Mr Olumide's Blog .com |
- Why Can’t President Buhari Address The Nation?
- Nigerians Are Getting Poorer, says IMF
- 2019: Donald Duke Speaks On Presidential Ambition
- Dino Melaye says his party, APC, has failed Nigerians
| Why Can’t President Buhari Address The Nation? Posted: 01 Mar 2018 12:10 AM PST  Since the first and only time President Muhammadu Buhari faced the nation during the presidential media chat, he has been more or less aloof. Except for some official occasions, and a random interview or address with a foreign medium in the past, he has mostly hidden inside the safety of Aso Rock. Now and then, his aides speak to the nation on his behalf through their shoddy press releases, but that is as far as it goes. At the rate at which we are going, Buhari will eventually qualify for the most aloof President in the history of Nigeria. Now, there has been a lot of violence in the land and Nigerians' anger at the seeming lack of control by the security is palpable. Should Buhari not be addressing the nation on the state of things? One of his committed followers, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, recently hinted that Buhari would address Nigerians – eventually – but only to announce his plans for his second term in office. In other words, Buhari will speak to Nigerians, at his own time, and only over an issue that concerns him. The things that are causing Nigerians' angst will probably be incidental to the great speech he plans to make to announce his ambition. There is a lot going wrong in Nigeria, and most of them are far more important issues than Buhari's electoral future. Monday last week, suspected ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram militants abducted over 100 schoolgirls from the Government Girls' Science and Technical College in Dapchi. For the second time, these schoolgirls were the target of raging marauders who seem to have a thing for girls who attend schools. It makes one's head spin how the Chibok incident has been repeated within a mere four years. The déjà vu is startling; almost as if Nigeria did not learn a thing from the prior incident. Whatever that happens – the outright lies, the half-truths and the head-spinning incompetence – it is all politics to the occupant of Aso Rock Villa. God forbid they need a third strike to learn. The way and manner both previous and present governments responded to the mass abduction make for a whole course in crisis mismanagement. One day, historians will cite Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari for all the wrong reasons of administrative incompetence. The incoherent and foggy accounts of the incident are troublesome. Why can't President Buhari address the nation on these issues to at least reassure us that something is being done to save the girls? The 2018 reaction, so far, is almost no different from the one of 2014 under President Jonathan who confronted Chibok with lethargy until the foreign media and their hyperfocus on Nigeria at the time pushed him to action. Then, there was his wife, the former First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, who turned the pain and trauma of the victims' families into a cheap Nollywood stunt. Barely after the display of "motherly concern" that drove her to summon those involved in the incident, she turned the dogs loose on those who were campaigning on behalf of the girls. And on another side were the group of deniers who insisted that Chibok never happened, that it was all just a ploy to make Jonathan's government look bad. Never mind that neither Jonathan nor his wife nor the Nigerian army ever contested the veracity of the incident, yet their inveterate support for Jonathan's government made them insist they knew Oso more than the mother of Oso. I still wonder how the conspiracy theorists manage to accord so much coordination to the Nigerian government that they would pull off such a scam with almost 300 families and not a single person in the whole of Chibok has come out to debunk the story. We are talking of a government who, with all the personnel at their behest, could not even pull off the national budget heist successfully. But somehow, they managed to recruit almost 600 crisis actors and get them to lie about an abduction for four years? When Chibok happened, consistently APC yielded maximum capital out of the incident, crying at the top of their voices that the government of the day was incompetent, and that they could do better if given a chance. Their raucous noise over the politics that attended the Chibok girls' abduction almost drowned the suffering of the victims. Till now, more than half of the girls are still not back home. Today, and now, there is Dapchi. The location and time have changed but the story remains the same. Just like Chibok, the mass abduction of Dapchi has all the inglorious footprints of Chibok: there has been confusion over the actual number of the victims, the government has lied that they have been rescued, the press has been prevented from interviewing the parents of the girls and, snafu, history repeats itself. Rather than a thoughtful and empathic response, it is all just games. Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, declared that the latest abduction was the ploy of Boko Haram to embarrass the Buhari government. To him, the only victim here is the President who is safely ensconced in Aso Rock. Not the poor girls and their families who did not ask for this. One would be generous to think that Mohammed is merely narcissist, I think he is also obtuse and hypocritical. When they were the opposition government, that kind of comment was exactly what he would have mined into immense political capital. Now that the Dapchi incident has happened, it is time to be more realistic about the nature of Boko Haram attacks. First, the Nigerian Army needs to stop, perpetually, denying the operational existence of the Abubakar Shekau's and Abu Musab Al-Barnawi's factions of Boko Haram. If they are not killing Shekau, they are chasing Al-Barnawi. If they are not breaking up Sambisa forest and clearing it of all insurgents, they are busy declaring victory. Yet, the guys will soon show up in another video to mock their efforts. The sooner the Nigerian Army stopped playing childish games with Boko Haram, the better for everyone. This way, we can ask the needful questions of what it will take to finally defeat Boko Haram. School abductions are more likely now. Every terrorist group craves publicity and they come up with spectacular attacks like this one to yield the maximum effect. Those that abducted the Chibok girls probably had no clue that that single event would yield them global publicity and turn Shekau into an international figure of notoriety. After he must have seen how much purchase he got from the media sensation around the abductions, and the money he made from negotiating with the girls, they also saw an opportunity. The Dapchi attack is well-timed, close enough to elections to make Buhari panic about the negative publicity and be corralled to do their bidding. There is a need for a security architecture around the schools, particularly the ones in the problem areas. We need to see the government addressing the precarity of life and existence in the attack-prone zones. Mr. President, over to you. What is the plan? What is your government going to do? - Abimbola Adelakun for The Punch  culled from Olu famous Mr Olumide's Blog |
| Nigerians Are Getting Poorer, says IMF Posted: 01 Mar 2018 12:10 AM PST  The IMF expects the government to "muddle through" in the medium term, and any progress could also be threatened if elections next year consume political energy and resources. This was contained in a report seen by Reuters on Wednesday. Since emerging from recession in the second quarter of 2017, Nigerian officials have repeatedly boasted that they have set the economy back on track. But critics say much of the recovery comes from a return to oil dependence after a rise in global oil prices and a rebound in crude production, more the result of militants in the Niger Delta halting attacks on oil facilities than of economic policy under President Muhammadu Buhari's administration. The IMF said in the report that the outlook for growth had improved but remained challenging. "Comprehensive and coherent" economic policies "remain urgent and must not be delayed by approaching elections and recovering oil prices," it stated in its annual Article IV review of Nigeria's economy. "Higher oil prices would support a recovery in 2018 but a 'muddle-through' outlook is projected for the medium term under current policies, with fiscal dominance and structural constraints leading to continuing falls in real GDP per capita," the IMF added. In the report, it identified risks to growth, including additional delays to implementing policies and reforms ahead of the 2019 elections, security tensions, and oil prices, a fall in which could see capital flows reversed. "Further delays in policy action, including because of pre-election pressures, can only make the inevitable adjustment more difficult and costlier," the report added. The lender repeated its call for Nigeria to simplify its complex foreign exchange system, a bugbear for the IMF for more than a year, which has left large gaps between official rates and various windows that certain groups can use to get other rates. "Moving towards a unified exchange rate should be pursued as soon as possible. The IMF staff does not support the exchange measures that have given rise to the exchange restrictions and multiple currency practices," it stated. The Fund further singled out the central bank, saying it should discontinue direct interventions in the economy. The Central Bank of Nigeria frequently injects hundreds of millions of dollars into the foreign exchange market to keep its own rates stable. Commercial banks struggling to remain solvent were also called out, but not identified by the IMF, including one that the lender said was already insolvent, adding, "Some of these banks are kept afloat through continuous recourse to the CBN's lending facilities." The IMF said it would not comment on purported leaks. A spokeswoman for the Fund said a statement would be issued after the lender's board's meeting to discuss its assessment on Friday. A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of Finance did not immediately respond to a phone call and email requesting comment.  culled from Olu famous Mr Olumide's Blog |
| 2019: Donald Duke Speaks On Presidential Ambition Posted: 28 Feb 2018 05:15 AM PST  Duke stated this in a chat with NAN. He said the speculations that he has dropped his presidential aspiration were untrue. The ex-governor said he has not officially declared for the presidency for strategic reasons. "Sometime ago, I said I will run for the presidency of the country if the opportunity presented itself. "Yes, my presidential ambition is still intact. I am only waiting for the opportunity to present itself to make the right move,'' he said. Asked on what platform he would run, since he was a member of former President Olusegun Obasanjo's inspired "Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM)," he said it was too early to decide on the matter. He, however, said he was still a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). "I am still a member of the PDP, at the same time a member of the coalition which is not a political party. "The coalition will definitely align with a political party to achieve its goals, otherwise it will make no sense. "I can't say yet the platform on which I will run if the opportunity presents itself. We are still watching and will take the right step at the right time,'' he added. On the abductions and killings in some parts of the country, Duke described the situation as disturbing. He urged the relevant authorities to confront the problem head on for the peace and stability of the nation.  culled from Olu famous Mr Olumide's Blog |
| Dino Melaye says his party, APC, has failed Nigerians Posted: 28 Feb 2018 04:45 AM PST  While speaking after he was conferred with the "Legislator of the Year 2017" at the Daily Asset Newspaper maiden annual awards and lecture in Abuja, Senator Dino Melaye took a swipe at the APC for failing to meet the expectations of Nigerians, many of whom he said, defied the odds to vote for Buhari as Nigeria's President in the 2015 general elections. According to Vanguard the outspoken lawmaker representing Kogi West Senatorial District, also charged Nigerians to conquer fear by rising up to ask critical questions on governance and service delivery. He said: "If you speak the truth, you die. If you lie, you die. I, Dino Melaye has decided to speak the truth and die," the fiery Senator wowed the audience with his vitriolic against his own party, which he likened to the Public Complaint Commission, apparently due to its penchants for blaming past administrations for its inability to deliver on some of its electioneering campaign promises. "The APC government has become Public Complaint Commission. I say this without fear or favour. We have more complains in the APC and even in the Presidency than service rendered. We cannot as a people continue like this. "The President said two days ago we should all embrace peace but I want to say without fear or favour that there can be no peace without justice. There is hunger in the land, there is poverty in the land, and there is unemployment in the land. A lot of decision has not been taken; yet we say we want peace. The primary objective of government is the security and welfare of the people. There is no security, there is no welfare," he said. Speaking further, the federal lawmaker said, "Nigeria is not only sick presently but equally suffers from regretful congenital abnormality. There is therefore a serious need for amelioration, palliation and correction. The question is: are you going to be part of that correction? I want to say that in an unjust society, silence is a crime, and every one of us here today, is the reason why Nigeria is sick. "It is not about the leadership, it is the inability of the followership to check the leadership. Today Nigerians have become indolent, we are suffering and smiling. We are not reactionary. We are not asking questions and that is why we are where we are. "Democracy will continue to be government of the people by the people for the people but what we have today is greedocracy which is government of the greedy by the greedy and for the greedy," he added. While decrying the squalid social conditions in which the people live in, Melaye warned those in positions of authority not to forget that their failure to make the most of their offices in the interest of the people could turn out to hurt them, arguing that not even the rich would be immune from the disaster that looms in the horizon. "2019 is around the corner again. Many of us are lackadaisical about the future. I delivered a lecture recently at the University of Lagos and some students from very wealthy homes, two of them said they didn't care who the president of the country is and that it was none of their business because their parents were very successful. I said to them that when the poor have nothing to eat, they will start eating the rich. "A time will come when it will be difficult to drive your expensive jeeps and cars on the streets. A time will come when it would be difficult to switch on your generator because everywhere around you is dark. Will you be the only one having light? There was no kidnapping before, and kidnapping is seen as the redistribution of both ill-gotten and legitimate wealth. People now take from the rich and they now appropriate to themselves," he noted even as he urged the masses to be wary of the elites whom he accused of polarizing the rest of the populace. "The elites have divided us using tribal sentiments. When you go to the hospital, there is a column for religion on your call card, a column for tribe and local government as if this will in any way facilitate your recovery. We have become too ethnic conscious. I sponsored a bill that is about to go for a second reading. The bill is saying that we should abolish state of origin and in its place; we should have state of residence. This is when we will have a true Nigeria when you will not need a Senator's note to get job with the Central Bank of Nigeria or the NNPC," he added.  culled from Olu famous Mr Olumide's Blog |
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