Failing in the national call

Failing in the national call

“When the Nigerian National Anthem was played before the commencement of the World Cup qualifier between Nigeria and Mozambique in Abuja on Saturday, October 10, 2009, rather than obeying Nigeria ’s call, a large section of the football fans booed.”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2009/10/29/“arise-o-compatriots…”-booooo/

Is this the formation of the National Social Resistance Brigade?

A government that cannot bend to reason will break. When it does, the splinters hurt the ruled like fragments of an exploded bomb. The defence minister should watch out for assault to our national prestige by internal dissidents who shun the symbols of our nationhood. This is a build-up of resistance to bad governance and may culminate in a national social constipation. It shows that the National Orientation Agency is doing little and Akunyili's campaign is yielding negatively. Where do we go from here? The national anthem is laden with statements about where we are heading as a nation, but the words are meaningless in the actions of our national actors and operators. You can refuse to cheer a team that is failing in a national call, but you can’t refuse a call to our national ethos. That is an issue which must be made clear to the citizenry. The trait of unalloyed loyalty to the ideals of a nation is learnt in the formative years of human development. We must go there to revalidate the basis of our nationhood. I am not saying that the older ones are a lost generation. It is a well known fact the use of the right hand can’t be learned by left-handed individuals in adulthood. Reformation from left-handedness is always possible when you are young. I am a good example. I can use both hands and either of them equally. In my culture, this linguistic expression portrays me as a double-dealer full of ambiguities, but I can make wise choices of what is good for me and others. The youth development programmes should be given attention and streamlined towards achieving our national goals by instilling the compelling desire to work for our national greatness.

Several people are failing in national calls because they are square pegs in round holes. In great nations, people who lack purposeful convictions in an arena or area of performance refuse national calls because they do not want to fail the nation in such calls. Mohammed Ali refused the call of his nation to serve in the army during the Vietam war, because he wouldn’t be a good soldier in a war he did not believe in. In Nigeria, people hardly refuse a call even when they have a great chance of failing or performing below the expected target for national growth. It is irrelevant because national development is an undefined quantity. What has a clear definition is the self- interest or group-interest that must be protected. It is the failing in national calls among the “servants” in government that neo-colonialism crystallizes. Those who are true nationals now see the country as a colony exploited by cabals wearing Nigerian gabs.

This is a country of antitheses. We know what national development is. We control developmental processes so that there is no lopsidedness. We want to balance the nation on a tripod and not on a fulcrum. We remove outright competition and structure opportunities to favour those with obvious disadvantage in a fare competition. It is executed everyday because it is lawful. We see this in federal character policy for employment, university admissions, rotation of offices to balance power of national administration. Those who are stronger often have been conceding to the weaker so that the nation may thrive. These are few of the regulations that are nationally expedient. Now, the neo-colonialist among us has remembered that the quality of competition and the survival of the fittest would invigorate a nation in the threshold of greatness. We are reminded that competitive pricing is the hallmark of great nations. Are we going to move from here to consider the competitive pricing of human resource and allow Nigeria to grow heavy in the head even as tall as we are as a nation, in order to be caricatured as a heavy-headed giant who spun and fell on tiny feet?

Deregulation, as an instrument of testing competitive prowess or as an opportunity to invite more players, is not an attribute of this nation. Those we are inviting to come and compete do not believe us. Our policies are ambivalent and inconsistent. They cannot trust us fully with their investment funds. A foreign investor cannot trust a country that boasts about shareholders losing their money without caring to help with supporting instruments; a country with various institutional malfeasances. Who will trust a country that nationalized foreign investments in the oil sector some decades ago? Any investor you see is going for a pound of flesh when the going is good. Give them the pricing fluidity they want, they will come with as little infrastructural commitment as possible. In fact, the neo-colonial structure is the best for them; like the crude from our country and the refined products from theirs and the pricing mechanisms will balance the scale so that they lose less from crude oil price surge. These facts are very clear that they are not only in the imagination. Without bilateral agreements having structures that offer protection to the weak through concessionary pricing of fuel like it is obtainable in crude oil-rich nations, there is no guarantee for any foreign investors’ funds, because I would be one of those that would frustrate any contrary arrangement that is not in our national interest.

As I am writing I am watching workers like me walk on the streets of Abuja, telling those with ossified will of punishing the poor in a rich nation, like they did in the Niger Delta, that we are no fools even if they go against our will. They can be neo-colonialists, but we are more comfortable being nationalists, because those who founded this nation were like us. Our patrons wrote, they marched the streets, they called for national development and they knew our exigencies which we reiterate for the present government. Those patrons dug deep to reinforce the foundation of this nation and we do the same looking out to mend the frailties that may jeopardized the future viability of our nationhood.

Artificial scarcity of fuel in Umuahia

Fuel scarcity paralyses Umuahia:

“Investigations by Vanguard showed that petroleum marketers in the city were creating artificial scarcity, as they only sell at night at inflated prices of between N85 and N120.” By Anayo Okoli

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2009/10/29/fuel-scarcity-paralyses-umuahia/

There is an official connivance any time when fuel scarcity occurs. People are making profit through official mandate. It means PPRA has been bribed and the State government is comfortable with it. PPRA must pretend not to be watching. It means failing the nation so that the cabals of the Nigerian economy can enjoy a free market at the expense of the powerless economic slaves. Do we have a government that cares for the people? This is God’s own State where God will do it after all.

In Maiduguri 2,000 Km from the coast, there is no queue because the government is working by insisting that all the agencies are closely monitored and supervised and black market rate is as low as 70-80 naira/litre. The South-East is a big question mark. It is a clear sign of what a deregulated regime will bring because it will be gangsterism and confusion. The Umuahia saga should not happen in a regulated system where laws are expected to be obeyed, and in a deregulated system, you expect PPRA to do anything to protect Nigerians from profiteering. Shame to us who cannot look after ourselves.

Is government telling the truth about the downstream oil sector?

The NTA Tuesday Live yesterday, October 27, 2009 was about understanding the problems of the downstream oil sector and the panellists were a number of government stooges who had limited information about the issues on the ground. Those who phoned in and the audience were better informed than the government officials. I did not waste my time and money watching the programme, because I came to a greater realization. Information is power and the power is still with the people. I was very interested in this topic and had to keep awake and fuel my electric power generator. I believe most Nigerians did the same. What the government does not know is that Nigeria has a very large population of highly educated and well informed people, but unfortunately, these people hardly act until the crisis point because of patience and hope in the ability of insensitive rulers. The honourable member on the panel believed that Nigerians are not knowledgeable enough and he was guiding them with his euphemisms and sophisms, thinking he had a platform for good arguments. A cautionary note here, however, is that history repeats itself. When the government does not know its people, and thinks it knows the manipulative instruments of public will, things happen in ways that the ruler and the ruled will regret. It is not far behind us that the government fixed gate fee that excluded Nigerians from watching our football team play in Abuja. The politics of exclusion is staring us in the face and a member of the Economic Summit Group is a protagonist. What baffles me is that those who should have information do not seem to have it, or they have it but refuse to work with it out of selective discountenance. The politicians we have now are going to mess up the oil sector, if we are not doing something within our capacity to redirect them. Our legislators seem not to have research workers who bring contents to their thoughts and therefore, alienate themselves from the people they rule. We cannot progress without reformation of the individuals that must rule us in the direction of knowing the real needs and feelings of the people.

The honourable member of the house on the panel said the leadership was taking decision on the oil sector for our own good because we do not have the facts. He positioned the argument that price of fuel will be the incentive for private sector participation. That is untrue. The government guidelines and the operational incentives that facilitate business are the stimuli. Lower cost of doing business, guarantee for policy stability, tax waivers and crude cost discounts are some of the incentives refinery entrepreneurs are looking for. When government has created several operational bottlenecks that have nothing to do with fuel price, the refineries will not be established; and foreign producers of fuel will not co-operate with Nigeria without bilateral agreement that will be favourable to them in the long run.

The oil cabals have worked well to sustain the skewed operation of the sector, but their operation will eventually end in favour of public good. I know this because we have great hearts for goodness. My reassurance came this morning during rush hours when a Nigerian motor cyclist in business suit stopped to control traffic in a messy hold-up. What a gracious thing to do! Nigerians know what is good for us. Arise Oh Compatriots, Nigerians call obey……. The workers in Nigeria and the general public must stand up to the issues now or never.

A different perspective on DEREGULATION as a word in economics

I am not an economist by training, but I understand its principles by seeing economic factors playing out everyday as a tangible reality. Besides, I read a lot of economics in my public secondary school that is now dilapidated with no motivated teachers. Having cleared the premise for discussing an economic issue, I would like to add that I know the word, DERGULATION, as an animal doctor with a specialist understanding of disease. I have slept and woken with this crazy word, because I have been thinking of it as a virus deserving attention and requiring an urgent vaccine like the Swine fever virus. I have tried to understand this word as a neo-colonial virus being created as a mutant from institutions in imperial economies. It is as dangerous as you want to see it depending on where you are; that is, if you have protective gears or you are a highly susceptible immunologically naïve juvenile economy.

Deregulation has become a phenomenon urgently called for in the downstream oil sector. Several reasons are given to justify that it is the cure for the ills of this sector. The danger signals flash from my test apparatus and tell me Nigeria wants to play with a fulminant invasive and malignant infective agent. The economic disease of the world is caused by deregulation, which is defined as unmitigated capitalism without welfarist impulse and with no protection for the defenceless poor in a deregulated regime and have no strength to find the potential richness embedded in everyone.

Deregulation is an impotent pill for weak economies brandished by experienced economies which know the theories and experiment them on the poor nations without good results. President Bush defended capitalism very well before he receded into ineffectiveness that caused economic recession. President Obama told us that capitalism failed because of irresponsible governance and failure to apply the necessary regulations required for sustainable execution of business activities. The West is coming out of the recession, but Nigeria is just going into it and trying to preach what Bush practiced and failed in a developed nation. Can we be less stupid to think that senseless deregulation will do us any good, when it has been the cause of misery in the homes of its protagonists?

Deregulation means abdication of responsibility by government in power. It means the punishment of the people by the people’s inaction. It is an uncontrolled romping of profit-driven capitalists who destroy gullible people with weak sense of self-protection. It no longer means removal of public monopoly. It has become institutionalization of private monopoly with ultimate destruction of increasingly weakened public governance, and enthronement of a faceless imperialism of cabals in strategic sectors.

The oil sector is the core of Nigeria’s existence and to consider trifling with it, is contemplating national suicide. Any decision in this sector should be carefully taken. In terms of strategic importance, the oil sector is far above the deregulated water and telecom sectors which enjoy little government interest and operate in haphazard manner reminiscent of the blinking lights. What is necessary now is to allow private refineries to spring up in Nigeria where crude oil is sold to them at a discount so that they can sell fuel to Nigerians at adjustable of retail price that is in congruence with per capita income of Nigerians. This is because we have been told that NNPC is corrupt and self-destruct, and about to be privatized like NITEL because of failure of government instruments.

Meanwhile, the government needs to find foreign refineries to import fuel from at concessionary prices in exchange for crude oil at discount rates, provided their cost of production is low and their home governments concede some export tax wavers to us through bilateral agreements. We can look for refineries in emerging economies that understand our problems and are eager to go into a synergy. Co-operation of countries with histories of similar political economies and targets may bring us the succour we are looking for. Let’s run away from economic lords with high-sounding theories because we can’t afford to continue in economic slavery in the 21^st century.

Re: Let us deregulate now! Vanguard Newspaper

"It makes no sense insisting that a government that has demonstrated its inability to repair and operate the refineries must continue to spend our money in that direction.Government has also confessed its powerlessness to deal with the so-called cabal that freeloads on the over N600 billion it spends every year to subsidise fuel imports. Government has admitted its own failure. What is the need of insisting it must keep trying?" By Ochereome Nnannahttp://www.vanguardngr.com/2009/10/26/let-us-deregulate-now/

Deregulation is not merely the answer. The operators have a skewed definition of deregulation as free market for profiteers and enemies of our national economy called cabals and freeloads. The "government has admitted its own failure", but must that government fail to look at itself for correction in the area of failure or be corrected. An inefficient government that cannot be moved or removed is the cause of democratic instability in Nigeria.

It must be understood that the validity of a government is based on its functionality. The government wants to function in default like a man with fire extinguisher watching a match fire burn down his home. That is incredible for a sane society. The cabals have made the establishment intractable and inscrutable to goad us to a free market for the freeloads that will ensure a free flowing profit out of the exuberant tears of the owners of the black crude oil. We cannot wait for the worst thinking it can benefit us in the long run. Obasanjo co-operated with the cabals, but Yar'adua seemed not to have done so. The resolve to go beyond resistance is necessary for us to see important pro-active measures. If a poor country like Mozambique is thinking about its poor people by having concessionary fuel price in Africa, it is evident that good democracy can foster an emerging great nation built by good people in government ( http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-07-24-mozambique-to-pay-stations-keep-fuel-price-low ). We cannot make excuses for an outright deregulation. If we think well, we can come up with a model of deregulation in the downstream oil sector that would sustain development in Nigeria. What the government proposes now can only put us in strait-jacket and it is not our wishes 0r my wish.

Is fuel cheap in Nigeria? No!

Nigeria is not among nations with cheap fuel. We are among the top producing nations in crude oil. What is there to show in dividends. The little we have NNPC goes shopping with it! See what other counties are enjoying!

Cruisin'

Where gasoline is cheapest

Rank Country Price/gal 1. Venezuela 12 cents 2. Iran 40 cents 3. Saudi Arabia 45 cents 4. Libya 50 cents 5. Swaziland 54 cents 6. Qatar 73 cents 7. Bahrain 81 cents 8. Egypt 89 cents 9. Kuwait 90 cents 10. Seychelles 98 cents 44. United States $3.45 155 countries surveyed between March 17 and April 1, 2008. Prices not adjusted for cost of living or exchange rates. Correction: Due to data errors, previous versions of these charts were incorrect. The charts have been updated.

Source:AIRINC

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NNPC is deceiving Nigerians. The leadership should go!

NNPC is abdicating and failing in its goal, allowing the industrial recolonization of Nigeria. We have lost the real gain made by the Military administration. NNPC tells Nigeria that fuel prices cannot be kept low as a matter of government policy for the sake of the people from whose land the crude comes. We import fuel from countries where it is heavily taxed. We end up paying taxes to developed countries and under-develop our country in the process. What a shame! See the link below

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp

See where we were in the past and the reason for it:

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/

Deregulation without functional refineries in Nigeria is a disservice to the nation and no government or its parastatal advocating that deserves the respects of Nigerians. The ultimate failure of our government will emanate from being hoodwinked by self-serving Nigerians and industrial imperialist to sell the rights and dignity of Nigerians which the soldier-politicians and nationalist politicians gave to us.

How to keep fuel price low:

Read through the link: http://www.google.com.ng/search?hl=en&q=How+to+keep+fuel+price+low&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=o&oq=

Do we have the capacity to keep fuel price low in a deregulated demand-driven regime? NO! See the link

http://www.ehow.com/how_4608092_keep-fuel-prices-low-nationwide.html

Is fuel price falling abroad? YES! and will continue to fall in great nations with good people! See the link

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/petrol-price-to-keep-dropping-economist-20091012-gtjt.html

THE TRUTH SHOULD BE TOLD:

NNPC is deceiving Nigerians. Without the efficiency to run any refinery and for hoisting deregulatory platform as the only means of developing the downstream sector, Nigerians should demand the resignation of the leadership for abdication of their core responsibilities. If this does not happen democracy has failed us and as a people, we have not accepted our true destiny.

Deregulation of fuel price in Nigeria

Deregulation of fuel price is for mature nations that have robust energy infrastructure, not Nigeria. Since Nigeria is a paediatric nation with signs of emergence from childhood to adolescence, any deregulation is like deregulating sexual intercourse for children. A responsible government looking for evidence-based policy for human and social development of this nation should move with caution in deregulation. It is well known now that the economic downturn visited the world because of deregulatory policies. If mature nations were caught napping, an immature nation like Nigeria will be in a coma. A government is a mandate to regulate the economic landscape of a nation among other things. Obasanjo’s administration mounted campaigns and had an experiment with deregulation which was a colossal failure. The present administration redressed the policy and maintained policy stability in the sector, although with few challenges. Moving in a tangent now is sentencing the people to a policy that has nothing to improve their life style because there are no avenues to evade the brunt. Besides, there is no guarantee that the policy will enliven the downstream sector which is infested with lethal corruption. For example, the fuel price has never been 65Naira/liter in the South-East over these years despite the so-called regulatory policies of government; because the cabals connived with the authorities to hijack the benefits accruable to the people. If this was and is still happening, nobody knows what kind of havoc that a deregulated price regime will cause to the people
Price deregulation is a knife in the hand of an immature nation which does not know its domestic use; and in the throes of carelessness can inflict deep cuts into her social sanity. Oil barons want to make money at the expense of Nigerians, by cutting our veins and exanguinating the life-giving energy of the nation. Fuel price is a factor that affects transportation, private electric power supply for homes and industries and the prices of all commodities. The workers in Nigeria must resist this unpatriotic move in the face of devalued naira and increased national petro-dollar income. They must rise and resist those politicians and politicised civil servants who want to make us pay more than what is necessary for services which we give them the mandate to deliver.
If the government thinks that deregulation is the panacea, let us operate it successfully with the water and electric power supply and road sectors. The government has failed to do this because the barons, who understand self-serving economics more than developmental economics, will reap less from these sectors than the oil sector. Can we deregulate price for a strategic commodity in a country where businessmen commit crimes against the people by importing sub-standard goods and fake drugs, politicians freely and openly short-change the people, banks are run down under the “watchful eyes” of the Central Bank after deceitful unregulated recapitalization, and rule of law is not institutionalized?
No social or economic research document could be reached by me to see the critical evaluation of the impact of Obasanjo’s deregulations in the downstream sector. What is the basis of broaching the issue again? Notice that the government “deregulated” the water supply sector long ago and we are not complaining. We have got used to government’s increasing non-involvement in public water supply. With deregulation, the private people have taken over the “upstream and downstream” water sector, digging their wells, sinking their boreholes, setting up their water treatment factories and selling ‘pure’ water in water tankers, sachets and bottles. Visible robust water supply system is yet to emerge from that deregulation.
In the proposed fuel supply deregulation, the government holds the upstream sector, sells crude oil at competitive price and wants to deregulate the downstream sector to have another competitive price for a commodity with an inelastic demand. Reasons? The government wants profit in both sectors so that the money can be used for social infrastructure that is not available. The country has no cheap and efficient mass transit system, no unemployment benefits, no real free education, no free health care services, and no full scholarships. The government has no moral strength to argue that only price deregulation can revitalize and expand the oil downstream sector, because it has not done so in the water downstream sector. Obasanjo’s government argued that bottled water was more expensive than fuel. Despite the open playing field for water producers and the increasing number of water companies, the price of bottled water has not dropped, but has increased by over 40% and government commitment in the water sector has continuously declined. Again, the sophistic comparison of water and fuel price is laughable because the structure of water demand is so different from fuel demand. Ordinary Nigerians do not drink bottled water, otherwise we should not be talking about cholera for months now in several parts of Nigeria, which seem to defy control measures, because portable water is not available and the ordinary people still depend on wells, ponds and streams.
In mature nations, policies are people-oriented and driven by the desire to serve people’s interests. The workers in Nigeria who pay for fuel have not heard politicians debate the issue so that facts can come to the open. The information bill that can facilitate investigation into the facts of this issue so that they are subjected to public evaluation and analysis is swept under the carpet. A government that hides facts for the advantage of those who trade in power cannot fulfil the yearning of the people. Nobody has answered the South African who asked the question in Yola about why Nigerians continue to be impoverished by politicians in a country that is rich in petro-dollars. Nigerians want to know the truth about the deceit concerning deregulation of fuel price.
Stop leading us with tethers on nose notches. Good people, great nation!

Re: Troubled banks’ Shareholders have lost their banks – Sanusi

SHAREHODERS AND CBN

“Shareholders need to understand what we are doing and we are merely being charitable when we talk about shareholders. Look, you’ve lost your money. If your capital is zero or negative, you no longer have a bank. That is the truth people do not want to hear. Somebody says he’s speaking on behalf of shareholders. If we publish what we have, they will see; there is no capital, it’s been gambled away- that is the truth. But we’re trying to have discussions so that the shareholders would still have something” -by Sanusi in Vangard Newspaper, Oct 24, 2009

It is like making a mess of this country that nobody will believe in it. We have controlled the militants who have been losers because of bad governance. We may be creating another set of economic militants among the shareholders. These were people who thought they were building a national economy by laying down their hard earned funds. A country of losers has no place in 20-20-20. Losers have no future and nothing to hope for, but the gradual dissipation of what ought to be theirs which they couldn't have.

Sanusi, you need to build hope for Nigerians who are striving for a good future for this country where they can have a share. Let the debtors pay. Restructure the debt that cannot be paid now. Allow for debt buy-back or equity swap. Hold those that made mistakes accountable with the purpose of correcting the mistakes using available economic tools. You can build the economy by cleaning up the mess and making the old and new investors smile at the end. The steps you take must build investor confidence. All of us must become richer. Do not allow the shareholders to lose out while you find new winners. We must all be winners if you want to succeed in this job. May God guide you.

Statement to avoid:

“Look, let me tell you, the same people whose name you see on the list of bad debtors are the same people messing up the polity, messing up the petroleum sector, messing up the power situation in the country, they are the same people who are going to rig elections so we have to deal with them. That is true. Is that the mandate of the CBN governor? It is not. But it is the mandate of Nigeria and I am a Nigerian” by Sanusi in Vangard Oct. 24, 2009

Sanusi, solve the problem like a technocrat, please, and all Nigerians will remember you as a hero. As a technocrat, you solve the problem looking at the big picture at the top of professionalism. Talking politics as seen above is being pedestrain. It makes me wonder whether your agenda are purely economic. I believed in you, but you need to strengthen the faith

Original newspaper article at:http://www.vanguardngr.com/2009/10/24/troubled-banks-shareholders-have-lost-their-banks-sanusi/

Nigerian Scholarships

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2009/10/15/chevron-to-give-860-varsity-students-scholarship/

To encourage academic excellence and give opportunities to those with financial disadvantage, scholarships should be available to Nigerian students at all levels of education. We are yet to see that happen in Nigeria. No clear policy is on the ground in this respect to get the private sector actively involved. The involvement of government in the scholarship awards is dwindling and may disappear.

Nigerian Senate and Bad roads

I watched the debate of the Senate today on NTA as the Senate President presided. The issue was about bad roads and accidents. The debate was undermined in the direction of calling for a state of emergency regarding the condition of some major roads linking State capitals and the various geo-political regions of Nigeria. There is urgency about road rehabilitation. When I travelled on Ubolor-Afor to Oturkpo road, I was worried that the Senate President had not been able to get work to be done on this important road in his senatorial zone. This is the most direct link road between the Benue-Plateau and South-East. This road has been in disrepair for several years, having failed portions with deep potholes that cannot allow a sane driver move at more than 30 km/hour. Action is required soonest. The President seemed to dilute the argument to engage the Minister of Works to focus on some roads quickly. The Senate President cannot afford to fail in this aspect.

Kerosine and Firewood

Today, kerosine sold for 200 naira per litre. Ten hundred naira per gallon. This is a country that the poor has no place, even when there is an agency charged with poverty eradication (NAPEP?) and Ministry of Poverty Alleviation in some States. What is going on?

In this town, kerosine is hardly seen in filling stations and you cannot buy the commodity at the official pump price of 50 naira per litre. Only the black market thrives and everybody that can do something watches.

Our government that has every reason to help has failed to help, even after NTA has broadcasted the news of our problems to the nation. The FGN has neither ears nor hands in it.

We live in a town where the trees are treasured for the shades under the blazing sun that can drive the ambient temperature above 40^oC. In desperation, people cut our shady trees in search of firewood. No kerosine, no cooking, but the trees come to our rescue.

As the trees disappear, the wind breakers give way to the fast moving winds from the north of Africa. The desert encroaches as fast as we create the enabling environment. I guess the government expects the scenario in order to have reason to set up a commission for the prevention of desert encroachment and mount campaigns for tree planting.

FGN watches as the sahel is threatened by sand duns which take over the farmlands and bring famine to the doorsteps of those they have sworn to cater for. Anyway, if there is no food to cook, no firewood burns. A country in a vicious circle because of stupid politics. Can we rebrand?