND STATE PRISONS to be run by all States of the Federation in respect of ALL crimes? YES!
INDEPENDENT CANDIDACY should be enjoyed if such candidate was not a member of any political party, six months prior to any election? YES!

Should the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs), enjoy constitutional autonomy and be free to legislate and create any number of councils as they so desired? YES!
Food, Drugs and poison to be moved to the Concurrent List so that States could constitutionally legislate on those items, while narcotics/psychotropic substances should remain on the Exclusive List? Yes!

Labor issues, trade unions, industrial relations, conditions, safety/welfare, disputes/minimum wages/ industrial arbitration, should be handled by both States/Federal Governments who should enjoy independent legislation? YES!

Mines and minerals, oil fields and mining, geological surveys and natural gas that are ONSHORE will be vested in all States of the Federation, while all OFF-SHORE OIL shall be vested in the government of the federation? YES!

Registration of Business Names should be on the Concurrent List for companies to choose their areas of operations; State or nationwide? YES!

Collection of Stamp Duties should be moved to the Concurrent List, for the States to collect duties from individual and small businesses while Federal Government collects Stamp Duties from Limited Liabilities Companies? YES!

Issue of Citizenship, Local Government or State of Origin, which had hitherto been discriminatory, "should be replaced with State of Residence", through a proposed amendment to the Federal Character Commission Act to allow people domicile in a place to be considered as INDIGENES of such place? YES!”

LET US UNITE AND SAVE NIGERIA ONCE AND FOR ALL FROM 21ST CENTURY NEO-COLONIALISTS! (Psalm.133:1-3).


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

It is very unethical for President Buharis’ handlers to lament and protest over Nigeria’s inclusion in the Red List travel ban to the United Kingdom in view of glaring presence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the country!

Although Nigeria is also included on the Canadian red list, the temporary ban by UK has hit the nation’s money bags/launderers harder because British Isles is a second home to them and their families! Great Britain, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales are countries suitable for Western education, medical tourism, holiday resorts shopping destinations and safe havens for dispensing illicit financial flows!

The cacophony of local /international propagandists which were very quick and loud in condemnation of the UK’s decision to protect its public health from suspected Omicron carriers from Nigeria were in error because they were ignorant of the TRUTH that consecutive Nigerian leaders woefully failed to develop strong and formidable institutions in all sectors of the economy/security and must therefore rush to Britain at the slightest opportunity to enjoy the FRUITS OF OTHER PEOPLES’ LABOR!

QUESTIONS:
(1).Are the Christmas and New Year festivities not in the around the corner?

(2). Have the Nigerian health, security, power or economic sectors gotten any better especially in the last SIX YEARS under President Buhari’s watch?

(3). Did Nigerian post-colonial administrators learn any TRADE from Britain, its former colonial master?

(4).What stopped Nigerian leaders from copying the BLUEPRINTS of Industrial Revolution Institutions – the British hallmark of investments in institutional and human development that have entrenched their centuries of democracy and strong economy that has outlived all their great and very outstanding political leaders?


POST-COLONIAL ERA PRODUCED COVETOUS LEADERSHIP!

New Nigerian political leaders shortly after Independence betrayed the citizens by focusing on quick dollars which accrued from Crude Oil instead of entrenchment of the peoples’ security and welfare!

Export agricultural groundnut pyramids, abundant cocoa seeds, rubber raw materials and the excess natural underground pearls of mineral resources that could have addressed human development infrastructures and established very strong institutions were exchanged for imports of refined and finished products from UK and other European countries!

QUESTION: What is the meaning of TRAVEL APARTHEID? The British High Commissioner in Nigeria had said that travel ban measures were “SCIENTIFICALLY BASED” for the protection of its citizens!

NIGERIA TOOK THE WRONG STEPS AND EXPECTS THE RIGHT RESULTS – WELCOME RAMAPHOSA!

First, Nigeria was aware that the deadliest Variant was discovered in Botswana, South Africa in (just as the very first Covid Variant was discovered in Wuyan, China, in December 2019) and that it had debuted on its soil through two travelers who migrated from that country to Nigeria on 26th November, 2021.

As at Tuesday 7th December, 2021, six more Omicron Variant were detected and confirmed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), to further alarm an already frenzied population which is polarized in the respect of the presence of Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria for the last two years!

The travel ban which would affect Visitor Visa applications and all international arrivals to the UK from all red list countries, including Nigeria and took effect from Monday 6th December, 2021, require pre-departure Covid-19 tests by travelers from all affected countries to protect public health and avoid further spread in the UK!

The commotion generated by Nigeria’s apologetics was very unnecessary and uncalled for because it is not a total travel ban on citizens from the affected countries; as Nigerian/UK Citizens and residents will be able to enter the country, but will have to pay while in quarantine for 10 days!

In addition, the British High Commission in Nigeria in a statement says that compelling and compassionate circumstances will enjoy positive attention from red list countries while travel restrictions remain in place!

Second, without due attention to tracking of the South African migrants to ascertain all people they had contacted during/after flight at the airport, President Buhari opened its borders and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on 1st December, 2021, to ratify some economic/investment MOUs, with the camaraderie of African brotherhood at the expense of massive infection to the Nigerian Citizens!

Virologists predicted at the weekend that Nigeria could slip into a FOURTH WAVE, “in days to come” due to change in weather!
Third, the President’s advisers who had convinced him in the affirmative that the new Variant posed no serious danger in spite of travel bans to all South African travelers to virtually all countries of the world totally forgot that Nigeria was not an island in the global village!


OMICRON HAS SPREAD TO 57 COUNTRIES! AND STILL COUNTING

The latest epidemiological report by the World Health Organization (WHO), said the Omicron Variant which has spread rapidly in SA has been reported in at least 57 countries across the world!

*In the UK early figures were estimated at over 386 and has since risen to about 1,000 according to statistics released by Minister for Health on 8th December, 20, but the increase is on such deep trajectory that cases were doubling every two to three days and the country braces for 1 million cases by the end of the month!


WHY IS NIGERIA SO MAD WITH THE UK

Nigeria attained the prestigious status of sovereignty as a Republic on 1st October, 1963; politically discarded all vestiges of British colonialism and imperialism, replaced the Queen of England with an indigene as of Head of State and adopted a quasi parliamentary/presidential system of government.

However they failed to establish concrete economic foundation for industry, manufacturing, SMSEs etc, that would provide gainful employment for all able-bodied and school leavers at all levels as necessary foundation for human development and an enduring platform for foreign exchange earnings through massive exports of finished/refined products!

The founding fathers were probably taught by their colonial masters that the art of BORROWING to actualize set developmental goals was a universal norm which no nation could afford to shun and also an indispensible tool for “sound economic development and growth” – a doctrine which dominated consecutive administrations from Sir. Tafawa Balewa to the current President Muhammadu Buhari who is the most obsessive BORROWER of them all!

The colonial masters must have also told them that the richest country in the world [the United States of America], also borrows from the World Bank Group and advised that borrowed money must be invested in CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT!


THE BUHARI CHANGE ERA!

President Buhari’s desperate bid to occupy the number one seat paid off in 2015; but in his SIX years of governance as at June 2021, Nigeria - through his mastery in DEBT NEGOTIATION - is indebted to almost all developed countries, the United States, China, Canada, UAE, Britain, Japan, France, India, Germany, Saudi Arabia; not excluding top international financial institutions, - the World Bank Group, Islamic Development Bank, Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, African Development Bank (AfDB), Exim Bank of China, etc, to the tune of USD$ 17billion dollars and Nigerians are still counting because of the avowed passion of the President to continue to borrow more funds for infrastructure until he departs office!


BUHARI AND NOT NIGERIANS IS THE SHAMELESS BEGGAR!

President Buhari had hardly assumed office in 2015 when he embarked on a trip to China to learn from President Xi Jinping (so Nigerians believed), how to take the most-populated African country out of POVERTY once and for all like China did to become the SECOND LARGEST ECONOMY AFTER THE UNITED STATES, but they were all wrong!

The man went cap in hand to BEG for money and between 2015 and 2021, had borrowed USD$ 3.40billion dollars or NGN1.3trillion naira from the most-populous country of more than 1.4 billion people in the world according to Nigeria’s Debt Management Office! (DMO).
Although China’s concessional (20-year-tenor) loans with 2.5% interest and 7-year moratorium (grace period), are tied to some 11 projects- majorly in the Nigerian Railway, the South East Second Niger Bridge and rehabilitation/upgrading of some road projects in the North Central, most part is diverted to payment of salaries/allowances/excesses of the executive, legislative, judiciary and the MDAs – who are less than 2 million of Nigeria’s population!
In addition to the economic quagmire, NOT ONE DOLLAR of accumulated loans has been paid back but regularly SERVICED, while more loans were sought to increase debt profile! According to the Federal Minister of Finance, the sum of NGN2.89 trillion, 74% of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), was spent between January and August 2021, a tradition common to all annual budgets!


IS THIS NOT A NEW WAVE OF AFRICA’S ECONOMIC COLONIZATION?

The countries that kept lending huge funds to support phantom “infrastructural development” in the Nigeria do so for very favorable reasons which are contained in the CONTRACTS which allow LENDER NATIONS to take over contractual asset of the DEBTOR until all borrowed funds and interests were completely paid!

PROPHECY: Nigeria will NEVER BE RE-COLONIZED because all current corrupt leadership who are RICHER THAN NIGERIA [through institutional manipulation of THE OIL WEALTH in favor of a few], are going to be STRIPPED OF ALL THE ILL-GOTTEN MONIES starched in PANAMA, PANDORA HAVENS IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2022!

***THE PROCESS OF SHUTTING DOWN THE 9TH AND LAST NIGERIAN SENATE WILL COMMENCE IN EARNEST EARLY IN THE YEAR AND PRESIDENT BUHARI WILL HAVE NO OPTION THAN TO SUCCUMB TO A POPULAR REFERENDUM THAT WILL ALSO TAKE CARE OF OTHER RESTRUCTURING AGITATIONS BEGINNING WITH DEVOLUTION OF POWER FROM THE FEDERAL TO THE FEDERATING STATE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF STATE POLICE!

***Nigeria will be salvaged by DIVINELY APPOINTED MANAGERS from among the RIGHTEOUS MASSES who will boldly step out to CHANGE THE NEGATIVE DESTINY OF POVERTY TO AFFLUENCE!
*** FURTHER BORROWING WILL SEIZE FROM THE YEAR 2022 DUE TO PRESSURE BY NEW LEADERS ON INTERNATIONAL BODIES TO BLACKLIST NIGERIA!
***LEGAL PROSECUTION OF MANY LOOTERS OF THE NIGERIA TREASURY WILL BE FAST-TRACKED BY LAW-ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES WHO WILL SECURE POSITIVE JUDGMENTS THAT WILL SEND THE CULPRITS TO JAIL!
***FEAR WILL GRIP ALL PILFERERS IN THE MDAs, WHO HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR ANNUAL BUDGET PADDING AS A SPIRIT OF ANTAGONISM WILL FORCE THEM TO EXPOSE THEM AND THEIR CRIMES!
Nigeria will rise again from the ASHES before the 2023 General Elections!

God will bring down the PROUD OLIGARCHY and raise a RIGHTEOUS GENERATION UNTO HIMSELF! ‘’Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people’’. (Prov. 14:34).




I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

The Whistle Blower Policy introduced in 2016 by the Federal Ministry of Finance to encourage a confidential culture through which corruption in the public sector could be easily detected, exposed, addressed and punished, died on arrival because the interest of majority of Nigerians was the mouth-watering monetary reward aspect which promised whistle blowers 2.5 - 5% of illicit funds or of recovered concealed assets!

The Policy which was not an Act of Parliament heightened the craze for quick money which confidants of treasury looters seized to expose their malfeasant principals in order to acquire their shares of the fraud and simultaneously opened floodgates to unscrupulous law enforcers who recovered the funds to covet large portions of every successful raid!


EFCC, WHISTLE BLOWERS AND DEFENCE LAWYERS QUARREL OVER NGN 850 BILLION REWARD!

In November 2017, Whistle Blowers, defence lawyers and some unscrupulous officials of the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), fought dirty over the N850million naira reward for the recovery of USD$43.4million, NGN23.3milliom and 27,800 Euros, concealed in one apartment of the Osborne Towers situated in Ikoyi, Lagos Island on 22nd April, 2017!

Defence Lawyer to three friends who disclosed the hidden Ikoyi loot to EFCC threatened to take legal action before the matter was resolved and a sum of NGN421million was paid to one on 13th December 2017, to Stephen Sunday, the lead whistle blower by the Federal Ministry of Finance, and it was reported that he flew out of the country for safety!

Whereas, amounts paid to the other two friends of Stephen could not be ascertained!
Alleged malfeasant EFCC operatives tried fruitlessly to outsmart the three bona-fide squealers who exposed the Osborne loot linked to DG National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Mr. Ayo Oke, whose where about remains a mystery till date!

There was a controversy over the authentic whistle blower in respect of the cache of monies recovered from the flat at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos State in April 2017, and the last Nigerians heard about the whistle blower reward was in December of the same year when the much-traumatised authentic principal whistle blower Stephen Sunday got certain amount of money not up to 2.5% of the recovered sum because of insincerity on the part of covetous EFCC operatives and Federal Ministry of Finance!

Stephen’s lawyer who had earlier threatened court litigation against the anti-graft agency, claimed that EFCC officials subjected his client to emotional trauma through the administration of psychotic drugs at the Yaba Psychiatric Hospital, Lagos, which they claimed cost NGN 250,000 naira “to cure him of an assumed madness” believed to have been caused by the sudden windfall of tremendous riches!

Apart from Stephen’s lawyer, another legal firm which also claimed to represent Stephen and his two co-whistle blowers, Abdulmumin Musa and Bala Usman with whom he informed EFCC about the discovery, also petitioned the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, to compel EFCC to pay the reward to the THREE MEN!

It is very pertinent for the new EFCC Administration under Abdulrasheed Bawa to re-open the OSBORNE CASE and fish out culpable officers who would likely damage his reputation if urgent measures were delayed!


WHISTLE BLOWER POLICY WAS BUHARI’S BABY!

Although the Whistle Blowers and Witness Protection Policy was President Buhari’s innovation, his ambitious manifesto to crush corruption from its very root in the polity, his six-year occupation of Aso Rock Villa has debuted the worst kind of the infectious disease in two decades of the nation’s new democratic dispensation!

However the 9th Senate reintroduced the old Policy as one of 11 Bills read for the first time at plenary in November 2019, to seek protection for whistle blowers and witnesses with provision for financial rewards to encourage citizens who expose corruption and protection against victimisation or loss of jobs!

The reason for NASS reintroduction could not be far-fetched because President Buhari’s determination’s to stamp out the evil crime of corruption backfired and festered the malaise beyond imaginable proportion instead of reducing it!


ICPC CHAIRMAN IS NEW WHISTLE BLOWER WHO CANNOT BE GAGGED!

The Independent Corrupt Practices and related Offences Commission (ICPC), Chairman Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, has confirmed that there was gross abuse of personnel budget as duplication of projects by some Federal Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs), amounting to NGN20,138 billion!
He disclosed that a review by his anti-graft agency revealed that duplication and padding occurred in the implementation of the 2021 Budget which involved about 257 projects adding that ICPC was investigating Ministry of Labour for corrupt employment/ issuance of fake letters of employment and fraudulently enrolling them on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and posting them to unsuspecting MDAs to work! Also on the ICPC searchlight are the University College Hospital, Ibadan and corrupt staff members of MDAs suspected of massive illegal recruitment!

In his privileged position as an academic and head of such an anti-corruption government institution, Professor Owasanoye’s claims which include but not limited to; massive budgetary scams, unilateral increase in wages, indiscriminate travels resulting in high inflation of personnel budget among other financial improprieties reflecting huge wage bills up to about 70% of annual budget can neither be faulted, wished away nor dismissed!

He also disclosed that ICPC was prosecuting one of the leaders of the syndicate from whose custody several fake letters of recommendation purportedly signed by the Chief of Staff to the President, Honourable Ministers, Federal Civil Service Commission and other high-ranking Nigerians!

ICPC RECOVERS 300 HOUSES FROM TWO CIVIL SERVANTS IN ABUJA!

In the October, 2021, the ICPC Chairman disclosed at a Public Hearing on Real Estate, organised by the HOR Ad Hoc Committee on Investigation of Operations of Real Estate Developers in the FCT, that the anti-graft agency recovered over 300 Houses from two civil servants in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FTC)!

He expressed dismay that public officers were using real estate developers as conduits for illicit financial flows!

It is therefore gratifying that the House of Representatives (HOR), has already moved to confirm all recent findings of the ICPC boss which were contained in his welcome address at the 3rd National Summit on Diminishing Corrupting in the Public Service and Presentation of Public Service Integrity Award held at the State House Conference Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Tuesday 30th November 2021.


OFFICIAL PROTECTION FOR WHISTLE BLOWERS!

Although the Whistle Blowers and Protection of Witness Act sought to (1) Encourage, (2) Facilitate disclosure of malfeasance by public officers/bodies and (3) Protect such disclosures under the law, two major Clauses: 34 and 45 of the were categorical on gains and stringent punishment of not less than five years or a fine of NGN10 million for false alarms by whistle blowers!

Whistle Blowers are protected from defamation, civil and criminal liability. They also enjoy preclusion/immunity from contractual or other remedies that could be enforced against a whistle blower while monetary incentive of 2.5% of the recovered monies (after all tax deduction), is provided in the Act by Federal Government as reward for genuine disclosures that lead to successful raids!

FEDERAL HIGH COURT SAYS EX-NNPC GMD HAS CASE TO ANSWER!

Another exposed illicit money by a whistle blower also led to the arrest and prosecution of a an ex-Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Mr. Andrew Yakubu who served between 2012-2014, by the EFCC in February 2017, for allegedly concealing foreign currencies in the sums of USD$9.7 million and 74,000 British Pounds sterling in his Kaduna State Guest House!
As at the time of his arrest the Federal Government law against non-declaration of assets and money laundering/Whistle Blower and Witness Protection Act of December 2016, was in operation!

INSTITUTIONAL LOOTING MUST END WITH ABDULRESHEED BAWA!

Gone are those days when unscrupulous operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), could intimidate, harass, brow-beat and fleece patriotic whistle blowers of their legitimate rewards and get away with such dastard institutional crimes without bating an eye lid!

Young, ebullient, diligent, resilient and resourceful Bawa MUST CLEANSE THE AUGEAN STABLE AND GIVE EFCC A BRAND NEW/IMPECCABLE NAME AND IMAGE! “To whom much is given, much is expected”!





I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

Nigerians especially the Niger Delta indigenes deserve a better deal than the clueless economic solutions proffered by the Buhari Administration to solve the 63-year-old all-comers massive robbery in the Petroleum Sector!

They all applauded the President’s victory in 2015 as a civilian leader because of the assumption that he had vast experience to re-order, re-direct, re-invent, re-organize and harness the great potentials of the Oil Industry of the endemic institutional corruption which has been its acclaimed trademark!

He was Military Chairman from 1977-1978 when the Nigerian National Petroleum was created and later Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources when government invested in pipelines and petroleum storage infrastructures and as two term-President (2015-2021), he has jealously kept the Petroleum portfolio under his armpit for closer scrutiny! But in spite of the citizens’ assumptions, the petroleum regime has witnessed its worst hiccups through blatant disregard for accountability and had exposed a brazen penchant for retention of a blank cheque ie, an unspecified percentage of total IGR before remission to the TSA!

But with the planned incorporation of the NNPC, should Nigerians hope for sanity in the up, middle, and down streams now that the PIA is now assented by Mr. President or the document is another “paper tiger”?

During Ibe Kachikwu’s tenure as Minister of State for Petroleum the NNPC GMD whose loyalty was to the President allegedly by-passed Kachikwu to award dubious contracts in spite Kachikwu’s seniority as Chairman of the NNPC Board!
Ibe Kachikwu’s bold petition directly to President Buhari at the Aso Villa was discarded because “some animals are more equal than others!”

WHEN “FUEL SUBSIDY” IS REMOVED, WILL OFFICIAL PRICE OF N165 PER LITRE OF PMS JUMP TO N340 (over 200%), BY JUNE 2022 IN ORDER TO ATTRACT MORE INVESTMENTS TO THE SECTOR ACCORDING TO OLD NNPC GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR, MELE KYARI? WILL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PAY N5, 000 AS PALLIATIVES TO 40 MILLION POOREST NIGERIANS TO CUSHION EFFECT OF THE PURPOSED INCREASE TO FULFIL THE NEWLY SIGNED PIA? ANSWER: NONE OF THE ABOVE WILL HAPPEN BECAUSE SUCH MONEY WAS NOT APPROPRIATED IN THE 2022 BUDGET! Is foreign exchange not N560 to one US Dollar – due to the devaluation of the Naira?


WHAT IS LOCAL DEREGULATION OF THE PETROLEUM SECTOR?

1) No downstream deregulation could take place when SUBSIDY of the PMS never existed in the first place! It is a monumental fraud against the poor masses!
2) Nigeria is the third largest producer of crude oil in Africa and yet opted for IMPORTING REFINED FUEL instead of building new Refineries!
3) Presently, there exist in the Niger Delta Region (THE GOOSE that lays the GOLDEN EGG), tens of tens of indigenous MODULAR REFINERIES churning out refined PMS, DIESEL, and other lubricants which SUPPLY all petroleum needs for the people; and they hardly experience any form of SCARCITY!
4) Government is aware of this “illegal” strategic thriving industry which embraces civilians, members of the armed forces, and the police was always patronized just like the official Depots located across the nation but has turned BLIND EYE!

RECOMMENDATIONS:
***Since the implementation of the newly signed PIA document has been put on hold because of policy somersaults, Federal Government should give approval to INGENIOUS LOCAL MODULAR REFINERIES and encourage other INVESTORS to build more!

QUESTION: When will the FOUR COMATOSE NIGERIAN REFINERIES PRODUCE PMS ETC,? HOW MUCH IS BEING PAID FOR REDUNDANT WORKERS WHOM MR. TIMIPRE SYLVA SAYS CANNOT BE SACKED EVEN IF TAKES FOREVER BEFORE THE OFFICIAL REFINERIES TO RESURRECT?

*** Mr. President directed that swearing-in of new NNPC BOARD MEMBERS scheduled for 26th November, 2021, be put on hold because it was a wrong step as we had pointed out in one of our past publications that no board could be in place and be collecting FREE SALARIES when their institution had not become a LEGAL ENTITY!

MUST NIGERIA BECOME THE LAPDOG OF OPEC, IMF OR WORLD BANK AND DANCE TO THEIR DICTATES?
The President and his cohorts may be BEGGARS, all patriotic Nigerians are not and will never be cowed into submission to THE FRAUD CALLED FUEL SUBSIDY!

MEMBERSHIP TO AFFECT LOCAL DEREGULATION POLICY? NO!

Out of the belly of Oloibiri, a small community of farmers and fishermen in Ogbia LGA, Bayelsa State, eastern Niger Delta region of Nigeria flowed out the first thousand litres of crude oil “liquid black gold” which was destined to prosper and destroy Nigeria simultaneously!

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), in 1956 at this ancient town after half a century efforts of exploration discovered crude oil and in 1958, the country registered as an oil producer and its first oil field delivered 5,100 barrels per day (bpd).
Also in 1958, petroleum was discovered in Ogoni, Rivers South East Niger Delta, with 96 wells which brought nine fields on stream and before oil production ceased in early ‘90s, due to devastating and uncontrollable oil spillages; over two million barrels in 2,976 separate spills polluted the area between 1976 and 1991!

During the last seven years of military occupation of the Nigerian State; 1992-1999, pressure groups agitated for special attention from Federal Government in respect of the upkeep of the region – especially in the areas of CLEAN – UP of polluted lands and prevention of future spillages but some who believed in application of force introduced militancy which forced authorities to pay more attention to the region!

Billions of US dollars have been paid militant groups which took up arms and continuously vandalized oil/gas pipelines to compound the already chaotic insecurity for them to lay down their arms for peace to reign!

According to the Minister of Environment between a period of four years, 2015 to March 2021, Nigeria recorded 4,919 oil spills and lost 4.5 trillion barrels of oil theft!

And scars of the environmental wounds inflicted on the once aquaculture/agriculturally-friendly Ogoniland in the forms of abandoned/discarded Shell-BP pipelines, are scattered and traverse the condemned, uninhabitable/contaminated land, creeks and waterways!

According to a May 2019 Report by Friends of the Earth International, “over two decades after Shell first was called out for its destruction of the Niger Delta, oil still contaminates the land, compensation is owed and Shell continues to obstruct justice.”


THE BRUTAL MURDER OF KEN SARO-WIWA AND CO!

Twenty-five years ago, late Social Activist and president of the MOVEMENT for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ken Saro Wiwa was executed along with eight associates (globally acclaimed as the Ogoni Nine), by the government of maximum military head of state, General Sani Abacha, for standing up to Shell’s destructive exploitative operations in their communities and not until Four Nigerian Farmers in conjunction with “Friends of The Earth, Netherlands”, instituted a court case against Shell at the Hague, to hold the Shell Petroleum Development Company culpable for its destruction of the Niger Delta!


SHELL AGREES TO PAY OGONI COMMUNITY N45.9BILLION FOR OIL SPILLAGE AS ORDERED BY THE SUPREME COURT!

It took a period of almost 32 years, but on 11th August, 2021, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), finally agreed to pay the Supreme Court order of N45.9billion compensation to an Ogoni Community, Ejama-Ebubu in Tai Eleme LGA of Rivers State, which sought damages against Shell for an oil spillage incident after a long-drawn legal tussle which began at the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt which awarded damages in 2010 in favour of the litigants and through to the Appeal Court and finally – the apex court!

Also on 8th June, 2009, Shell settled out-of-court with the Saro Wiwa family for USD $15.5 million having admitted complicity in military and human rights abuses which untimely terminated Ken and the Ogoni Nine in November, 1995


OGONI CLEAN UP SHOULD NOT BE DELAYED ANY FURTHER!

United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), has called on the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Oil and Gas Industry and Communities to begin a comprehensive clean-up of the region and take co-ordinated action to end to all forms of illegal oil bunkering, crude theft and artisanal refining of stolen crude causing oil contamination in Ogoniland!

Although the military junta alleged that Ken Saro-Wiwa and his members incited the murder of five prominent chiefs of the land, the late activist’s agitation for a clean and unpolluted environment of his birth place, Ogoniland did not die with him but miraculously resurrected through President Muhammadu Buhari, who eventually flagged off the clean-up exercise at Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State on Thursday, 2nd June, 2016!

NIGER DELTA REGION DESERVES A BETTER DEAL AS THE FOREX FOOD BASKET OF NIGERIA!

They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. (Psa 125:1)




I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

The Republic of Nigeria is called the “giant of Africa” only because of its population of over 200 million people; not because of exemplary leadership devoted to principles of democracy and social justice based on security and welfare of its people as a core responsibility!

Nigerian politicians since 1999 neither humbled themselves nor sought the face of God for the forgiveness of national sins and healing of the land soaked with tons of blood of innocent citizens who paid the supreme price during 30years of military aberration of the polity!

They were very desperate to have their portion of the “national cake” that they failed to scrutinize the “land mine” 1999 Military Constitution placed into the hands of a soldier-president to execute for Eight years following the “victory” of his party at the general elections supervised by his comrade-in-arms and were therefore alienated from his divine benevolence!

Beginning with institutional corruption which gave birth to insurgency, insurrection, civil disobedience, brigandage, banditry, kidnappings, 12-year-Boko Haram terrorism, farmers/pastoralists armed conflicts, brazen attacks on critical institutional infrastructures – including attempts to overrun some Governors’ Lodges – are the score cards of all consecutive political administrations of ONE PARTY SYSTEM till date!

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was hurriedly formed in 1998 after the demise of military maximum ruler/treasury looter with the aim of CONTINUITY because all pseudo political parties flowed into the MEGA PDP and the partying continued for 16 years when those who felt sidelined in the looting arrangement broke out to also hurriedly formed the All Progressives Congress (APC), which professed a CHANGE AGENDA – and they have all flowed into it to balance the equation!
The minority political leadership cared less about all negative international condemnation of Nigeria as the MOST CORRUPT/ POVERTY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD; THE DIRTIEST COUNTRY, THE MOST INSECURE COUNTRY TO DOMICILE ETC, ETC, but were only interested in accumulating their own share of the BLOOD MONEY at the expense of the vast majority of the poor masses whom the pretend to represent in government at all levels from Federal to States and the Local Government Areas (LGAs)!

IN PRESENT DAY NIGERIA, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!

The Minister of Defence and some Governors in the Federation have advised citizens to defend themselves in any case of attack by the criminal elements within the system because the security and welfare of the people was neither their concern nor primary objective and no wonder Nigeria’s ambitious neighbours - Cameroon Ambazonian renegades seeking to carve out a new settlement last week attacked unarmed and defenceless Nigerians in Taraba!

On Tuesday, 16th November 2021, suspected separatist Ambazonian group from Cameroon, invaded Nigeria’s North-East Taraba State, killed not less than five people, including the Chief of Manga border Village in the Takum Local Government and escaped without any form of confrontation or resistance BUT a ranking member of the National Assembly (NASS), Senate Ali Ndume described the horrendous attack as mere “communal clashes” between communities along the common border of both countries and also claimed that the incident should not be regarded as an external aggression against territorial integrity of Nigeria!
His vituperation was not unexpected because this Senator Ndume representing Bornu South Senatorial District was once alleged to have been one of the sponsors of the Islamist Boko Haram Terrorist in government – an accusation which he vehemently denied when interrogated by the State Security Service (SSS), in November 2014! He is now Chairman, Senate Committee on Army.

However, Chairman of Takum LGA, Taraba State, confirmed the armed invasion as an affront against the sovereignty of Nigeria and said several residents who fled were still missing following the deadly unprovoked attack! He emphasized that several people fell into the rivers while others climbed mountains for safety and added that casualty figure was uncertain and speculative at about nine or eleven!

According to other reports, this attack was not the first! In 2018, many of the Ambazonian separatists who crossed Nigeria borders to inflict mayhem on the defenceless and unarmed rural dwellers were accosted, arrested and detained by law enforcement agents in Nigeria, but were eventually released through diplomatic channels to the Cameroon Government for necessary disciplinary measures!

COULD THIS FRESH ATTACK BE REGARDED AS A REPRISAL AGAINST NIGERIA?

Nigeria covered an area of 923,769 square kilometres (or 356,669 square miles), before “Bakassi Peninsula” which lies between the Cross River estuary, close to the city of Calabar was ceded to neighbouring francophone Cameroon (bordering Nigeria on the east), by the International Court of Justice in August 2008, on the strength of a “Green Tree Agreement” between the two countries!

Several other encroachments had been recorded by Niger (northern border), Chad (north east), and Benin (western border); because the “helpless and corruption-drugged giant” has porous borders of over 450 un-manned all-comers entry points through which criminals and insurgents like the Ambazonians always had field days!

AMBAZONIA SEPARATIST LEADER SAYS ATTACK WAS MASTER-MINDED BY CAMEROON GOVERNMENT!

The separatist leader, Dr Cho Ayaba has claimed that his group was not involved in the attack which he claimed was masterminded by the Cameroonian Government which planned to portray the Ambazonians as Nigeria’s external enemies!

An Armed Forces Military base is believed to be stationed in Takum which always handled communal clashes and regularly deployed to flash points in the area which has no known delineation of land marks or walls/fencing demarcation possibly because of common historical antecedents between communities on both sides of the two countries - Cameroon and Nigeria!

Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant General Lucky Irabor, in a reaction to the Taraba invasion said the Nigerian Army was engaged across the nation and would definitely execute professionalism in all areas of assignment in spite commitments in 34 States of the Federation!

ANGLOPHONE SEPARATISTS DEMAND FOR AN INDEPENDENT STATE FROM CAMEROON!

Two Cameroons’ (North and South), existed up to 11th February, 1961, when the Muslim-majority North in a plebiscite opted for a union with Nigeria and its South counterpart voted to join French-speaking Republic of Cameroon with a population of 26.55 million on the Gulf of Guinea, according to a World Bank 2020 figure.
Octogenarian President Paul Biya (84), Africa’s oldest President, who is unconstitutionally having a third term in office has ruled Cameroon for 39 years (6th November, 1982 to date), and has lost all affection among the citizens except the Armed Forces, Gendarmes/Political jobbers who are supportive and very loyal to him!

Though Cameroon is a very small country in geographical size and economic status when compared to Nigeria but the disputed Bakassi Peninsular aggravated all areas of diplomatic relationship between the two countries because of the claim that the peninsular was endowed with large deposits of oil and natural mineral resources!

In those days before the International Court of Justice 2008 verdict in respect of Bakassi ownership went in their favour, the gendarmes were very aggressive against Nigerian rural dwellers of the peninsular whom they militarily attacked, illegally taxed and looted at random and went scot-free because they has official support!

Border incidents which worsened in the 1980s into the 1990s almost caused a full-scale war between the two countries until the Cameroonian Government filed litigation against Nigeria in 1994 at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and in spite of the fact that the judgment favoured them those gendarmes were always quick to attack Nigerian border communities at the slightest opportunity up to the year 2017 when the Ambazonians intensified their insurgency against Paul Biya’s Government!

WILL THE NIGERIAN EXECUTIVE UNDER THE WATCH OF PRESIDENT BUHARI MOPE WHILE CAMEROONIAN REBELS MURDER ITS CITIZENS IN COLD BLOOD?

Apart from Taraba State Governor and some Senators who have vehemently condemned the Takum invasion, the Federal Government’s reaction has not been made public but Mr. President’s body language through immediate deployment of large members of the armed forces to the affected areas had spoken loudest and from all indications those culprits would soon be fished out and punished right here in Nigeria!

Governor Darius Ishaku has disclosed that he would discuss details of the unfortunate incident with the President as soon as he had more facts adding that he had never kept quiet nor idle in respect of past incidents but had taken effective actions as the Chief Security Officer of the State!

NIGERIAN SOCIO-ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP WITH CAMEROON!

Bilateral trade relations between Nigeria and Cameroun in the past 24 year had been cordial in spite of the Bakassi dispute. Exports of Nigeria to Cameroon increased annually at 29.7% from USD$1.7million in 1995 to USD$889 million in 2019, the year when it exported USD$10.3 million worth of commodity into Nigeria!

Cameroon imports mineral fuels, oils, distillation products, tobacco, iron and steel, beverages, spirits, vinegar, fertilizers, plastics, vehicles, soaps, lubricants, electrical/electronic equipments etc, annually in millions of dollars and on regular bases. In 2018, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade, Cameroon imports from Nigeria was USD$342.2 million dollars.

THE GIANT AND THE SOLDIER ANT MUST CO-OPERATE TO ENSURE AFRICA REMAINED THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC DESTINATION OF THE 21ST CENTURY!

Was it not high time Presidents Buhari and Biya mend security fences through all diplomatic channels and nip in the bud all incursions from Cameroonian Gendarmes, Ambazonians into Nigeria once and for all! They MUST be called order without further delay!

The Nigerian Armed Forces are internationally acclaimed as an elite outfit that participate in peace-keeping operations and NEVER invasion of the territorial integrity of other nations therefore must not be dragged into unnecessary diplomatic row with Cameroon!

As for Nigeria’s very selfish and conceited political leaders, there could be no better time than now for them to REPENT and seek the face of God afresh through RESTITUTION ie, by voluntarily returning all aggrandized illicit monies including movable and immovable properties that have been illegally acquired to the TREASURY SINGLE ACCOUNT and to the Federal and State Governments in order to avoid the impending divine judgment upon all INIQUITIES OF MAN in the Earth which will be very devastating!

And for all Faithful Nigerians, be consoled with the Word of God Romans. 8: 18-25; that your present suffering and bondage will give way to freedom and eternal glory sooner that your expectation!



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

As Nigerians kept wondering why Major General Muhammadu Buhari, President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, increased his speed in junketing across the world, in spite of our debt portfolio which has hit a record high of USD$34billion, the Grapevine just quipped, “Maybe because of a very cogent reason that Estacode is the only Forex earner among his 18 Jumbo Official Allowances”!

The President and his Vice are entitled to the following allowances according to Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFA), which is empowered by Section 32(d) of Part I, Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
Apart of monthly salaries of NGN1, 171,568.00, and NGN1, 010,524.17, respectively, both men are also entitled to monthly: Hardship, Consistency allowances which run into thousands of Naira! Others are; Personal Assistant, Constituency, Vehicle fuelling/maintenance, Domestic staff, Entertainment, Recess, Newspaper/periodicals, Utilities, House maintenance, Security, Special assistance, Furniture, Wardrobe, Duty tour (per night), Accommodation, ESTACODE, and Medical Allowances, which are not published in the public domain!

Similar jumbo allowances are also paid to other political office holders of the National Assembly (NASS), State Governors, and perhaps some staff of the Judiciary, and MDAs Staff of less than 2 MILLION in population, who take the LION SHARE of the common patrimony while the WORK FORCE is abandoned to take their share through BRUTAL FORCE as it has unfolded in unbridled INSECURITY being perpetrated through terrorists, kidnappers, bandits, murderers, assassins gunmen, suicide bombers etc, under President Buhari’s watch!

AND in spite of the fact that Nigeria is in dire strait with this worst type of complicated insecurity and in spite of the truth that the President has just 18 months to retire from Aso Rock Villa, he had in his second term travelled SIX times – the latest being from 25th October-11th November, 2021, a period of about 15 days traversed North Africa’s Riyadh/Medina and Mecca, for an Investment Summit; to Glasgow, Scotland, for a Climate Change Summit, and in two days of his return, headed straight to France apart of earlier London journey for MEDICAL TOURISM (30th March, 2021 – 15TH April 2021), which kept him in Britain for 16 days! In 2021 alone he has travelled SIX TIMES outside of Nigeria and at least 52 TIMES SINCE 2015 to 2021 and had expended approximately NGN 4billion in the junketing having visited 30 countries cutting across Four Continents – including Africa!

THE FOREX VALUE OF ESTACODE ISVERY ENTICING!

Early in his first term between May 2015- January 2016, the President spent millions of the very scarce Naira in globe-trotting to Chad, Germany, France, Ghana, India, Iran, United States (twice); many of which should have been designated to his Vice, Ministers, Permanent Secretaries or even Political Aides and squandered the meagre resources left by the malfeasant PDP consecutive Administrations of 16 years!

OR were the foreign trips planned to generate a mass of estacode allowances in such hard times and possibly make up for the 50% Salary Cut which he ordered from his salary and that of his Vice?

BUT President Buhari once told an audience of the Oxford University that his frequent foreign trips were targeted at restoring NIGERIA’S BAD IMAGE caused through brutal military regimes just as Ex-President Aremu Obasanjo, who had a record of 97 foreign trips journey to his credit during his two terms (1999-2007), in office!

Estacode, a nomenclature for monetary travel allowance in Nigeria is a colonial heritage still in practice among Federal/State civil servants, politicians, diplomatic staff etc, on foreign official assignments!

Under the British Colonial masters, estacode was officially scrutinized by relevant agencies of government before formal payment was initiated and there was virtually no loophole for malpractices or manipulations but in 61 years of independence the process of implementation has been corrupted that it stinks to high heavens!

According to International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), estacodes released to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), under President Buhari’s watch from 2015-2021 stand at over NGN3.77billion!

This information was corroborated through the Currency Operations Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBNs), annual report of 2020, (released Thursday 4th November, 2021), which stated that a total amount USD$3.95 billion was procured in 2019 alone to fund estacode and personal travel allowances to MDAs and also to fund Bureaux De Change operations!

Allegations of gross abuses in the forms of over-bloated, forged, improvised, non-existent but faked journeys for purpose of fraudulently collecting Estacode Allowances during foreign travels in both the public/civil service had become house-hold gist in Nigeria but because no civil servant nor politician had been brought to justice the racket continued unabated while the Federal Government has approved a comprehensive review of the Financial Regulations in respect of the various allowances being enjoyed by personnel of the MDAs – including the estacode!

Presently, a Committee has been set up by the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), to consider, review and recommend appropriate Duty Tour, Estacode, Repatriation and Overtime allowances and also consider, review and recommend appropriate imprest amount for relevant public servants and political office holders.
Other allowances enjoyed by MDAs according to Rule 130102 include but not limited to: kilometre, disengagement, hotel accommodation, duty tour books, projects and overtime BUT without admitting glaring infractions of the estacode allowances, the Committee was also charged to recommend additional sanctions against infringements against financial regulations and extant laws!

QUESTION: What foreign socio-economic assistance have the poor masses of Nigerians gained from Buhari’s Government in SIX-AND-A-HALF-YEARS of his foreign jamboree of hand shaking/speech making other than increase in INSECURITY through the nation’s very porous borders!

UNITED ARAB EMIRATE arrested sponsors of terrorism in DUBAI but Mr. Buhari has not been able to arrest ONE single sponsor in his cabinet! TURKEY’S President came visiting the other day and asserted that some members of the Islamic terrorists who attempted to overthrow him on 15th July, 2016 were resident in Nigeria unknown to Buhari and his security outfits!

******Below are some excerpts of one of our past Editions: VOL. 5. NO. 130, dated 7th February, 2016.

PRESIDENT BUHARI SHOULD APPLY THE BRAKES ON FOREIGN SPACE SHUTTLES!

“The fact that President Muhammadu Buhari, had an impeccable antecedent, a humble and distinctive character, a charismatic personality and had always displayed a frugal and Spartan kind of life, in spite of being a soldier for an appreciable period of time could not be faulted by his antagonists, before, during and after the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria! In fact, PMB was and still is an acceptable and likeable global leader who had endeared to himself to the rich and the poor alike.

“Within the last eight months, President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), had made spirited efforts to bolster a new image as the Change crusader for the Nigerian Republic by attracting international attention for support in the areas of security, economy, the industry and general social welfare packages for the majority populace which had been suffocated with corruption as a way of life and could have drowned in the miry clay of national degradation without divine intervention at the last 2015 General Elections!

“The President had met with all of the world powers Presidents, Heads of States and Governments from all the continents throughout the globe and had solicited for all-round co-operation for the revival of the drowning “giant of Africa”
“But tongues are wagging on all sides of the political, social and economic divide, among the opposition and the social media of the TALAKAWAS who now wonder why it should take so many space-shuttles to get the country back on track – especially when ONE SPACE JOURNEY COSTS A WHOOPING US$350.000 – 500.000 million, all expenses paid - ESTACODES and sundry allowances of an enlarged 80-member presidential entourage at such an austere time according to “Black Market” foreign exchange auditors;

ANY GAINS FROM THE GLOBE-TROTTING?

“We did not criticize PMB’s 8-month international trips for the very plausible reasons that they were desirable for the much-needed co-operation mentioned in previous paragraphs and we were very correct in that Nigeria had become the beehive of foreign commercial investments by business entrepreneurs from all countries visited by the President.
.“In the meantime, Mr. President should delegate his overseas trips to his Vice and other diligent subordinates who will perform creditably and make him proud!

The President’s last journey to France was fraught with danger as it was reported that his aircraft landed amidst very bad weather but we thank God that his detractors did not have the luxury to rejoice over his demise because he is the LORD’S anointed President and deliverer for the nation of Nigeria for eight consecutive years of two terms (2015-2023)!”

BUHARI SHOULD STOP ALL FOREIGN TRIPS, AND TOUR THE 36 STATES OF NIGERIA INSTEAD!

CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER IS THAT THE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIME COMMISSION (EFCC), SHOULD BE ORDERED BY MR. PRESIDENT TO SEIZE ALL ESTACODE ALLOWANCES FOUND IN THE BANK ACCOUNTS OF ALL PRIVILEGED (1) MDA OFFICIALS; (2) THE ENTIRE EXECUTIVE BEGINNING FROM MR. PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET; (3) NASS LEGISLATORS (4) ALL STATE GOVERNORS AND THEIR CABINET MEMBERS; (5) ALL LOCAL GOVERNMENT CHAIRMEN AND THEIR COUNCILLORS; AND REPATRIATE SUCH INTO THE FEDERATION ACCOUNT TO PAY OFF SOME OF THE MONIES BORROWED FROM THE FOREIGN COUNTRIES IN ORDER TO LEAVE A GOOD LEGACY BEHIND!

NO OFFICER IS EXPECTED TO SAVE UNUSED ESTACODES IN THEIR BANK ACCOUNTS BUT MUST DECLARE THE SURPLUS TO THE ACCOUNTING OFFICERS WHO IN TURN MUST REPATRIATE THEM ACCORDINGLY! The Eighth Commandment in Exodus. 20:15 says, “Thou shalt not steal”! We shall all give account of our stewardship to GOD at the appointed time!.



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

The Federal Government has formally admitted that foreign loans are seamlessly scammed from the Central Bank of Nigeria by economic saboteurs who sold them to Bureau de Change (BDC), operators and who in turn sold the foreign exchange to criminals who use it to import weapons to harm Nigerians and promote different forms of terrorism!
According to CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, the institution under his watch “won’t support the corrupt tendencies of those who illegally buy dollars from our forex market, carry them in aircraft, buy arms and ammunition and bring them back into the country and conduct crimes. Whether it Boko Haram, banditry and other nefarious activities!”
Emefiele who made the startling revelation at the Monetary Policy Committee meeting held in Abuja on Friday 17th September, 2021, also queried, “Why will CBN give people our forex to go and buy arms? And this is what people want us to continue to do. We cannot do that,” he added. Earlier he had disclosed that unpatriotic Nigerians purchased forex from CBN but end up selling them to BDC that promote illegal activities and who are involved in graft and corrupt practices.

PURPOSES OF FOREIGN LOANS!
And whereas foreign loans should have injected fresh life into the very heart beat of Nigeria’s economy, support Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMSEs) to flourish under the watch of the National Economic Council (NEC), and provide succor for the generality of the masses who suffer the brunt of maladministration at every turn of events!
Without expatriate loan, the Federal Government could neither plan annual Mid Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), activities nor execute regular Budgets!
BUT all critical infrastructures in the various sectors of the economy, which should produce basic necessities of life have remained comatose because scammers in government regard loans as veritable sources of corruption!

ADMINISTRATIVE INTERVENTION FROM THE NCC!

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), a Federal Government Agency had since August 2021, consistently warned citizens to BEWARE of Cyber Scammers who were on the rampage to rob citizens’ accounts through dubious financial offers!
One NCC Cyber Alert read, “DO NOT carry out financial, transactions or any activity you consider sensitive on public WiFi. Your data can be stolen. #BeCyberAware.”
Another warned: “Do not click on links offering free credit, Data, Gifts, Lottery Wins, etc. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is!” #BeCyberAware.”
And yet another sms alerted the citizens in similar manner: “DO NOT respond to any call/message that says you get a bonus after making a number of financial transactions. It is a SCAM!” #BeCyberAware.”

WE regard all of the above advertisements as NCC’s corporate social responsibility initiative which should portray it as a caring and responsible outfit; BUT IT TURNED BLIND EYE TO THE EXPOSURE OF THE most offensive, obnoxious and worst SCAMMERS who are the very corrupt key players at both the Federal and State levels of Government and who are OBSESSED with the idea that POLITICS is the surest avenue to get wealthy overnight without QUERY FROM ANY QUARTERS!
AND IN THEIR DESPERATION, HAVE MORTGAGED THE DESTINY of present and unborn generations with A CURRENT DEBT BURDEN OF N33.107 TRILLION NAIRA (about USD$87.239 billion dollars), AS AT 31ST MARCH 2021, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO)!

ALSO between the end of March 2021 (Quarter 1), and July-September (Q 3, 2021), the Federal Government under the watch of PMB has made fresh overture through the National Assembly (NASS), on 14th September, 2021, for additional foreign loans to the tune of USD$4 BILLION DOLLARS and 710 Euros?
BUT surprisingly, NCC, under the watch of the untouchable Minister of Communications, ISA PANTAMI, did NOT alert citizens that the worst scammer was the Federal Government because he would not want to lose his job!

ALL LOANS ARE BEING “SERVICED ANNUALLY”, NOT PAID BACK!

The deficit-riddled and debt-ridden 2021 Federal budget which totaled N13.6trillion naira was not only higher by 26% above the N10.8 trillion 2020 figures but DEBT SERVICING financing was thrice above total allocation to Education and Health combined at 24.5% of the total budget!
New borrowings were 12% higher than 2020 levels at N4.7trillion naira, shared equally between domestic/foreign.
Projected internally-generated revenues, over the years had been very infinitesimal due to over-dependence on oil and gas above agriculture/natural mineral resources AND for budget year 2021, it was not clearly specified but believed would be 37% higher than 2020 through increase in oil prices and sundry incomes from revenue-generating agencies, taxes etc.

DOMESTIC DEBT- FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S SHARE!

Federal Government’s share includes FGN Bonds, SUKUK and Green Bonds used to finance infrastructure and other capital projects as well as the N940.220 billion Promisory Notes!
Source: Debt Management Office (DMO) of Nigeria .

HOW MUCH LOAN HAS BUHARI COLLECTED IN SIX YEARS?

From China alone Buhari’s Government has borrowed N830 Billion or USD$2.02 dollars and still counting!
Who will pay back all these loans?

WHAT SAYS THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT IN RESPECT OF BORROWING?

All of the above boil down to the fact that the 1999 Military Constitution bequeathed to the people of Nigeria has metamorphosed into a yahoo worksheet document that makes millionaires of deft/smart politicians who capitalize on loopholes deliberately created through quasi-conspiracy by the duo to perpetually keep dumb Nigerians in servitude by playing them on their Corruption Chessboard and by MIGRATING seamlessly through wholesale DEFECTION unchallenged from one political to another in spite of the unconstitutionality of the process!

THREE PDP STATES: EBONYI, CROSS RIVER AND ZAMFARA, MOVE EN-MASS TO APC AND CELEBRATED BY PRESIDENT BUHARI!
AND OF ALL PEOPLE FANI KAYODE ALSO?
Controversial politician, Femi Fanikayode defected to APC from PDP in spite of his BRAGGADOCIO! “Kaka ka dobale fun Gambari ka kuku ku!” [ It is preferable for a Yoruba man to die than prostrate before a northerner!]
FOREX EXCHANGE LATEST – As at the date of this publication forex rate was N570 naira to USD$1 dollar!
BUT MUST THE MAN OF INTEGRITY, PRESIDENT BUHARI LEAD THE BAND WAGON OF THE SCAMMERS AS APC ENDORSES PMB’S ADDICTED BORROWINGS?
The fresh USD$ 4 Billion AND 710 Euro external loan being sought by Nigeria’s addicted borrower, President Muhammadu Buhari, and which is generating massive public condemnation has been laid before the National Assembly (NASS), for consideration and urgent approval in spite of the fact that his All Progressives Congress (APC), has only 20 months to get booted out of office!
Party members, who had beneficiaries of all previous loans [external/internal], have given thumbs up for the retired military Major General whom they described as a man of integrity who would deploy the “gbese” (debt), to finance (1) development projects, (2) critical infrastructure projects for economic growth, (3) create jobs in the nation’s interest, (4) to reduce poverty and (5) improve the general well-being of the citizenry!

FINANCE MINISTER CONCURS WITH APC!

In August 2021 the Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, claimed that the borrowing level at 23% of GDP was quite sensible and responsible. She also claimed that government borrowed to invest in critical infrastructure, including power, water roads and rails required to enhance business productivity in the country in accordance with Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, No. 31 Section 3 (1a-e).

BUHARI GOVERNMENT HAS NO CLEAR STRATEGIES TO SAVE THE AILING ECONOMY!

There are no clear national strategies nor major investments to justify APC CLAIMS in spite of all the propaganda and shenanigans! – There MUST be deep cut in EXPENDITURES at all level of government from the Executive –Legislature –Judiciary; from the Federal through to the States and the Local Government Areas (LGAs)!
FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME, WE DEMAND THAT COST OF PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE BE CAST OVERBOARD THROUGH THE DISBANDMENT OF THE SENATE BEFORE 2023!
Nigeria should opt for a PARLIAMENTARY system from 2023 with a reduced membership of 74!
There should be a very CLEAR INDUSTRIAL CUM NATIONAL STRATEGY BASED ON massive investments and PRODUCTION!
It has become imperative that international and foreign lenders should BLACKLIST NIGERIA FROM FURTHER BORROWINGS!

“For the LORD thy God blesseth thee as He promised thee; and thou shalt lend onto many nations but thou shall not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations but they shall not rule over thee.”
NIGERIA WILL NOT BE RE-COLONIZED OVER DEBT BURDENS IN JESUS NAME. .

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

The President MUST bequeath a worthy and lasting LEGACY to Nigerians at all costs in spite of the very glaring, chaotic security challenges, coupled with a virtually failed economy and a humongous impunity-driven institutional corruption – the type that has never been witnessed in any country of the world to date!

In contemporary classification, legacy should be associated with social service at any level of life in which diligent, outstanding, deliberately-planned and comprehensive achievements, designed to positively touch millions of lives from one generation to another is engendered!

About two-and-a-half years ago, precisely at the end of March, 2019, President Buhari declared that he needed the support of a totally-discredited National Assembly (NASS), in order “to leave behind a good legacy after his eight years in office” instead of seeking the FACE OF GOD to discard the MIXED MULTITUDE of 2015 marriage of strange bed-fellows which have destroyed what was left of his acclaimed “integrity”!

IS IT NOT OBVIOUS THAT THE “ARM OF FLESH” HAS FAILED MR. PRESIDENT?

Can the President build a sound legacy on FALSEHOOD? When he took over in 2015, the Boko Haram, insurgency which was about SIX years old had strong tentacles in Bornu State, North East Nigeria, where it controlled 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs), with the Islamic Caliphate Flags flying at FULL MAST!
Nigerians believed that the old General wiped out the scoundrels within Five months of his investiture according to official sources from the Military but it turned out to be CLASSICAL FALSEHOOD because the INDIGENES faulted the claim!

PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN, GARBA SHEHU, BLAMED SLAIN FARMERS FOR FAILING TO REQUEST MILITARY PERMISSION!

Seventy-six Bornu State Village farmers were gruesomely slaughtered on their FARMS on Saturday 28th November 2020, by Boko Haram terrorists, close to Zarbamari for” daring to arrest and handing over one of its brothers to the Nigerian soldiers!” BUT while the nation grieved and mourned, Mr. Garba Shehu in an interview with BBC, blamed the unfortunate and dead victims for failing to OBTAIN MILITARY CLEARANCE from Federal soldiers who would have given them security cover!

THE MIRACLE 2021 GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)!

In spite of the general uproar over inept performances of the APC Government: The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), has claimed a GDP growth of 5.01% in Quarter 2 of 2021 and just like when Mr. President appended his signature on a 20-year processed Petroleum Industry Bill and received a “STANDING OVATION”, he and his handlers ALONE are already rejoicing over the Thursday 26th August, 2021, NBS report which states that Nigeria’s “economy” grew by 5.01%, year-on-year in the second Quarter!

According to that report the 5.01% marked “three consecutive quarters of growth” following the negative growth rates recorded in the second and third quarters of 2020; because the Q2 2021 growth rate was higher than the -6.10% growth rate recorded in Q2 2020, and the 0.51% recorded in Q1 2021, year-on-year.

NBS has attributed the “miracle growth” to the return of normalcy to business and economic environment prior to Covid-19 related restrictions coupled with gradual commercial activity which encouraged local and international travels noticed since the end of 2020. How did the “magic” occur? According to another NBS report in 2020, the Nigerian economy recorded a SECOND RECESSION after the 2016 occurrence in Q3 which ended in September 2020!

According to the agency, the 2020 recession was the worst since 1987 as the GDP in real terms declined by 3.62% (year on year) in the third quarter of 2020 in the oil and non-oil sectors and claimed that the recession was driven by the ‘’long closure’’ of the Nigerian borders which restricted economic movement across borders
Q. Which report should we believe, considering current super high inflation of goods and services and the nation’s heavy debt burden?

GENERALS ABACHA AND BABANGIDA LEGACIES!

Late General Sanni Abacha’s, (Nigeria’s Head of State, 1993-1998), style of treasury-looting broke all criminal records in the annals of the history of human ingenuity in financial crimes till date!

The day before President Aremu Obasanjo’s investiture (28th May, 1999), ex-General Abacha’s successor, Abdusalami Abubakar (also an ex-General), published in the Official Gazette a list of items worth over USD$ 1 BILLION DOLLARS seized from the family and top aides of the late military maximum ruler which included:

About USD$800 dollars in CASH!
Estates in Nigeria and Holdings in Sierra Leonian Refineries. BUT that list was limited for lack of details in that SEVERAL MILLIONS of US Dollars have been further recovered from several countries of the world, by successive democratic administrations since 1999 to date!
The incumbent APC Administration in February 2020, also discovered another ABACHA LOOT of USD $321 million dollars starched away in the Island of Jersey and others in the United States which We strongly believe MUST have been recovered by now SINCE ALL RECOVERED ABACHA LOOTS ARE YET TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY THE BUHARI ADMINISTRATION!

WHAT HAPPENED DURING EX- GENERAL BABANGIDA’S REGIME? EXCERPTS FROM PAGE TWO OF OUR 338TH EDITION OF 2ND FEBRUARY, 2020.

“The military economic policy of almost 30 years was a total disaster! It was characterised by institutional corruption of the highest degree – especially during Babangida’s era when “the doctrine of cash settlement” was very prominent to keep him on seat in transition to democratic presidency! He annulled the results of elections of June 12 1993, Presidential elections, because it did not favour their candidate!

Having successfully deposed, General Muhammadu Buhari and Brigadier ‘Tunde Idiagbon, whom Nigerians believed would restore national confidence for an improved economy, Babangida exhibited gross incompetence through mismanagement of resources which led to institutional decay, increased poverty, with its ripple effect in crimes and insecurity

“There was a reckless neglect of the non-oil agricultural sector/ natural mineral extraction for dependence on crude oil exports and importation of refined petroleum products and exotic food items through the private sector participation to the detriment of made-in-Nigeria products while huge chunk of foreign-exchange earnings was spent on debt servicing!
“Under the watch of General Babangida (1985-1993), about USD$ 12 billion earned from an oil windfall during the Gulf War was reportedly mismanaged!”

*****BUT in a recent interview during his 80th birthday anniversary, the “MARADONA” said that the corruption credited to his administration was A CHILD’S PLAY, compared to THE BUHARI’S SIX YEARS IN OFFICE!

BUHARI’S LEGACY SHOULD BE “PEACE THROUGH REFERENDUM”!
BUHARI COULD BEQUEATH THE BEST LEGACY IF HE WOULD CHAMPION AND FAST-TRACK THE DRAFTING AND APPROVAL OF A BRAND NEW CONSTITUTION, SHUT THE SENATE AND OPT FOR A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM OF 74 MEMBERS ETC, THROUGH REFERENDUM WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY! NOW! NOW! NOW!

PRESIDENT BUHARI MUST PRIORITIZE THE FOLLOWING CITIZENS’ DEMANDS!

All official PADDINGS during financial, monetary, and fiscal allocations/appropriations – among the three tiers – Executive, Legislative and the Judiciary, especially during Budget preparation, defence, approval and execution, MUST be totally blocked through meticulous, painstaking and monitoring by righteous and trusted citizens w.e.f 2022 Fiscal Year!

Senate must be scrapped on or before 29th May, 2023! Buhari must achieve this feat through REFERENDUM without recourse to the current NASS!
House of Representative members must be reduced from 360 to 74 members by 29th May, 2023 and placed on civil service salary structure!

Legislative processes must commence HENCEFORTH to establish:
STATE POLICE ADMINISTRATIONS in all 36 States of the Federation according to one of the 13 recommendations of the 23-Member El Rufai Restructuring Committee of January 2018, which is now TWO YEARS, EIGHT MONTHS OLD!
Derivation Principles.
Fiscal federalism and revenue allocation.
Devolution/De-centralisation of powers from Federal to States.
Resource control (exploitation and revenue sharing of resources from oil/minerals) through the proposed BRAND NEW CONSTITUTION.
Local Government Authority (LGA) autonomy.
Application of REFERENDUM to decide all the CONTENTIOUS National or State issues.
The non-inclusion of INDEPENDENT CANDIDACY which MUST preclude citizens from being compulsorily forced to join political parties – must be inserted in the new constitution to accommodate all interested citizens to vie for political offices at ELECTIONS. All of the above recommendations MUST be implemented by President Buhari without further delay if he TRULY WANTS TO LEAVE BEHIND A GOOD LEGACY WHEN HE DEPARTS OFFICE ON 29TH MAY 2023, WHICH IS: ONE-YEAR-AND-FOUR- MONTHS FROM SEPTEMBER, 2021!

“ When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. ‘’(Prov 29:2)


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

NIGER DELTA MILITANTS SHOULD NOT ROCK THE BOAT! - Dr David Olufon.



There seems to be a bi-partisan consensus that incumbent President did a yeoman’s job by giving assent to the aged Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), BUT Niger Delta militants who rejected some contents of the Bill which they claimed were unfavourable to the region as prepared by the current National Assembly (NASS), have plans to “HUMBLE THE ECONOMY” through resumption of bombings of pipelines and strategic oil installations!

And whereas Nigeria’s economy is in a dire strait! Unemployment rate is at 33.3%, while double digit inflation of goods and services was at 17% in the Quarter 1 of 2021, and risen to 17.28% in Quarter 2. The country’s debt profile of N32.9 trillion naira in Quarter 1 is still rising because the APC government of President Buhari still borrows with IMPUNITY!

On 19th August, 2021, the Federal Government disclosed that it would borrow N5.6trillion naira to fund the 2022 Budget while it is indebted to the WORLD BANK in the sum of US$11.19 billion dollars! DEBT SERVICING was summed up at 24% of the 2021 (N13.5trillion naira), Budget!

Definitely, this is not an opportune time to burst, destroy or blow up pipelines in order to HUMBLE Nigeria’s economy according to THREATS made by the militant Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), now headed by a woman leader credited to be a top notch member of the group’s ELITE STRIKE FORCES which attacked and brought down the Chevron Valve Platform on 4th May, 2016, and the Shell Forcados 48-inch Export line on the 3rd of June, 2016, and the Exxon Mobil Qua Iboe 48 Crude Oil Pipeline on the 11th July, 2016!

DID PRESIDENT BUHARI STUDY THE PIB BEFORE APPENDING HIS SIGNATURE?

Although the President thought he was very clever to score cheap political points by quickly assenting to the very controversial, defective, contentious and bungled Petroleum Industry Bill which history credited with 20 years journey from the first to the ninth National Assembly from ex-Olusegun Obasanjo, PDP 1999 to the current APC 2021 administrations, he has inadvertently exposed the fact that he did not thoroughly study the DOCUMENT before putting pen to paper having served as a Military Minister of Petroleum!

BUT in continuation of his belief that he was on the right track has set up a 8-man Implementation Committee which OMITTED the Vice President, Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), will work for 12 months to actualize the smooth running the new Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which WILL NOW provide adequate legal framework and enabling regulatory provisions for the otherwise mumbo-jumbo all-comers enterprise of several decades which had made multi billionaires of thousands of Nigerians; in the military and among the politicians of consecutive governments, including portfolio investors, private entrepreneurs, not excluding “hangers on”/political jobbers in the corridors of power!

THE “BUCK” STOPS AT THE PRESIDENT’S TABLE!

We are much aware that no amount of protests, criticisms, castigations, condemnations demands, ultimatums or free offer of solutions by patriotic citizens of this great nation ever had any positive impact on President Buhari and his selected CABAL, We need to inform him that, this PIA could be his ALBATROSS if he turned deaf ears to GENUINE DEMANDS of the Niger Delta Youths and continue to live the life of Emperor NERO of ROME, who dinned and wined when his country was on FIRE in 64 AD!

FACTS ON GROUND!

The oil-rich Niger Delta Region comprising of the South-South States of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers, have been the most degraded and environmentally-abused and devastated – with much emphasis on the OGONI LAND of Rivers State which attracted United Nations intervention since 2015, but with nothing to show for it in 2021! QUESTION: Is the President aware that Crude Oil from this region provides up 75% of Nigeria’s export earnings and when combined with Natural Gas extractions, rose to 97% of the nation’s Foreign Exchange revenue annual budget input as the major FOREIGN EXCHANGE earner BUT that in spite of the meagre allocation of 13% revenue of taxes on oil and other natural resources according to derivation formula to the region and other oil-producing States in South East/West, traumatized citizens of the region died daily of horrible environmental pollution of its worst type?
While We do not deny the fact that consecutive Federal Government Administrations fulfilled regular constitutional deductions of the 13% Derivation formula, allocated special funds to the multi-faceted development programmes of the region through Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), to the tune of N9.43 trillion naira between 1999 to 2019, a period of 20 years, a lot still needed to be done through the new PIA , which should bring sanity to the Region!
However, the 30% of NNPC profits recommended by the new PIA to fund exploration activities in frontier basis is untenable, unworkable and very unrealistic for the very reason of this supposition that: If NNPC for some unexplainable but obvious reasons did not make profits at a particular season then, does it that translate to the fact that the said frontier basins would become grounded and comatose?
Another area of contention is the Host Communities Development funding demand of 5% in the Bill but now reduced to 3% in the assented Act! According to Clause 240 (2), the SETTLOR (i.e. operator of an oil licence), should pay 3% of total profits to Host Communities for development while operators MUST prevent environmental pollution and gas flaring BUT provide immediate remedial safety measures in case of unforeseen incidents!
The clamour for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) aka. “Nigerian Towers of Corruption”, to be UNBUNDLED, received attention in the new Act at last! Clause 53 has mandated the Minister of Petroleum, (by implication, Mr. President), to incorporate NNPC as a Limited Liability Company with 100% Federal Government share ownership NOT later than SIX MONTHS of coming into effect of the new Act for it to operate in accordance with the Companies and Allied Matters Act. (CAMA).

IT IS GOOD NEWS THAT SOME LAWS ARE NOW IN PLACE TO REGULATE THE UPSTREAM, MIDSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM SECTORS OF THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY BUT OUR CANDID OPINION IS THAT CONTENTIOUS AREAS SHOULD BE FINE-TUNED DURING THE 12-MONTH PERIOD OF PREPARATION FOR IMPLEMENTATION!

THE OLD ORDER MUST NOW GIVE WAY TO THE NEW!

Can the President who doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources unequivocally inform Nigerians and the international community the exact figure of oil being lifted from Nigeria per day? IS THERE ANY FORM OF METERING TO ENSURE TRANSPARENCY, PRUDENCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE DEPOTS ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL BEST PRACTICE?

Investigative journalism has revealed that from time immemorial, official lifting bays and volume of lifted crude oil was TOP SECRET to the presidency and so was the allocation/award by Mr. President of OIL LICENCE, OIL RIGS, OIL WELLS to very special individuals which had been the exclusive but unconstitutional right of the number one man who made billionaires of his chosen friends at his whim and caprice AS MINISTER OF PETROLEUM!

AND the creeks militants and their collaborators also resorted to lifting their own portion of crude, refine and sell them through bunkering to ready markets! It is on record that the Army, Naval, Police and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), operatives carried out several raids on identified illegal refineries in those terrains but no meaningful arrests nor successful prosecution of offenders could be fingered in all these past years! According to some reports, official collusion with the criminals changed the operation plan!

MILITANCY AT THE CREEKS FROM OBASANJO TO YAR ‘ARDUA!

Militancy was at its highest peak when the late President Umaru Yar ‘Adua assumed office in 2007, but he was quick to identify the solution through granting of a GENERAL AMNESTY in which all militant groups in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria “lay down” their arms in 2007 to save the economy which was almost grounded through co-ordinated pipe line vandalization!

NIGER DELTA YOUTHS SHOULD DIRECT THEIR ENERGY TO WINNING ELECTIONS AT ALL LEVELS IN 2023!

The future of this nation belongs to Nigerian Youths and We will continue to encourage them to close ranks and FLUSH OUT all the old generation who have held on to power since 1999 till date with their collective VOTES!

No meaningful victory is ever achieved through violence! NDA and other militant groups should “sheath their swords” and strategize collectively to give to helpless innocent Nigerians a peaceful Nigeria of their dreams!

“Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’’ (Zech 4:6)


I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

The coming on board in the next year of the US$12 billion dollars 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), of Dangote Integrated Refinery and Petrochemical Complex Lagos, would no doubt complement the dwindling fortunes of the Federal Government in the oil/gas sector, which had been badly affected by the effects of the Covid 19 Pandemic on international oil price which crashed to its lowest ebb in almost two years!

BUT should the citizens rejoice over this “industrial feat” when developed nations are moving speedily to embrace renewable energy through environmental-friendly and modern sources of wind turbine and solar photovoltaic (pv), cells which convert solar energy into electricity!

Are the adamant and stubborn oil prospectors of the Northern States elated when at any slight opportunity Niger Delta citizens always boasted of contributing the largest share to the nation’s foreign reserves and its resources to develop infrastructures in other parts of the country?

And for all those claims, passionate northern leaders at the seat or corridors of power had been relentless with the obsession to continue the exploration of oil which was aggressively pursued in most Northern States throughout the 30-year military aberration in Nigeria with a view to confound those Southerners who believed that Niger Delta had monopoly of the God-given natural resource!

Some antagonists of the 1914 Amalgamation have claimed that the second coup-de-tat master-minded by the soldiers of the Northern extraction in July 1966, was a deliberate strategy to grab power at the centre with a view to elevate the region’s culture of civilization their region to a level which would be at par or very close to its Southern Siamese twin through massive oil exploration (if it were possible), in all Northern States!
It is a general belief that the CRUDE OIL endowment of the Southern States had in no small way contributed to its modern development – especially when the South-South indigenes kept drumming it down that they were “feeding the North with their oil money”!

Although it is a constitutional right through the Exclusive Legislative List that the Federal Government should control/disbursement of the proceeds from all Extraction/Exploration activities in any part of Nigeria (on-shore, off-shore), even when the bulk of crude oil is gotten in commercial quantity in the Niger Delta, was it not logical that the principle of derivation and resource control should have been applicable to the region?

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S SUDDEN INVESTMENT IN DANGOTE’S REFINERY IS A SHOCKING SURPRISE!

AUGUST 4, 2021: (1) FEC approved $1.5 billion to rehabilitate Kaduna/Warri Refineries; (2)FG invests $2.76 billion in Dangote Refinery; (3) FG approves Acquisition of 20% minority stakes by NNPC in Dangote Petroleum and Petro-Chemical Refinery!

NNPC Group Managing Director is already celebrating the Dangote debut as he claimed that with its 650,000 bpd and Nigeria’s 445,000 bdp combined refineries and other modular refineries, the nation would be at an advantage to supply petroleum products legitimately across Africa and other parts of the world!

The rational or wisdom behind the sudden FEC decisions which would still involve a lot of external borrowings at a time when the nation is neck deep in all manner budgetary debts is yet to be explained by government!

Historians were correct to have posited that Northern Nigeria since the geographical marriage still lagged behind in all areas of socio-economic developments because it focused more on Islamic rather than Western Education!

The jihad of the Fulani War in 1804 by Usman Dan Fodio, debuted the Sokoto Caliphate, North West, (1806-1906), and further heightened the resolve of the average Northerner to embrace Islamic studies, capitalize in commercial activities including trade-by-barter with the neighboring countries of Benin, Chad, Cameroon, Niger not excluding North African countries of Sudan and Egypt in the Horn of Africa!

There was also the influence of Kanem and Bornu Empires of the North East (1810-1893), which encouraged trans-Saharan trade, firmly entrenched Islam and pilgrimages to Mecca were commonplace!

NATURAL MINERAL DEPOSITS FAVOR IGRs!

BUT the good news is that outside of CRUDE OIL EXPLORATION all 36 States and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), are divinely favored with various mineral deposits that can be commercially harnessed for Internally Generated Revenues (IGRs)!

Nigerian geologists have confirmed discovery of over 40 types of mineral resources and that at least THREE solid mineral types ranging from: Iron Ore, Gypsum, Talc, Lead, Zinc, Bitumen, Coal, Bentonite, Barite, Marble, Gold, Silver, to OIL & GAS, Granite, Lithium, Gemstones, Iron, Ore, Lead, Salt Tin, Limestone etc, can be harnessed in each State!

HOWEVER the current Oil Producing States (2021), are only 9 out of 36 – Abia (South East), Akwa Ibom (South-South), Bayelsa (South South), Delta, (South South), Imo (South East), Lagos (South West), Edo (South South), Ondo (South West), Rivers (South South). However, 80% of the total crude oil produced among the nine identified States flow from South South’s Akwa Ibom, (31.4%); Bayelsa (18.07%) Delta (21.56%) and Rivers (21.43%)!

OIL EXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTHERN STATES!

As far back as the early 1970s, Military Administrations had engaged in crude oil exploration and had claimed success in the 1990s but not until October 2019 that NNPC officially came out boldly to confirm the discovery of hydrocarbon deposits in Kolmani River II Well on the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin, North East, which was flagged off by President Muhammadu Buhari, on 2nd February, 2019! According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), was engaged in the computation of hydrocarbon volume and would in due course commence the drilling of additional dwells to determine full evaluation of the hydrocarbon volume in the Gogola Basin.The Federal Government-owned News Agency also disclosed that the Gongola Basin discovery would attract foreign investment, generate employment for the people to earn income and increase government revenues.
NIGERIA DISCOVERS ONE BILLION BARRELS OF CRUDE OIL IN THE NORTH EAST ZONE!A new discovery of crude oil in the North East totaling about One Billion barrels was announced on 12th February, 2020, Minister of State for Petroleum, at the close of that year’s Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS), held in Abuja, FCT.The Minister believed that with the evaluation of that kind of figure, the geological structure of the region portends that with more exploration a lot of oil still remained to be discovered in Nigeria.

THE HEALTHY RIVALRY BETWEEN NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN NIGERIA TO INCREASE THE VOLUME OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS THROUGH THE CONSTRUCTION OF MORE REFINERIES IS AN ASSERTION THAT NIGERIANS WOULD HAVE TO LIVE WITH FOSSIL EMISSION/ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION FOR DECADES TO COME!

‘’The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it’’. (Prov 10:22)

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.