Uneasy lies the head who has a GEJ as predecessor, while not blaming GEJ for all the woes of the Country or its present unimpressive status, a stage that was being set up for over 16 years, inherited by GEJ too, yet the indices shows things went from bad to worse under him. As such if we were to assess his outing using the methodology where you are measured based on your output viz-a-viz the potential resources at your disposal per time, without a comparative analysis of your predecessor, then little wonder the outcome of the elections swung the way it did.

GEJ had all the trappings and opportunity of being truly transformational, yet he derailed and squandered all the good will. Even if we were to measure GEJ based on comparative analysis with his predecessor OBJ, he definitely will score some points but are those points significant enough to parallel achievements such as an annual spend of 300Billion on subsidy compared to GEJ’s over 1 trillion a year? How did it shoot up astronomically like that? As at 29 May 2007 when OBJ handed over to the new Government Nigeria was no longer in debt and the 30 Billion Naira per year foreign debt that OBJ met in 1999 had been fully paid off, however under the GEJ tenure the Country owes 30 Billion dollars and is still borrowing with little or no Capital projects or infra to boot, rather Okonjo Iweala in one of her recent statements was quoted to have said we borrowed 473 Billion Naira to fund recurrent expenditures. Make no mistakes this is the same Okonjo Iweala, one of the whiz kids of the OBJ era responsible for the debt payoff quoted earlier. Perhaps it is true that leadership is quite important, else how do you explain her ineptitude and lack luster performance under the GEJ tenure.

In 2007 when OBJ left, 23 Billion dollars was left in the ECA (Excess Crude Account) after he built it up from almost nothing in 1999, by January 2012 the account was empty.

There are many more indices which we need not dwell on, we must now focus on getting back the glory days, albeit imperfect yet we were going somewhere, now it seems we have lost 6 years of progress again. Nigerians must understand that our choice of leaders must never be that of a weak one, but a leader who is firm…it would pay us to err on the part of a firm leader as history as shown, we do get gains even with such leaders.

GMB has been called at a historic moment and to a gigantic responsibility, he will be inheriting issues, like no other might have inherited in the history of democratic transitions and in the age of a renewed political awareness by Nigerians and the increased social media penetration, failure is not an option, in fact in one of my earlier posts, I had said the 2015 election was won on the social media virtually before manifesting in the physical, albeit GEJ’s campaign caucus failed to take advantage and notice the trends, instead engaged in a nauseating hate campaign-Thanks to the terrible- trio of Mama Peace, FFK and Fayose.

So Nigerians should not expect a miracle in a short period but that of steady progress, and if the reports flying on social media are true, that GMB is nervous and concerned for Nigerians expectations (both genuine and in-genuine ones, especially the vengeful expectations and campaign of calumny from pro GEJ supporters, who, if GMB were to turn water into wine, will still call it blood. The latter group of people we all need to simply ignore as they are still seething from the loss of a war they had no business fighting or supported in the first instance)…Then I am quite certain that he is ready to work, only the awareness of what is at stake and the enormity of the task ahead can truly make a leader transformational.

For me three main areas Muhammadu Buhari needs to focus on are Corruption, the hydra headed monster needs to be killed before it kills us all, as quoted by the General himself, secondly Power and then the Petroleum sector. All three, if addressed meets the criteria of a balanced score card as there is an obvious nexus between all three.

Reduce Corruption and free up funds to tackle Power and Petroleum.

Corruption
I recommend the reduction in wasteful spending. Implement the Oronsaye report recommending the scrapping of 102 statutory agencies from the current 263, abolition of 38 agencies, merger of 52 and reversion of 14 to departments in the ministry. There is an alarming 45,000 Ghost workers in 251 MDA’s. The nexus between the over staffing of the civil service and corruption cannot be over emphasized. Those snakes benefitting from the massive bureaucracy, where about 1 % of the population is enjoying the payout of allowances to the tune of 1.031 Trillion Naira representing about 35% of the 4.926 Trillion being the total budget of the FG in 2013, have been responsible for ensuring the report is not actualized.

An immediate campaign for the reduction in salaries and allowances of our legislature should be embarked on, I say campaign because GMB needs to understand that we are in a democratic dispensation and he will definitely encounter bad blood as per this recommendation (the Senators make the laws). One way he can handle this democratically is by forming a committee to engage civil societies to begin the lobby of the legislature to see reason in the greater good of slashing these salaries, as well as the launch of something I like to call the Voluntary Paycut Scheme (VPS) for the legislature, the committee and the civil societies are to take the campaign to the lawmakers and try to get them to opt in, as many as do so should be published with no pun intended, but rather to let Nigerians see those lawmakers who have sacrificed, and also to show the gains monetarily made from the campaign.

Imagine if the N353,756,988 ($2,183,865-This is at N162 previously to a dollar)a Senator earns annually( highest in the world, with Italy being second at a comparatively mere $182,000) is reduced by 50%, that would free up N176,878,494 multiplied by the 109 senate upper house that would amount to an annual gain of N1,927,975,584.6 (and I have not even calculated the House of Reps nor used the N200 to a dollar rate. Also that is a 50% reduction and yet that amount is still that high)…is this perspective enough to warrant a serious focus?

It gets better!

If the minimum wage of an average Nigerian is N18,000, then annually such a Nigerian earns N216,000 ($1333 at N162 to a dollar), meaning it would take this Average Nigerian a whooping 1,638 years of life on Earth to earn what the legislative takes home annually.

Not done yet!

It means the average Nigerian above survives on about N600/day while the senator survives, nay, luxuriates a day with N982,658…is he eating Human flesh? Meaning this Senators daily rate can feed 1637 average Nigerians daily at N600/day (at this point, a tear drops!).

This committee should also look into a campaign to reverse the outrageous and malicious pension for former Governors and Deputy Governors within States, at least within APC controlled States. Other areas include the autonomy of LGA and the cessation of the siphoning of their allocations by the Governors. It is quite unfortunate that obviously Governors are also a serious problem in this Country and they are the first to cry wolf if the Centre or Federal misbehaves, bunch of Hypocrites!

If the President elect and his team can achieve this alone, he can go to sleep with a closed eye and rest assured that Nigerians are in his support.

Power

Currently as a Nigerian, I am the Minister of Power amongst other things (you can add to the list, Minister of Works and Minister of Water resources). According to the program director Community Research and Development centre (CREDC) Nigerians spend around 796.7billion annually on fueling and powering their Generators, that figure is around the entire FG budget for Capital expenditure for 2009 (let me catch you, addressing me without adding Minister of Power…lol), it is also worthy to note that out of a population of over 170Million, 60Millions own generator sets.

This means some people don’t even have any source of Power in the house but depend solely on the sickly-non-existent power supply from NEPA, Sorry PHCN. The figure quoted becomes over a trillion by the time we add what the State house Aso Rock quoted in the 2015 Budget for the same heading-a staggering 815.4million Naira. What is wrong with us?.

I propose, not to reverse the privatization in the power sector (we will come back to this later) but to immediately begin to empower and create grants for alternative energy resource, diverting gradually resources away from Hydro and Gas fired plants till we are stable (with the amount of gas we flare alone being able to generate enough Power for Nigeria). One good example we should immediately look into and prioritize is solar energy, it’s the most abundant, cleanest and even safest energy source…herein lies our salvation.

Let us look at the potential, shall we? The Sahara desert has the potential of becoming the power house of Nigeria, if not even for the World, the place alone receives about 700megawatts of solar radiation, while Nigeria as a whole receives about 600megawatts peaking at noon and declining to zero at night…if only a little of this will be tapped we will be on our way to Eldorado.

This is one sector that if we analyze we will never finish, but come to a conclusion that we are finished!
A report by Light Up Nigeria I stumbled on shows that 40% of Nigerians are served by the National grid, and 60% of the time the 40% being served don’t have power. The grid is actually designed to carry only 4,800MW yet we keep investing on power projects, as at the time of the report 16 ongoing power projects were on, and if completed will generate about 20,000MW for the grid…but what that means is 20,000-4,800MW will be wasted capacity (75% will be useless). Let us look at transmission losses which according to the professionals are normal, and put at around 7% safe threshold, however on the Nigerian Grid it is a whopping 35% there goes 1600MW out of the 4800MW we were expecting.

It has been said that three issues are responsible for transmission losses-Vandalization, Moribund and faulty equipments as well as Illegal connections. Generation will be hindered by distribution at the grid level and that is the issue here, we can go on and on and the picture will only get gloomier, recently Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo aired his frustration over the incessant sabotage by vandals who damage oil and gas pipelines, gas being an important component in the generation of electricity-Speaking of Nigerians unleashing untold hardships on Nigerians.

The ongoing privatization should not be stopped, however more monitoring and sanctions for non performance should be meted out. Privatization is the way to go as Government cannot really do everything, albeit the grid issues must be resolved else all efforts rendered will be a waste, this should be in conjunction with empowering one of the last efforts of the GEJ administration (kudos to GEJ), with its FEC approving a new draft National Policy on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, NPREEE.

This bill seeks to tackle the issue of renewable energy sources in the Country as well as connecting the almost 50% of the rest of the Country to the grid.
Muhammadu Buhari must ensure he combs the world and the Diaspora to look for Nigerians, professionals, who are ready to serve and have a passion for development, to come and aid in this sector.

Petroleum

Currently...

Nigerians want steady supply of fuel, and at a price most of them can afford. However, this ‘affordable’ price is below cost. As of today, the true pump price of a litre of petrol, according to the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) is N130.96. With the product being sold at N87, and the daily petrol consumption in the country put at 40 million litres, it means government is subsidizing consumption of this commodity to the tune of N1.758 billion every day, with 365 days a year then the subsidy figure stands at over 649.7 billion per annum.

Ignoring the fact that some of this amount goes to a cabal that shortchanges Nigeria with alleged collusion with NPA, Customs and NNPC in collecting subsidy funds without delivering a single liter of product. A good example is the case of one of the marketers who documented and quoted that a vessel with a certain name berthed in Republic of Benin with a specified amount of product delivered, cleared by the relevant agencies, collected monies but on further investigation on the same day he quoted the vessel was berthed at the same time in a remote part of Europe.

The whole subsidy payout is as a result of Nigeria being unable to refine Crude produced from its own soil, but instead sent out to be refined and then purchased back to Nigeria. Look at it like producing Cocoa and taking out to produce chocolate and then importing the finished product-the characteristics of a highly consumerist society that lavishly eats what it doesn’t produce.

Let us go back to the figures, the over N600 Billion spent on subsidy is almost 6 times the amount quoted needed to carry out a TAM on the nations refineries at 550Million USD (>N110 Billion.)

The solution is staring us in the face, but are we Nigerians ready to make the sacrifice? While I understand that most Nigerians including the writer, find it hard to make further sacrifices for a Nigerian State where the leaders simply come into power without a grasp of issues or even a road map, but instead stumble blindly about till their tenure runs out and to add insult to injury some of them simply loot the treasury blind and brazenly.

The question now is do we continue to waste over 6 times the amount needed to fix our refineries on Cabals who have only their own interest at heart, and eventually like we are witnessing now, the Government begins to feel the weight of the payout and then strikes and scarcity emanates, resulting in us buying the product at way higher (the product is being sold in some locations for as high as N300/litre) than the without-subsidy retail price (N130.96)?

Or do we…

Simply sacrifice and cancel the nonsensical-inefficient subsidy payouts and continue to buy fuel at N130.96 and end the incessant strikes and scarcity, killing these cabals once and for all?

For me I think the latter is the best approach albeit painful, but the GMB administration can make a charter with Nigerians that the gains on canceling the subsidy will be used for nothing else…nothing else but the TAM and restoration of full capacity to the refineries, and it will be concluded in a specified period. This way we Nigerians understand that our sacrifices will not be forever, but just for a limited time.

We must all remember that we the masses are the ones who will always be on the receiving end, we are always in a dilemma to either embrace the devil or jump into the deep blue sea, as whatever decisions we make the elites and capitalist bourgeoisies will not feel the pains and apart from this the Country will only get better if the followership is as good as the leadership.

I for one, will rather buy fuel at a standardized price that I understand is not forever, than watch helplessly why a group of vultures in the land peck at our flesh incessantly and then occasionally still purchase the price at a ridiculous price way above the standardized.

The president elect should consider the above analysis and please do away with subsidy ASAP, it is unsustainable, inefficient, malicious, and retrogressive.

I believe if we can get the above right, we should be on our way back to Eldorado, and eventually allowing the prophesy, nay forecast that our economy will be one of the ones to watch out for globally in the years to come.

God bless Nigeria, God speed and best of luck General Muhammadu Buhari and team.

Adeyinka Isioye

Hmmm

I can't wait to see how GMB will handle both Gej's home and foreign messes

Nigeria will be great again