PMB’s New Year address, which I have read, is embarrassingly  banal, uninspiring, empty, myopic, unrealistic and bereft of any benefit of historical dynamics. It is an unfortunate metaphor for one who has lost total touch with the people and their aching pulse. The speech comes straight from stone-age Ostralopithecus verbiage that never showed any gravitas, sincerity of purpose and honest admission of abysmal failure, total directionlessness and cluelessness in the current opaque governance of the country. It mirrored the internal contradictions in his government. It never talked about nor told Nigerians what he is doing about the putrifying and oozing corruption squarely located within his government, with overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence against fat untouchable cows who have been indicted, but left unprosecuted.

PMB, in his speech, dismissed with a wave of the hand the genuine and shrill cries of majority of Nigerians for an immediate restructuring of our fundamentally flawed federal system of government, which is actually unitarian in nature and operation. He, unfortunately, could not decipher that restructuring is different from processes and that it could be carried out, whether in a presidential or parliamentary system. He killed it even while his APC’s committee report on same is being awaited. 

I couldn’t believe His Excellency could muster enough courage to blame helpless and hapless Nigerians for allegedly being impatient in expectation of good governance after two years and nine months of his becoming President, with approximately only one more year to another election! Can someone help me remind His Excellency that he and his APC voluntarily entered into a written contract with the Nigerian people, in their manifesto and road map charter, with about 41 mouth-watering ELDORADO PROMISES that completely hoodwinked Nigerians to queue behind him?

When he was accused of not possessing school certificate qualification or its equivalent, Nigerians fired back that it didn’t matter, that they were satisfied if all PMB had was a  mere Agege bread or NEPA bill tag. Such was the ululation and sheer passion that when he was pronounced winner, one Nigerian actually trekked from Lagos to Abuja in solidarity, while another rode a bicycle from Kaduna to Lagos. Alas, the promises and hopes of a better tomorrow have since become a mirage, reminding one of Julius Caesar’s “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” PMB even audaciously blamed imaginary heartless Nigerians for the unexpected shortage of fuel and gas that grounded Nigeria for weeks and forced helpless Nigerians to spend their entire Yuletide days and nights at filling stations for non-existent fuel that had been mindlessly and criminally diverted by roguish government officials to their cronies and highest bidders. He surprisingly exonerated a colourless, rudderless and corruption-laden NNPC that is not accountable to the Nigerian people. PMB failed to do an honest self-introspection, to discover that he, as the substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources (since he could not trust any other Nigerian honest enough to head the ministry), has woefully failed Nigerians.

While discussing the insecurity that has since exacerbated under his very nose and close watch, he NEVER for once mentioned, even by way of passing remark, innuendo or allusion, rampaging and vanquishing herdsmen that have since overtaken Boko Haram in terms of their deadly potency and limitless capacity to murder, pillage and spill innocent blood. He simply, as is now legendary with him, passed the buck of every national malaise. He incredulously blamed everyone and everything else, except himself, for the unprecedented divisiveness in Nigeria today, the increasing ethno-religious strife, loud self-determination agitations, mass suffering, starvation, squalor, melancholy, hopelessness, regrets, gnashing of teeth, chaos and near anarchy that Nigeria has descended into under his government.

How can ordinary, unarmed oil merchants and marketers be blamed for unavailable fuel when government holds both the knife and the yam, the stick and the carrot? Has PMB’s visionless “advisers” (who falsely dress him in the garb of redemptive messianism) and his large army of hero worshippers and deity appeasers ever read about ex-American President Harry Truman’s immortal words that “the buck stops on my table”? Nearly half of the speech was wasted on discussion of railway projects, which do not add value to immediate issues about hunger, mass unemployment and Nigerians’ bare desire to survive. The more I read the speech, the more I am convinced that Nigeria is in real trouble. I wish Nigerians a prosperous new year.

When apc swindled Nigerians with mouth-watering eldorado promises

Introduction

Last week, we presented 30 of APC’s 41 mouth-watering Eldorado promises that completely inebriated and hoodwinked Nigerians into voting for it. Indeed, the APC presidential aspirant (now President Buhari) vowed, “This document sets out our side of the bargain. The things I, as your future President, want to do to change Nigeria for the better.”

Today, we complete the cycle of odious lies of the APC government in their 2015 swindling of Nigerians with fake mouth-watering promises that have been honoured in breach than in observance. Read on: 

Create 20,000 jobs per state immediately for those with a minimum qualification of secondary school leaving certificate and who participate in technology and vocational training. Page 4; place the burden of proving innocence in corruption cases on persons with inexplicable wealth. Page 7; pursue legislation expanding forfeiture and seizure of assets laws and procedure with respect to inexplicable wealth, regardless of whether there is a conviction for criminal conduct or not. Page 7; provide free tertiary education to students pursuing Science and Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Page 9; provide free tertiary education to education majors and stipends prior to their employment as teachers. Page 9; create incentives and dedicate special attention to the education of girls. Page 9; ensure every child attending primary school is properly nourished and ready to learn by providing a Free Meal a Day. Page 9; achieve the construction of one million low-cost houses within four years for the poor. Page 11; stop all travel abroad at government expense for the purpose of medical treatment. Page 13; provide incentives for Nigerian doctors and health practitioners working abroad to return home, to strengthen the health care industry in Nigeria and provide quality care to those who need it. Page 14; make sure people at a local level benefit from mining and mineral wealth by vesting all mineral rights in land to states. Page 17.

Please note that these documents were officially released by the APC as its official manifesto, thereby making the documents legally binding now that it is in charge of the central government. As we put it in legal parlance, “pacta sunt servanda” (agreements must be respected).

Fellow Nigerians, judge for yourselves if we have not been swindled with lies.

Lies have expiration date

As reported by the Daily Post of August 25, 2016, the VP, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, at the 15th Joint Planning Board and National Council Development meeting in Kaduna State, reported that “Buhari’s administration has saved N1.4 trillion by not paying subsidy on fuel.”

At the Nigerian Governor’s Forum Media Conference, as reported by the Nation Newspaper of October 23, 2017, Buhari spoke through Lai Mohammed (Information Minister), as follows: “Those who accused this administration of ‘propaganda and lies’ in the fuel supply sector, for example, did not tell Nigerians that, whereas they paid between N1.3 trillion as ‘subsidy’ yearly in their time, without making the products available even at regulated prices, this administration is not paying any subsidy, yet all products are currently available at competitive prices and fuel queues are now history.”

The inexorable expiration date of lies soon caught up with this government when Maikanti Baru, GMD, NNPC, told a shocked nation that FG is “paying N26 subsidy because the landing cost of petrol is N171.” The corollary questions are legion: who authorised this secret N26 subsidy? How much has so far been spent on it? Since when did this subsidy start? How come the same government whose principal officers, including PMB, Tinubu, Lai Mohammed, El-Rufai, et al, had rallied and demonstrated on the streets against GEJ’s removal of oil subsidy in January 2012, to N95, later removed same and increased the price from N87 per litre to N145? Having told us in May 2016 that subsidy had been finally removed, which other subsidy is the same government talking about?

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When the dead govern the affairs of men

Introduction

Dead: synonyms are bereft of life; buried; breathless; extinct; gone; late; lifeless; liquidated; mortified; no more; cadaverous; deceased; defunct; departed; erased; inanimate. So how come PMB’s government is disturbing dead souls, giving them jobs, when the living have none, and when more than seven million jobs have been lost in the last two and half years?

I am astounded as to how some hitherto respected Nigerians, have, for a mess of porridge, descended into the abysmal level of defending the indefensible. It is simply incredible! One of them even said those criticising PMB and his government for appointing at least eight dead people to head boards and parastatals are “stupid”! How the mighty are fallen and rubbished by ephemeral perks of office!

After delaying for over two and half years of a four-year term to constitute these engine rooms of government, some of them are Senator Francis Okpozo, Christopher Utov, Donald Ugbaja, Garba Attahiru, Umar Dange, Magdalene Kumu, Dr. Nabbs Imegwu, Comrade Ahmed Bunzu and Asuzu Okpalaibekwe.

Shockingly, the defence by these fawning government apologists and unrepentant bootlickers is that this was a “minor error.” They even shamelessly admitted that the list was compiled over two years ago. The more reason it should have been revised. Even small individual enterprises will never engage in this national embarrassment being defended by turncoats. The last time I checked, government appointees were subjected to DSS screening to determine their suitability or possible criminal antecedents. It is clear this was never done. If a list of two years was rolled out and this action that has generated public outrage is being defended by some appointees who want to be more holy that the Pope and weep more than the bereaved, even when government has itself admitted error, this clueless government simply lacks capacity, competence and creative ability to move the nation forward.

Nigeria is not just suffering stagnation, like the barber’s chair; it is actually experiencing retrogression.

Let me remind these trenchant historical revisionists of Plato’s famous words: “Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something” … “the price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

My predictiosns for 2018

They have come again, predicting the most obvious.

I will not allow pastors, seers, clairvoyants, and other futuristic oracles beat me to it this time around. So, here are my 2018 predictions:

Abuja will remain the capital of Nigeria. I will continue to hail from Iviukwe, near Agenebode, Etsako East LGA, Edo State. 2018 shall remain the year after 2017. PDP will continue to criticise APC, while APC will continue to defend PMB. A bag of rice, which is N15,000 – N18,000, today will continue to be out of the reach of poor civil servants who earn the minimum wage of N18,000. VP Osinbajo will remain a Christian and PMB a Muslim. Bukola Saraki will remain the Senate President and Yakubu Dogara, the Speaker House of Representatives. The Supreme Court of Nigeria will continue to be the apex court of the country, while Justice Nkanu Onnoghen will remain the CJN. I hereby predict that Nigeria will not experience any snow this year and that there shall be both sunshine and rainfall in 2018. Finally, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State will continue to criticise PMB and APC’s bad policies and vacate office as Governor after his four-year tenure. Lai Mohammed will continue to defend the APC government whether it performs or not.

Happy new year, fellow Nigerians.

Thought for the week

“The worst kind of poverty is when leaders keep ‘passing the buck’.”

– BILL BENNOT