sponsor

sponsor

PremiumTimesNG

Loading...

Channels Television

Loading...

NewTelegraph

Loading...

News

PremiumTimesNG

Loading...

Opinions

politics

Finance

Education

Agriculture

Goodluck Jonathan

OPINION: Goodluck Jonathan, Abdullahi, Oduah and the missing verses

By: Bhodemarz on November 29, 2017 / comment : 0 , , , ,

Even days ahead of its unveiling, a new book by ace journalist and APC spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, is surely stirring the political waters already. Since teasers began to appear in Simon Kolawole’s TheCable last week, many can hardly wait anymore for tomorrow’s presentation in Abuja to grab copy and see what fresh angles “On A Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria” brings to Segun Adeniyi’s earlier blockbuster, “Against The Run of Play”.
Abdullahi is by no means a casual chronicler of the momentous events that shaped the Jonathan presidency; he was an insider having served as minister.
Perhaps the juiciest extract featured thus far by TheCable is the sensational claim by Stella Oduah that she lost her Aviation portfolio in the last dispensation due to the machinations of now embattled Diezani Allison-Madueke (then the powerful oil minister) in what seems to illuminate intensely the psycho-sexual tension within the Jonathan presidency. History reminds us that empires had risen and fallen over nothing more than lust or wounded love, and the remains of many great men were found near discarded skirt and camisole.
According to her, Diezani strongly believed leaks of her incurring a bill of whopping N10b jetting around “privately” emanated from the Aviation ministry. To exact a pound of flesh, Oduah alleges that Diezani funded sustained media spotlight on her own N250m bulletproof BMW cars scandal.
(A presidential panel headed by then NSA Sambo Dasuki had found the Aviation minister culpable in the shady $1.6m auto deal.)
“She thought I was the one who leaked the issue of private jet that put her into trouble with the House of Reps,” she says, adding “For her, it was payback time. Diezani was paying people to keep the story alive. At the same time, she was whispering in (the president’s) ears that he had to take action.”
But the real meat is in her next comment: “I knew all along that Diezani could not deal with having another female around who had the kind of access I had to the president.”
In what suggests more than official relationship with GEJ, Oduah was quoted by the author to be uninhibited enough to then pointedly demand of the president, “Did Diezani ask you to sack me?”, which he flatly denied.
Of course, in power circles then, it didn’t require much political intelligence to know there were actually five powerful women around the President. Aside Oduah and Diezani, the three others included First Lady (Mama Peace herself), the president’s ebony-black mom and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the “Coordinating Minister” and thick-set Amazon of the exchequer.
Romantics are likely to swoon over that and interpret as omen that GEJ was a “ladies’ man”.
This however makes Jonathan the stark opposite of his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, said to be very, very “shy among women” (apology Information Minister Lai Mohammed). It then perhaps explains why women today enjoy less visibility around PMB’s wooden paternalism.
Responding to a question posed by a foreign journalist in faraway Germany following First Lady Aisha’s philippic against the presidency last year, Buhari hardly betrayed any emotion in dismissing her sense of political judgement outside what he considered her exclusive jurisdiction: “My wife belongs to the kitchen, the living room and the other room.”
Now, the puzzle is the definition of the “access” Oduah alludes to. Of course, everyone agrees that, both in and outside office, GEJ remains a perfect gentleman, with amazingly charming smile and killer athletic build capable of making the opposite sex drool, ordinarily.
So, could Oduah be referring to a “special pin no” from which other top female officials around Jonathan were restricted? The kind that conferred extraordinary privileges like having their proposals or memos approved with dizzying dispatch, without second look, let alone scrutiny.
The only conclusion that could drawn from Oduah’s revelation is that she and Diezani were both shamelessly locked in a cold war over long-suffering Madam Patience’s fine husband. Now, if a scavenger gets swollen-headed over the possession of a treasure found by accident, what’s expected of the original owner? Between the feuding princesses, every waking moment seemed spent agonizing over which plot the other might be hatching to monopolize the king’s attention.
In the circumstance, the puzzle then: what time did they really have left for official duties? We can, therefore, only continue to speculate and imagine the titanic battle poor Jonathan must have waged against falling into the sort of temptation Adam found irresistible in the biblical Garden of Aden.
When similarly charming Bill Clinton found himself in such tight corner as president at the Oval Office in Washington in the 90s, he succumbed to curvaceous Monica Lewinsky. The ghost of that affair with its salacious details would come back to exact a price that almost cost him the presidency. Though he survived narrowly, he would endure the shame for the rest of his life.
One of Clinton’s predecessors, John F Kennedy, was not that lucky. His hyperactive testosterone is believed to have been largely fueled by the side effect of a medication he took for Addison’s disease. Compulsive philanderer, aside the steady stream of paramours smuggled into the White House through the back door, among his other conquests were government secretaries and one Judith Campbell who incidentally happened to be linked to mafia boss Sam Giancana. This shred of evidence formed the basis of the enduring conspiracy theory that JFK’s assassination in 1963 involved the mob.
Elsewhere in Zimbabwe about the same time Clinton was being tempted, Robert Mugabe had also come under the bewitching spell of Grace inside the White House in Harare. Sashay after tantalizing sashay up and down the presidential office, the salivating ex-guerrilla apparently began to see his dashing secretary in a totally different light. Incentives then came to work longer hours in the office. The death of the much-beloved Ghanaian-born First Lady would finally open the door for Grace to be formally unveiled to the nation as the new presidential consort.
Following Mugabe’s ignominious fall from power last week, pundits may still be divided today over the political epitaph to engrave on his political tombstone. But regardless, there is consensus already that Grace’s vain ways contributed in no small measure in stoking public anger against the old comrade.
Well, the good news is that GEJ left office in 2015 through the electoral door, certainly not through any proven peccadilloes. Maybe, the ghost would have been finally laid to rest had the usually blunt Oduah, presently a senator representing Anambra, taken a step further to stave the ambiguity that incriminates. By either confirming or denying the long-standing rumour in some mischievous quarters that that “access” had, in fact, some amatory taste.
Or, since she is known to be single and available, did she ever, at any time, have a crush on the Prince Charming from Otuoke?
With the raft of grave charges still pending at the British court, we wager Diezani would, on her own, wish to be spared this sort of question, at least for now.

How Adamu Mu’azu opposed plan to reject Buhari’s victory - Abdullahi

By: Bhodemarz on November 23, 2017 / comment : 0 , , , , , ,

Ahmed Adamu Mu’azu, chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the historic 2015 presidential poll, furiously reacted to suggestions that he should reject Muhammadu Buhari’s victory after President Goodluck Jonathan had openly conceded.
Jonathan, after congratulating Buhari in an unprecedented telephone call while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was yet to officially announce the winner, told party members that although he had conceded to Buhari in his personal capacity, PDP was free to reject the result.
Before Jonathan conceded, however, Mu’azu had threatened to do so on behalf of the party.
He even stopped picking Jonathan’s calls at some point.
All these are snippets of the intrigues that followed Jonathan’s defeat — as narrated by Bolaji Abdullahi in a new book, ‘On a Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria’, which will go on sale nationwide from November 30, 2017 after launch.
In the advance copy made available to ONLY TheCable, the author said many of Jonathan’s supporters believed he was too hasty in congratulating Buhari and were looking at ways to undo the gesture.
It was then suggested that the PDP could still challenge the election in spite of the concession statement by Jonathan — but they had to move quickly. A meeting was scheduled for 6pm of Tuesday, March 31, three days after the election.

VOLTE-FACE
“By 6:00pm, all the President’s men and party bigwigs began to gather at the banquet hall of the Presidential Villa. Many had rushed back to Abuja for the meeting, anxious to know the next line of action. They had all heard the audio of the phone call, but opinions were sharply divided on whether the president had thrown in the towel too soon,” Abdullahi wrote.
“One South-South governor disclosed that this banquet hall meeting was not the president’s original idea. He said soon after the president made the telephone call to Buhari, some governors had gone to him to express their reservations about it. They felt he had conceded too cheaply. Their argument was that if the president and the party had rejected the outcome of the election, they would have gained a stronger platform to negotiate their exit.
“If the case had gone to court, probably going all the way to the Supreme Court, the Buhari government would have remained tentative until the matter was decided and this would have also bought Jonathan more time, or even more security out of office. They all agreed that all these were now merely academic. It was at this point that they decided to call a meeting and see if anything could still be done to salvage something from what at the time had effectively become a lost cause.
“Present at the meeting were Vice President, Namadi Sambo; Senate President David Mark and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu; as well as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, who had also just contested and lost the governorship election in Imo State and was challenging the results. Others included: the People’s Democratic Party Board of Trustees Chairman, Tony Anenih; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim; Governor of Cross River State, Liyel Imoke; Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, and former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi. All members of PDP National Working Committee (NWC) were also present, led by the party chairman, Adamu Mu’azu. The meeting was chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan.
“The back-slapping, generous banter and raucous laughter that usually preceded such meetings were missing on this day. The banquet hall of the Presidential Villa held several memories of more exciting days for most dignitaries. But what was about to happen was anything but a banquet. There would be no feasting. In the last four days, a funereal gloom had descended on the entire Villa, and the few people that could still be sighted went about with faces turned to the ground. The mood this Tuesday afternoon was not any different. Some made courageous attempts at humour, but these fell flat like a joke made at a burial ground.”

ANENIH’S INTERVENTION
Abdullahi narrated what transpired at the meeting, beginning with the opening speech of Jonathan.
“Gentlemen, about an hour ago, I called General Buhari to congratulate him,” President Jonathan began. He explained that he did not make the call because he believed that the PDP lost the election, but rather, following advice from many people, he decided to concede in order to restore calm to the nation and avoid chaos. He added that, based on information at his disposal, he believed the election had been massively rigged and INEC was complicit in the fraud.
“While I have done my bit as a statesman, I believe the party should issue a strong statement to reject the results and say that PDP will challenge it in court,” he said, and suggested that the National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, should issue the statement.
“At first, many did not know what to make of this. How was it possible to concede defeat and not accept the results? Was the president asking the party to overrule or disown him? And if they went along with his suggestion, would the end result not be the same chaos that he said he was trying to avert by making the phone call?
“Anenih had the answers. He said the precedent for this had been set a few months earlier by the opposition party itself. When Ayo Fayose was declared winner of the governorship election in Ekiti State, the incumbent, Kayode Fayemi, promptly accepted defeat and congratulated his opponent. Even though Fayemi believed the election to be flawed, he said he conceded in order to save the state from chaos. However, this did not stop the APC from challenging the results in court. Anenih expressed the view that the National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu, should issue the statement.”

‘STOLEN PRESIDENCY’
An agreement was reached on the way forward, Abdullahi narrated, and all seemed set for the change of tune by the party that had been in power for 16 years.
“Conscious that some others in the room also had their own battles to fight and were not primarily interested in Jonathan’s predicament, Anenih further stated that discussions on other elections and candidates should wait until the ‘stolen presidency’ was reclaimed. Anenih’s position was adopted and a team was put together, chaired by Metuh, to draft a statement for the party chairman. Others in the team were the party’s National Secretary, Adewale Oladipo; the National Legal Adviser, Victor Kwon; Pius Anyim and Liyel Imoke. They went to work immediately and by the following morning, the statement was ready. However, the unexpected was about to happen,” Abdullahi wrote.
“When the draft statement was presented to Adamu Mu’azu, he declared that he would not release it. He said he had reflected on the idea of issuing a statement and was convinced it was not the way to go. Words soon got the Villa that the party chairman had backed out of the plan. Another round of panic began. The President himself called Mu’azu’s mobile number several times, but the party chairman did not answer the phone.
“Many around the president had suspected all along that Mu’azu was not altogether committed to the Jonathan project. They started grumbling openly that his appointment, as Chairman, was another mistake by Jonathan because Mu’azu himself wanted to be president. When the Chairman failed to show up for some campaign events, the public saw this as evidence that things had finally fallen apart. The party had to move quickly to deny that there was any crack in the PDP ranks.
“Therefore, for those who had questioned Muazu’s loyalty, here finally was the clear evidence. If he had any objections to the decision taken at the previous day’s meeting, why didn’t he say so? they wondered. How could he have turned around to sabotage a plan that he was technically part and parcel of? But this was not the time for retribution. That could wait a few more days. The party chairman was still critical to their plans. An emissary was immediately dispatched to persuade him to have a rethink.
“Godswill Akpabio marshaled all the arguments he could muster, but Mu’azu would not budge. It was also an opportunity for the party chairman to vent some of his grievances. ‘Look, Akpabio,’ he said, ‘I am not a bastard. I have honour to protect. The man who contested the election had conceded defeat. I should now be the one to say that the party would not accept defeat? When the candidate was picking his phone to congratulate the winner, did he consult with the party?’
“And in case anyone was thinking of blaming him for the president’s defeat, such person should think again. After all, didn’t he warn against the use of religion and ethnicity by the President’s wife and some of his other supporters like Ayo Fayose and Fani-Kayode? Didn’t he also warn that the personal attacks on Buhari would backfire, especially in the North? If no one listened to him then and allowed things to go pear-shaped, how could they now turn around and ask him to fall on his sword for sins committed by others?
“He insisted that asking him to issue a statement that would most likely throw the country into turmoil was tantamount to asking him to commit suicide – if not literally, then certainly politically. If Akpabio liked, he could sign the statement himself. After all, he was the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum.  A few days after this encounter, Adamu Mu’azu left the country for Singapore.  Some said on medical grounds. Some said for security reasons. Others said both.”
How Adamu Mu’azu opposed plan to reject Buhari’s victory


Exclusive from The Cable

Jonathan govt won gold medal on corruption – Tinubu

By: Bhodemarz on November 20, 2017 / comment : 0 , , , ,

Former Lagos State governor and National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has said that there is urgent need for the country move towards true federalism.
Tinubu stated this while unveiling the book  ‘Making Steady, Sustainable Progress for Nigeria’s Peace and Prosperity’ at the presidential villa, Abuja.
The 360-page book is a mid-term scorecard of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration put together by Presidential Media Team.
The former Lagos State governor said that moving Nigeria in the direction of true federalism remained the ‎best and sure way to grow the economy and improve the standard of living of Nigerians.
Tinubu seized the opportunity as Guest of honour at the launch to explain that President Buhari ‎has changed the Nigerian story for good in the last two years.
He said the country was a sinking ship under the immediate past government of former President Goodluck Jonathan where corruption was the order of the day.
‎Tinubu stressed that Nigeria was now more prosperous than it was two years ago before the coming on board of the APC government.
He told President Buhari that, “the good that you have started, do it more,”.
According to him, the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan earned a red card on good governance but won a gold medal in corruption.
The former Lagos State governor explained that so much money grew feet and ran faster than the Jamaican runner, Usani Bolt, under the PDP administration.
In the words of Tinubu, the money that should have ordinarily been spent on development was lavished away causing untold hardship for Nigerians.
“The prior government used the public treasury as a private hedge fund or a charity that limited its giving only to themselves.
“So much money grew feet and ran away faster than Usain Bolt ever could. That which could have been spent on national development was squandered in ways that would cause the devil to blush.
“One minister and her rogues’ gallery picked the pocket of this nation for billions of dollars. While poor at governance, these people could give a master thief lessons in the sleight of hand. In governance, they earned a red card but in corruption l, they won the gold medal.
“It was not that our institutions had become infected by corruption. Corruption has become institutionalized,” Tinubu added.
He continued that “corruption has been won as President Buhari has set an axe to what he called, “the root of this dangerous tree.”
Gone are the times when a minister can pilfer billions of dollars as easy as plucking a piece of candy from the table.
“We have much to do to combat this disease. Not only must we track down the takers. In the long term, we must review the salaries of public servants and create universal credits for our people to reduce temptation,” he added.
In his welcome address, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha said that the publication is not just ‎a book but a practical guide that the government has made to redeem the country.
Mustapha‎ said the book was a work of partnership between a private sector player and the government.


Source: New Telegraph

OPINION: If You Picked Buhari Over Jonathan In 2015, You Did No Wrong By ‘Fisayo Soyombo

By: Bhodemarz on November 07, 2017 / comment : 0 , , ,

There are numerous disgruntled Muhammadu Buhari supporters straddling the social media space. Worried by a series of controversies in a government they placed high hopes in, many of Buhari’s supporters are penitent.
“Throwback to when I used my bike to campaign for Buhari preaching change. God forgive me,” one named ‘Hur’ recently wrote on social networking site Twitter, accompanied by teary emoticons.
But did people like Hur really have a choice in 2015?

The Jonathan years
It was always clear to the neutrals that Buhari was not Nigeria’s best-possible presidential proposition in 2015. But weighing him against Goodluck Jonathan, he was the perceptibly better choice. Two disappointing Buhari years are not enough to exorcise the ghost of the Jonathan years. A quick rundown, for those who have forgotten.
What collective progress would Nigeria have made under a man who personalized and institutionalized corruption? This was a man, who, speaking of his aversion to assets declaration for public officials, as mandated by the Code of Conduct Bureau, said: “The issue of public asset declaration is a matter of personal principle. That is the way I see it, and I don't give a damn about it, even if you criticize me from heaven.” That was in 2012.
Two years late, at a presidential media chat, he made a woeful attempt to separate corruption from stealing, saying: “Over 70 percent of what are called corruption, even by EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies, is not corruption but common stealing.”
Under Jonathan, common stealing was the norm — left, right and center. It was so bad that a returning minister, seeing the scale of looting all over the place, would say in private circles: “I have come not come to Abuja this time around to count the bridges; I must get my share.”
Of the numerous corruption cases under his watch, one was particularly problematic for Jonathan. Stella Oduah, his Aviation Minister, was found guilty of procedural breaches in the purchase of two bulletproof cars for $1.6m — about $1.2m more than the market price. Still, Oduah prospered under Jonathan and in fact played a big role in his 2015 campaign; he only dispensed with her when he sensed her baggage could hurt his reelection bid.
Let’s not even talk about Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the Bayelsa ex-governor convicted for multi-million-pound corruption who disguised as a woman to jump bail in the UK but was eventually granted state pardon by Jonathan. In that administration, the nation’s treasury was national cake and anyone bold enough to approach it with a knife was free to have his cut! That is why there is nothing to show for the periods in his reign when crude oil prices were favorable; Buhari nevertheless ended up inheriting an economy in tatters, many states unable to pay workers’ salary.
How can we forget Jonathan’s handling of the Boko Haram insurgency? For so long, he viewed it as a plot of the opposition to hunt him down. And the Chibok girls’ abduction? As former President Olusegun Obasanjo would eventually reveal, Jonathan, for 18 days after the kidnap, insisted that no abduction took place. By the time he finally accepted he had the largest-scale abduction since the start of the insurgency on his hands, the girls’ captors were well and truly beyond overhauling.
That wasn’t just an odd error of judgment; it was the archetypal Jonathan. Remember when more than 80 people were bombed to death in Nyanya, Abuja, in April 2014? Two days later, the President was dancing away at a PDP rally in Kano. And only a day after at least 48 were killed in a blast in Potiskum in November 2014, Jonathan organized a colorful ceremony to announce his reelection ambition. What about parents of the abducted Chibok girls? The President refused to meet with them — until Malala Yousafzai, a 17-year-old, came here to beg him. Security of lives is one the simplest responsibilities of a government. And when a government cannot guarantee this (and its head literally rubs it in), thereby leaving the people in a perpetual state of panic, such President deserves to be shown the exit door.

It will be déjà vu in 2019
Why is it so important to harp on the talking points of an election that was staged two years ago? Because we’re inevitably going to find ourselves in a similar situation in 2019.
Like the litany of unfulfilled promises under Jonathan, Buhari has underwhelmed in that office. He promised to fight corruption but he didn’t tell us he would only fight it in the camp of his personal and political enemies; he didn’t tell us his cabinet members were immune from the much-vaunted anti-corruption campaign, that the war would be restricted to the PDP and the Jonathan regime. We didn’t expect that the economy would regress under his watch or that he administration would be so disjointed that government agencies would overtly and covertly antagonize one another. We didn’t expect that the regime of Buhari, a former military strongman, would be hijacked by a cabal.
Buhari has brought a new dimension to the people’s dissatisfaction with governance. To his credit, Jonathan assembled a fairly technocratic cabinet but Buhari’s is inferior by a distance. Buhari made enormous progress with limiting the Boko Haram damage but cronyism and ethnocentrism are some of the hallmarks of his reign. We chased Jonathan away and got rid of his problems; with Buhari, it’s fresh man, fresh problems.  
The rising disillusionment with the current administration means Buhari’s long-time and newfound haters will likely be fixated on getting rid of him in 2019 — not necessarily finding the best possible replacement. That would mean we haven’t learnt a thing from the desperation to eject Jonathan and the disappointment of electing Buhari. It would also mean that rather than upgrade our political leadership from one election cycle to another, we’re only stuck in the vicious cycle of unseating one underwhelming government to make room for another.

Looking ahead to 2023
For all the attention that the 2019 election has been recently generating, I’m struggling to see how it can become a watershed in Nigeria’s political history. Any serious challenge to Buhari’s reign will likely come from the PDP — a party still in tatters more than two years after losing power.
All those who have so far showed interest in the PDP ticket are the usual suspects — regular faces that have graced the political scene for years or sometimes decade; same old, same old! As it stands, none of the other registered parties is strong enough to gatecrash the PDP-APC hegemony. In 2019, the options will be either returning to messy way of old or sticking with the sticky patch of now. Neither is attractive prospect. We’ll be torn between the devil and the deep blue sea, like we were in 2015.
This is why, ahead of 2023, the electorate need to gravitate towards selection rather than election. There is an urgent need for a non-partisan movement to identify a genuine presidential material among us, and subsequently raise a partisan platform with which the selected material can challenge the PDP or APC. It is a long-term project, and it is far more difficult to achieve in reality than it looks on paper. But something is no longer difficult to see: we can no longer be satisfied with picking one of the two candidates thrown at us by the APC and PDP. It’s time we picked our candidate and threw it at them!

Soyombo is the Editor of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR). You can follow him on Twitter @fisayosoyombo.

Source: Sahara Reporters


OPINION: Nigeria runs on rumors, suppositions, innuendos, assumptions and empty accusations. – Quartz Africa

By: Bhodemarz on November 06, 2017 / comment : 0 , , , ,

It was my baptism of fire into the workings of Nigerian governance.
Our firm had just begun communication consulting for government departments and agencies about six years earlier, and this was a very important client. Where I thought my work would center on strategic planning and execution, it turned out much of it would instead be focused on massaging egos, cooling passions and dismissing innuendo.
In a rapid-fire email thread, another innuendo landed one afternoon in 2012. A story by an investigative media outlet had unfairly attacked the client, even though its material facts were not exactly wrong. As I had come to expect, the thread collapsed into a session of finger pointing as to external enemies, paid by opponents, to discredit this government officer.
Because our work has cut across many intersections including media and civil society, I knew this was not the case, and I said so: this feature was the result of a multi-month partnership between various bodies for a different goal having nothing to do with the client.I really should have kept my mouth shut, because within an hour, I was suddenly at the center of the attack, accused of being part of this conspiracy and, it was implied, being a mole not fully committed to protecting my client.This was surreal, but only at the time. The higher up I have worked with Nigerian government and political circles over the past half decade, the worse I have seen and heard.Nigeria runs on rumors. It runs on suppositions, innuendos, assumptions and empty accusations. This is quite the epidemic. One so ingrained every president since democracy returned in 1999 has accused an inchoate “them” of sabotaging the efforts and successes of governments and individuals in government. All of this often flung at supposed opponents without fact, without the appearance of evidence, and without the pretense, even, of investigation.
I have sat in on complex meetings where we have wasted time identifying enemies who must have “planted” a story in the media, or disparaging an endless parade of figures for sponsoring critical social media commentary rather than focus on accepting responsibility for error, shoring up weaknesses and engaging strategically. In many of those cases, I knew for sure that the problem was nothing more than a badly trained journalist, a lazy editor or, actually, the absence of an editor entirely.
But in a country where everyone thinks everyone else is paying the media, or has been paid to speak, to criticize, to correct, to suggest, speaking this simple truth can become a hazard.
I am after all still traumatized by the fact that many insist, completely without evidence of any sort, because it does not exist, that a prominent south-west politician sponsored the historic Occupy Nigeria protests when I am aware, having sat in myriad planning meetings, that this was in fact a spontaneous gathering self-funded by several passionate groups, to revolt against an insensitive government. But the appearance of a handful of opposition politicians was enough to send the gossip mill buzzing.
Nigeria is a country that doesn’t respect data. We have scant regard for evidence, and actively enjoy the absence of rigor. We are very comfortable tossing off accusations, questioning motives, attacking intentions, and engaging in a merry go round of assumptions rather than doing the hard work of strategic thought and engagement.
This is surely why, in responding to baseless accusations that the Nigerian president asked the World Bank to focus solely on development in the North East of Nigeria, the presidential spokesman made a mountain of a mole hill by attacking “ethnic champions”supposedly sponsored by enemies of the government, where it was simply a matter of idle Twitter hands searching for attention.
It is in this way that I have seen several players in Nigeria’s political establishment turn simple problems into major crises.
Often, when Nigerians suspect Machiavellian manipulation in the statements and actions of governments, there is often nothing but the most basic incompetence loudly beating its chest. In my country, one must resist often the temptation of attributing malice where simple stupidity will suffice.
This is a real cultural problem, and not just in government. Indeed, stories of corporate clients chasing shadows when confronting media will require another piece of its own.
How does the country solve a problem that eats so deep into our body politic that it affects the formulation of policy, the assessment of feedback, the building of coalitions, and the sustainability of visions?
The first part of the answer is simple: a cultural overhaul that begins to prize data over assumption, research over opinion, and rigor over instinct. This cultural overhaul should filter from top to bottom and should begin to overturn (and dis-incentivize) the foundations of secrecy, opacity and the disrespect for empiricism that defines the leadership of the country across sectors. We need to take seriously our responsibility to shine the light of knowledge and evidence across Nigerian institutions.
Now, how precisely will we be able to overhaul an entrenched 60-year culture that has hollowed out the soul of a nation, and eaten into its capacity for self-reflection?
Ah yes, you just arrived at the second part of the answer.


Chude Jideonwo is a World Fellow at Yale University. His new book is How to Win Elections in Africa: Parallels with Donald Trump

Source: Quartz Africa

Osinbajo: Jonathan spent N100bn, $295m cash in 2 weeks

By: Bhodemarz on October 29, 2017 / comment : 0 , , ,

The Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo has revealed that former President Goodluck Jonathan spent N100bn, $295m cash in two weeks.
Osinbajo said this while speaking at the Greater Nigeria Pastors Conference organised by Rev. Yomi Kasali.
According to the Vice-President, the massive looting during Jonathan’s administration led to the downturn in the economy.
Osinbajo also said “The theft of resources in this country is the first and primary reason for our poverty.
“That is why we have to address the issue of corruption pointedly, not once in a while because the system is corrupt; it is a corrupted system that we are running. This is not a system where corruption is just an exception, corruption is generally the rule in the Nigerian system.
“It is easy to say how come we don’t have money or why are we borrowing money? If you as an individual have N1million and somebody stole N900,000 from it, you won’t ask the question how come I am poor? You will immediately tie the theft of your money to your poverty.
“When we came in, we had a foreign reserve of $32 billion, but there was $15billion used for defence contract that was unaccounted for.
“Weeks before the 2015 elections, the government then, gave out N100billion in cash and $295million in cash ostensibly for security within two weeks. Those are the reasons why we don’t have money.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that over 1,000 pastors from across the country attended the conference.

Source: PulseTV

Why Not Put Jonathan On The Ballot For 2019? By Peter Claver Oparah

By: Bhodemarz on October 24, 2017 / comment : 0 , , ,

Since he was defeated in an epochal presidential election in March 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan has refused to keep quiet. Known for his notorious flippancy and carefree tongue that has always been a source of embarrassment to himself, his party and his supporters, he has seized every opportunity to talk, even when such opportunities are better utilized keeping quiet. All his utterances since that defeat have been tailored towards telling us how good he was, how meritorious his regime was for us and how we ought to regret voting him out. Also, he had not wasted any time to tell of his graciousness in accepting defeat, though he does not tell us of any other option he would have taken in the light of the very many desperate but futile efforts he made to hang on to power. What else does a person defeated in an election do than hand over?
Jonathan does not waste time in telling whoever takes his words serious how Nigerians should regret voting him out and how his regime outperformed the one that replaced him, headed by President Muhammadu Buhari. But in all his cheeky efforts, Jonathan betrays the mien of a man sorely pained and living in personal turmoil. Jonathan, in his several careless utterances shows he still bears the sores of his defeat and he believes that by talking often, he will live down that sore. He shows clearly a man that is so eager to write his report card and exonerate himself of the legions of unpardonable indiscretions, awful corruption, impunity, indescribable incompetence that all ganged up to see him off power. He emits clearly the symptoms of a troubled mind, not very comfortable with his deserved place in history but who neighs, one way or the other, to re-write history to give him a more favorable verdict than that which he rightly got for his six years in power. Is he not struggling in vain? Is he not indulging in the childish act of bolting the stable door after the horse has escaped? He clearly is and this is shown by the series of angry reactions Nigerians always give to his frequent efforts to bathe himself in adoring glee. With each effort to remake himself, Jonathan comes off worse which speaks of a clear personality deficit he has no inkling how to deal with. When golden silence would have done him tremendous good, Jonathan hurtles out with annoying outbursts full of gaffes, unfathomable errors and vacuous claims that fly in the face of the bumbling mediocrity he is largely perceived of by Nigerians.
Expectedly, Jonathan’s waning party, the PDP, faced with the massive uprising that threw it out of power, had tagged alongside him in this futile effort. As Jonathan’s gains were PDP’s gains, his travails are also theirs. His baggage is also theirs. So they are right to shore up his poor efforts at self-recreation. They are Siamese twins who complimented each other in the egregious misrule that hobbled this country and therefore should seek to strike a partnership with each other as they battle life outside power.
They have not stopped telling us of the glorious era of Jonathan, when life was so sweet, painless and easy. They have constantly jammed our eardrums with sonorous rendezvous of the garden of Eden which the last PDP government writ here for us, only to be rewarded with a shock rejection in 2015. They have not failed to tell us that we never had it so good and rosy as in the Jonathan era where everything was almost free, there was enough money for every Nigerian to the extent that there were tens of trillions of Naira to be stolen without any pain felt by the country, food was almost given out free to Nigerians, hunger and misery disappeared, jobs were everywhere for the picking, security of lives and properties were air tight, life was more abundant and the heavenly Jerusalem was brought down to Nigeria. If you listen to an average PDP and Jonathan apologist, you certainly will miss your way trying to figure out the Nigeria they talk about because the tragic Hobbesian empire they created still exerts unforgettable scars on the minds of Nigerians who are always hit with pangs of bitterness if they remember the horror PDP and Jonathan made here for the years they were in power.
But the subject of this discourse is not to excurse into Jonathan and PDP’s trajectory as Nigerians rightly did a referendum on that regime in March 2015. I am not writing this report to contest the fairy tales with which PDP and Jonathan want to distort the reality that saw them thrown down the dustbin just two years ago. I am not contesting PDP and Jonathan’s frequent efforts to mangle our sensibilities and loot our minds for another tortuous journey in self-dubiety. This report is not about joining issues with Jonathan and his PDP in their self-delusional hope that they will re-build a cracked egg shell. It is not an effort to pore into their cocoon of belief that Nigerians are dolts who can be easily swayed by the kind of puerile white washing and fantasy-tale they are doing today.
It is obvious even to PDP and Jonathan that they are lying to themselves and Nigerians when they ceaselessly tout their achievements in power.  It is obvious even as they mischievously believe it, that they are aware of the gash their steeling and looting of a huge oil boom inflicted on the country today. It is obvious even if they deny it, that these philistines know very well that President Buhari and his government are doing their utmost best to contain the negative fallout of the brigandage they unleashed here before they were booted out of power. They are aware that they are duping themselves (not Nigerians) by noisily singing their praises.
My concern is that a party that once governed Nigeria is still burying its head in the sand. My concern is that PDP and Jonathan are furiously romancing their thighs and believe they can get pregnant from that silly effort. You may wonder why I have these concerns? It is not for the interest of PDP which, each day, is hit by cases of desertion from its emptying core. If you doubt the sorry state of PDP, ask Doyin Okupe who wrote off his once-darling party as a tree than no longer bear fruits. Ask PDP former National Chairman, Ahmadu Ali, who had advised his party to stop hallucinating about 2019, as they can never win the presidency in 2019. Ask Governor Seriake Dickson of Jonathan’s Bayelsa State who had told his party that it is impossible for PDP to win the 2019 presidential election. Ask Ibrahim Mantu who recently asked his party to go on its knees and tender unreserved apology to Nigerians for its sins as a way of seeking reinvention. Ask Ifeanyi Ubah who recently said that PDP is still digging its grave. Ask former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar who expressed the worry that PDP is not offering any meaningful opposition to the ruling APC.
But my point in proving the self-elected dubiety of the PDP on its achievements during its years in power, especially during the Jonathan years, is that presently, the rank and file of what remains in PDP, including Jonathan are crisscrossing the country, begging different people to fly its presidential ticket in 2019, the year they have noisily boasted they will take back power. They are now traversing the north and romancing several people to take their presidential ticket in 2019 with no luck. They even offered same to foremost businessman Aliko Dangote, who retorted that he is not a politician and even if he were, he can never ever seek to fly the presidential flag of the PDP against President Buhari. It is so bad for PDP! However, such public scorn has not deterred PDP and Jonathan from foraging for newer grounds in seeking someone that will take their presidential ticket in 2019 and you wonder what informed their vacuous boast of unseating Buhari when they are finding it hard to have a candidate to stand against Buhari?.
In the face of this public humiliation and given PDP’s insistence that the last regime turned Nigeria into an Eldorado under Jonathan, and that Nigerians have regretted replacing Jonathan with Buhari, why are they not tapping that golden opportunity by drafting Jonathan to contest against Buhari in 2019? Why have they turned nomads in the elusive search for a credible 2019 presidential candidate when they have a ready-made achiever in Jonathan? Why are they not putting Jonathan on the ballot so that Nigerian who have regretted voting for Buhari against Jonathan in 2015 can rectify their mistakes and bring Jonathan and PDP back to power? Why is the PDP wasting its efforts to search for an elusive candidate to beat Buhari in 2019 when they have a ready-made candidate in a Jonathan that was a super hero when he was here for nearly six years? Why is PDP not taking the Jonathan option but have been touting his regime as the best gift God deigned Nigeria after pure water?
Your wonder widens when you observe that Jonathan himself is also involved in this scavenging when he knows that nothing stops him from putting himself on the ballot for Nigerians to do a clear referendum on him against Buhari as he pretends not to know his rightful place in the history of the country. Jonathan contested as a sitting president and lost in 2015 so he is viable to stand for election again, so why is PDP not putting him up to snatch the seat from Buhari n 2019, knowing how well he performed before he was mistakenly voted out? Who is playing tricks on himself? Who wants to dupe himself?
However, PDP will prove those that posit that it plays pranks on itself right if they continue to market the horrendous travesty of Jonathan’s regime as a better option for Nigerians yet refuse to put Jonathan on its 2019 ticket. Nothing prevents Jonathan from contesting the 2019 election, so the best way for him and his sagging party to test their stand amongst Nigerians is to be put in the ballot in 2019 so that Nigerians will have that historical opportunity to rectify the mistake PDP and Jonathan said Nigerians did in rejecting them in 2015. PDP must quit its pranks. Jonathan must quit his well-known penchant to play the ostrich and enter the ring for the 2019 contest if they really believe in their jeremiad that Nigerians regret voting them out or that they performed creditably even to their own personal judgment. Nothing more than this is required if PDP and Jonathan are not conveniently lying to themselves to con Nigerians into embarking on another perilous journey we had when they were steering the Nigerian ship to perdition. So enough of this enfoolment. Let PDP re-present the Jonathan ticket for 2019, if they sincerely believe that they did well when he was here or keep quiet, apologize to Nigerians for the Jonathan/PDP tragedy and do large-scale reforms on the party before even presenting themselves as alternatives to what we have at present.

Peter Claver Oparah writes from Ikeja, Lagos. You can reach him at petercalver2000@yahoo.com


Source: Sahara Reporters

Nigerians Fear Buhari, They Don't Trust Him, Says Jonathan

By: Bhodemarz on October 23, 2017 / comment : 0 , ,

Media Office of former President Goodluck Jonathan has accused the federal government and the Special Adviser to President Buhari on Media, Mr Femi Adesina of peddling falsehood over claims that Nigerians did not protest the hike in fuel price by the Buhari government because they trusted the government.
In his response to Adesina and the federal government, over the claims, Jonathan’s Media Office said fear, not trust was why Nigerians did not protest en masse against fuel price hike under Buhari.
“When Femi Adesina says that it is because of trust that Nigerians did not rise up against the Buhari administration when it increased the pump price of petrol from N87 to N145, he betrays a deep ignorance and arrogance.
“First of all, it was not Nigerians that rose up again the Jonathan administration when that government increased the price of petrol on January 1, 2012. It was actually members of All Progressive Congress who sponsored the protests,” said the statement signed by Mr Reno Omokri on behalf of Jonathan Media Office.
The statement said Nigerians had not so soon forgotten how Mr Nasir El-Rufai led other chieftains of the opposition to Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos, where they attracted crowds by inviting top musicians to perform and by giving out free food and drinks.
It continued: “On December 15, 2015, the Nigerian Army, under President Muhammadu Buhari’s command, killed 347 unarmed Shiite men, women, children and infants and buried them in a mass grave as revealed by the panel of inquiry instituted by Kaduna State government.
“The excuse given by the military for this massacre was that the Shiites had blocked a road during one of their procession and this allegedly affected a trip by the chief of army staff. After killing his followers and destroying their place of worship, Mr Ibrahim Zak Zaky, spiritual leader of the Nigerian Shiite community, was illegally and unconstitutionally detained and has not been seen or heard of in public since December 15, 2015.
“So when the Buhari administration increased the pump price of petrol, Nigerians wisely reasoned that if the Buhari administration can kill 347 unarmed Shiite men, women, children and infants for blocking a road, it would be suicidal to give them an opportunity to do the same thing to them on a wider scale,” said the statement from Jonathan Media Office.
Under Buhari administration, it said human life had become so cheap that the military and security services routinely kill innocent Nigerians be it Shiites, peaceful demonstrators or IDPs at the Rann IDP Camp.
“To say Nigerians trust an administration that publicly boasted that it would not tell Nigerians how much of their own money the President spent in treating himself in London when the State House Clinic cannot boast of ordinary Panadol (by his own wife’s testimony) is to speak a lie. Nigerians can judge the nature of the man whose number one campaign promise was that “no Nigerian Public official should receive medical treatment overseas at public expense”. For him lies are cheap even if they are expensive for the Nigerian public who has to pay the price.
“Nor have Nigerians forgotten the promise to end corruption when the $25 billion Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation scam is ringing in their ears along with the denials by the Vice President that he never approved any contracts. How can they trust a government that has still not released or acted on the SGF’s grass cutter contract probe after six months?
“In the five years that he governed Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan spent N16 trillion. The economy grew. The Naira was stable. We had the greatest expansion of infrastructure since the Gowon years and inflation was in single figures. In the two years that President Muhammadu Buhari has ruled Nigeria, he has spent N15 trillion. We have had recession. Naira collapsed.
“Inflation has gone back to double digits and the only infrastructure that he has started and completed is the Daura helipad. So Femi should spare us his propaganda and accept the truth that he is the mouthpiece of a murderous regime sustained by propaganda and surviving on corruption,” the statement from Jonathan Media Office said.

Source: Thisday


Obasanjo, Jonathan, Buhari Are Accidental Leaders, Says Na’Abba | TheCable

By: Bhodemarz on October 16, 2017 / comment : 0 , , , ,

Ghali Na’ Abba, speaker of the House of Representatives, says all those who have presided over the country since the return of democracy in 1999, are accidental leaders.
Former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and President Muhammadu Buhari have been in charge of the country during those periods.
Speaking in Abuja during the 2016/2017 matriculation and fellowship endowment of the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS), Obasanjo said accidental leadership brings about trial and error in governance.
He blamed the nation’s leadership for the recruitment process.
“Circumstances at hand or situations on ground have to a large extent over the years determined who and who were elected into office in Nigeria as presidents since 1999 as against the level of preparedness on the part of the leaders in terms of clear vision and programmes obtainable in most democracies of the world culminating in accidental leadership for the country,” he said.
“I believe that not just the legislature, every arm of government that is serving the purpose of governance must invest in exposing democracy to the people. It is a sad commentary on our political life that today recruitment into leadership has been subverted by a few politicians because they deny Nigerians opportunity to contest elections and achieve their aspirations through the systematic appropriation of political parties to themselves.
“These politicians have stopped the growth of democracy. And it is true that unless democracy is allowed to grow, we cannot achieve the desired political growth, we cannot achieve the desired economic growth and we can also not achieve the desired social growth in our country. And that is why we are still in political, economic and social doldrums. We have been having successive accidental leaders since 1999.
“It is time for us to begin to understand that the more participation Nigerians enjoy in politics, the more political development we attain. And consequently economic and social development.”

Source: jimidisu

Jonathan sues for calm

By: Bhodemarz on September 17, 2017 / comment : 0 , , ,

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has called for peaceful coexistence and restraint on all sides in the on-going crisis ignited by the push by some groups for secession of southeast.
The arrowhead for the secession, the Indegenous People of Biafra (IPOB) led by Mr Nnamdi Kanu, has been proscribed by the regional governors and declared as a terrorist organisation by the military.
In a message to the nation on Saturday, Jonathan said: “Recent developments in the country calls for appeal to all men of good will to use whatever influence they have to push for peaceful coexistence and restraint on all sides.’’
He suggested that it was perhaps time for the Council of State to intervene and offer its wise counsel.
“Irrespective of whatever provocation, Nigerians must never turn on each other.
“Even in the face of difficult circumstances, we must have faith that God in His infinite wisdom will guide us to finding a way out that is fair and just to all concerned.
“In as much as there may be a need to enforce order, there is a greater need to reinforce our humanity and treat Nigerian citizens humanely whether they be from the North or South.
“Nothing justifies the desecration and destruction of religious places of worship or a police station. But even more so, nothing justifies the endangering of human life.’’
He advised that Nigerians should exchange ideas instead of exchanging insults and threats.
“We must be resolute as a people even as we know that it is impossible to deny the brotherhood of all Nigerians after over a century of a shared commonwealth.’’
Source: www.nan.ng

Nigeria: Ground Nigeria's Medical Tourism so Healthcare Can Take Flight by Ify Aniebo

By: Bhodemarz on August 23, 2017 / comment : 0 , , ,


I, like many young Nigerians, voted President Muhammadu Buhari into office in 2015 with hope for the future of our beloved country, Nigeria. We supported his promises to fight corruption; create jobs for the youth, and end the practice of Nigerian government officials using state funds to travel to foreign institutions for their personal medical care. Medical tourism, as it's known, expels huge capital flight of about $1billion dollars, particularly from expenses incurred by political and public office holders (and their accompanying aides), whose foreign medical trips (most of which are unnecessary) were financed with tax payers' resources.
Corruption and job creation are complex issues and progress has been slow. But Nigerians had pinned their hopes on immediate progress on medical tourism. We lose billions of Naira every year to medical trips abroad. And at home, many people die because we don't have hospitals that are run at international standards. While our politicians go overseas, the average Nigerian suffers substandard and debilitating healthcare, medical negligence, and even deaths from preventable diseases.
With the dwindling economy and the continuous terror of Boko Haram, I was shocked to hear that the President had travelled to London once again for medical reasons at the beginning of the year - returning only this month. Last year, he travelled to London for a 'persistent ear infection'.
During his seven weeks' absence members of his Cabinet - including his Vice President - had no clue if he was alive or dead. On this return he reported that he could not recall being "so sick" and that he would have to return for more tests.
Like many Millennials, I feel that Nigerian government officials are not transparent, cannot be held accountable and, frankly, do get away with being corrupt. Nigeria has been here before, though, with former president Yaradua. President Yaradua fell ill and died while in office with much mystery shrouding his reason for travelling to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.
Take, for example, the former governor of Enugu State Sullivan Chime who spent 4 months in a UK hospital receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness, abandoning his duties as governor. Or the former governor of Akwa-ibom, Godswill Akpabio, who unveiled a N30 billion Specialist Hospital he built in May 2015 and told Nigerians the hospital was of world-class standard. Yet four months later he sought treatment in the United Kingdom after sustaining minor injuries in a car crash in Abuja, the federal capital territory.
This has been the modus operandi of our leaders for decades.  In 1989, the military president at the time, Ibrahim Babangida travelled to Germany for an operation. His wife Maryam also sought treatment abroad and died in an American hospital. Other examples include former First Lady Stella Obasanjo who died in Malaga, Spain, Former President Goodluck Jonathan's wife, Patience Jonathan, who made several trips to Germany for medical treatment and former Senate President David Mark who travelled to Israel to treat his eye and teeth. The list goes on and on. Other prominent leaders including politicians, business executives and traditional leaders die abroad while receiving medical treatment and are then flown back to Nigeria at great expense for burial.
Why do Nigerian government officials think this is acceptable? They were elected into office to make the country better and that includes fixing the healthcare system. Citizens who can afford to travel do so and Nigerians - including government officials - spent $1bn on foreign medical trips in 2013. However the poor - who make up the majority of Nigeria's 170 million people - are left to bear the consequences of an inept government.

The average Nigerian visits a hospital where he or she is met with a doctor who is most likely frustrated with not getting paid monthly by the government, has to work in dilapidating hospital conditions without electricity or basic life saving measures, such as oxygen and blood transfusion services. These services are fast becoming a luxury, and because of the poor state of affairs in the health sector, we've seen incessant strikes. As a result, a patient experiences hostility, unsatisfactory services, and pays the price for medical negligence.
In countries like South Africa, politicians use the same medical facilities as ordinary citizens. Nelson Mandela for example, was treated at a South African military hospital until his death. So far, there is no record that a South African president was flown abroad for medical treatment and the current health minister uses state hospitals. South African leaders and elite attend to their health care services in South Africa because the current and previous administrations laid a solid foundation for functional, workable and standard public health care services.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Nigeria, the 'giant of Africa'. Nigeria spends less on healthcare as a share of GDP than Angola, South Sudan and Ethiopia . It is ranked nearly the lowest of the 53 African states in the World Bank's database, surpassing only the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in healthcare spending. The country also falls short of the declaration by the African Union that member countries spend 15% of their budgets on health. Nigeria spentonly 8.2% of its budget on health in 2014 and reduced this percentage some more to 4% in 2016.
It is absolutely clear that the leadership in Nigeria do not take healthcare seriously and are not committed to building an efficient healthcare system. The only way to curb this problem is to first, stop electing old men who are past retirement age. Apart from the fact that they are far removed from the daily realities Nigerians face, their old age increases the chance of ill health. A sick president who travels abroad for treatments is not the kind of exemplary leader Nigeria needs. We need someone who will prevent medical tourism, find innovative ways to improve the health system through direct investments, and attend local hospitals for treatment themselves. Second, we need to protest the current medical tourism practice by officials; we must enact laws that would criminalise anyone in office from seeking medical care abroad. Maybe this will get them thinking about using funds appropriately since they too may get affected by the dilapidated health system.
If Buhari banned medical tourism, the money saved could be invested directly into the health system. This could improve the services citizens receive, avoid medical personnel going on strike, train better doctors who understand what it means to have taken the Hippocrates oath,  improve the overall infrastructure problems the health system faces and most of all, avoid unwanted and avoidable deaths caused by the lack of medical supplies and negligence.
As a young Nigerian, it is scary that I cannot trust the healthcare system our leaders have left for us.  If things carry on this way, it will only get worse. This means that while young people in the UK or Japan have the chance of living well into their 80s, young Nigerians could have their lives cut short to about 48 years old. Largely, this is due to disease that could most likely have been prevented or treated.
This is a call to young Nigerians to demand their basic human right for access to quality and affordable health. The leaders currently accessing quality care overseas will not be here for long to bear the burden of the disaster they are creating: we and our unborn children will bear the burden.
We simply cannot mortgage the health of Nigeria's youth to fund the excesses of its leadership.
Source: allafrica.com


Ify Aniebo is a PhD candidate at Oxford University in Clinical Medicine and Infectious Tropical Diseases and a 2016 Aspen New Voices Fellow. Follow her on Twitter at @ifyaniebo.

Source: allafrica.com
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
Created By SoraTemplates | Distributed By Blogger