‘Our Girls; IDPs; CBN; Power

Our Chibok Girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014, five years ago on Monday, and over 100 are still unaccounted for. Leah Sharibu, kidnapped on Feb 19, 2018, one plus years ago, in Dapchi was the only one held back after a mass release of over 100, excluding five who died.

SECURITY: Both events are extreme terrorist murderous outings taken in proportional perspective to thousands killed and millions displaced with no names or places. Last week another 50 dead; murderers masquerading as Zamfara miners; stabbing of new doctor and kidnap of Lagos fire chief and suicide bombs females perhaps forced to kill JTF heroes compound the problems.

Are we breeding humans for slaughter? The Presidency laments as ‘Operation Puff Adder’ kicks in. Why advertise? Perhaps to inform marauders to relocate before action is taken? The cycle of attack- mayhem-murder-kidnap- show of force visit- bold political statement of never again- withdrawal and another attack is familiar. And now the armed forces, usually reactionary, want more of our budget.

Are checks and balances in place to ensure that multi-billion naira financial inflows, meant for armed forces service delivery across all defense services do not follow the pre-2015 path of being expropriated and buried in soak-aways, by armed forces top brass and the alleged purchase of jets and the stupendous wealth of many military children? Fear always wins where security is concerned. The armed forces will get their money but how much good will it do the suffering citizen and armed forces units in the fighting field or the Abuja-Kaduna Road requiring more accurate and faster intelligence, instant communication and quicker response time?

Are there now checks and balances to prevent this profligacy during this government?  Across the spectrum, the ugly head of massive corruption has stained the process of delivery of democracy and distorted the outcomes in all segments from business, electricity, health, education, roads and even the care of IDPs.

CBN: Stop discriminating against Nigerians!! The minor cut, not slash, in Monetary Policy Rate to 13.5% did not end the world. Cut more. Yes, give single digit loans to music, films and media, cocoa, palm oil etc. But those businesses will still die if the citizens are not empowered to buy their products. CBN still forces citizens to borrow at 30% including 14% MPR. Cut MPR and make single digit loans for every Nigerian citizen. Banks and oil companies are still reporting crazy profits.

POWER: The nation remains severely underpowered in spite of powerful statements claiming we now have 8,000Mw but can only use 6,000Mws or so and that the problem is evacuation of created power. Well, fix it. That is your job. Who creates a product but does not take it to market, but still boasts about one’s failure?? Only government!!!

Talk to the South Africans and especially the Japanese who got 10,000Mw of emergency power from emergency power companies [Google them] within three months during a shutdown of Fukushima power plant. South Africa has 51,309Mw for its 58 million population. UN recommends 1,000Mw for every one million citizens. The ministry should wake us up when it has achieved 150,000Mw for its approx. 150 million people. We are not 198 million-a fake fictional figure of politically manipulated grandiose delusions! First the beneficiaries of the power failures must be educated on the benefits of 24/7 grid power. Then get someone or the Chinese who put in 30,000Mw annually in China to extend and revamp our grid to 120,000Mw in four years.

IDPs: This government wants $8b in loans and donations to rehabilitate/rebuild Nigeria’s IDPs. We must not only pray but we must work to ensure that that money, if realized, actually reaches the IDPs and does not disappear into the pockets of out of state, non IDP workers, contractors, building materials, accountants, bank accounts of  administrators – the very things that diluted the effects of other interventions in the past. Over-administration and excessive bureaucracy increase costs with no added benefit to improved results. This last one is particularly painful because this government should have prevented anything adverse happening to the IDPs. Have they not suffered and are they not suffering enough? Prevention of scandals -sexual and moral, fraud and funding are paramount responsibilities of the government.

ELECTIONS:  Those thinking that the Buhari government has succeeded in the anti-corruption drive meet the harsh reality that the recent elections demonstrated huge expenditures of money [from where?] by all the major three or four parties- perhaps corruption fighting back but such expenditure was always cross-party for survival. This political financial flood including expenses for crazy mega-billboards, thugs-by-the-dozen, a billion posters and stomach-infrastructure gifts for millions of electorate effectively buying votes by foul or fair means but not for development suggests that political election corruption is alive and will be illegally recovered as ‘first line deductions with massive interest’ from the federal and state budgets. Losers will go the sympathetic states and get fake contracts to replenish their investment in the 2019 election- all crippling the ever-losing Nigerian citizen.

Meanwhile the real winners of any election, corrupt or not, are the legal ‘luminaries’ lined up on either side of the political divide seeking changes in the results for various reasons and the victorious media houses drunk with the inflows of sacks of political cash for campaigns strategies and material like mega posters, flyers, etc. They have been laughing to the bank for many years-every four years, like clockwork.