Goodluck Jonathan, hardluck Nigeria


20/02/2011 00:00:00

The icing on the cake of rejection, for me, of candidate Goodluck Jonathan as the next President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to be sworn-in after the April 2011 general elections came at his recent Ibadan, Oyo State, campaign, when he demonstrated that he is not prepared to talk about issues responsible for our reprehensible underdevelopment. Rather it suited his fancy to be petty and display un-presidential rascality by using intellectually demeaning language.

How he is going to address the myriad problems the country is bedeviled with is not on his card. Why play politics of patronage, instead of politics of human development? If existing federal universities and refineries are incapacitated and moribund, can’t they be made to function properly? Why must new ones be created and built, knowing the lack of maintenance and sustenance of infrastructures occasioned by the lackadaisical attitudes of our supposed leaders – who are in the real sense our rulers and ruiners? Will citing universities in each geo-political area improve the quality of education being given to our students?

Can he explain meaningfully the rationale for his purported plan to build refineries in every geo-political zone, or is he saying it’s impossible to get the existing ones working optimally? Are we sure these two projects will not go the way of their predecessors because of government’s penchant for shoddy jobs while awarding contracts to themselves through cronies and proxies?

Jonathan’s eventual return (God forbid!) to Aso Rock will be goodluck to him, but badluck to Nigeria. Does he look like one ‘leader’ that is ready to fight corruption, when he can’t even send the minister of state for health on ‘recess’ on account of an allegation of corruption against the minister when he was a resident electoral commissioner in one of the states? It was this same President Jonathan that said Nigeria’s problem of corruption arises from the greed of its rulers; is the minister’s case not a classic one of greed?

For the umpteenth time, I am emphatic that any ‘leader’ or ruler that cannot solve the age-long problem of gross darkness encompassing the land as exampled by the inability of ECN, NEPA or PHCN, or whatever name it may be called in future, to give Nigerian homes, industries and businesses uninterrupted electricity is not prepared to move Nigeria to a developed state from its current stagnancy, or shall we say retrogression?

Issues, issues and issues; but can a Jonathan presidency cast aside his seeming genteel look (which he has rubbished with his undignified and indecorous statement at Mapo, Ibadan), and put on the reins needed to tackle issues rather than call opponents or perceived ‘rivals’ names? I don’t see him having that willingness or energy!

Because of his power to currently control state machineries (till, media and all), he has been inundating our ears and sights with who he is and not what his plans are in charging Nigeria forward developmentally. Gullible and naïve Nigerians, with their defeatist belief that an incumbent president can never lose election, have already ceded the election to him.

Perhaps Nigerians have not suffered enough, and are therefore not desirous of change that will send insensitive and uncaring rulers packing from their comfort zone of milking the nation without feeding it in return. Ordinarily, years of promises unkept and further deepening of the miseries of the masses, methinks should be enough reason to reject rulers like candidate Jonathan and his party at the next polls.

I am, however, befuddled by the crass and sheer non-showing of hostility towards the status quo that has been compounding our problems through ruthless greed. Twelve years of thunder and no rain, isn’t it time we changed the few whose seeming plan is to continue to subjugate a majority, while perpetuating themselves in office through rotation and proxy?

I am very angry and afraid that Nigerians seemingly don’t have the savvy to rout out rulers that are incorrigible and graspingly inept (thanks to Palladium).


http://thenationonlineng.net/web3/arts/28483.html

[b]Speaker’s name missing from voter registe[/b]r

y Modey Peters

February 23, 2011 04:28AM
Print print Email email Share Share


The name of the Speaker of Cross River State House of Assembly, Francis Adah, is missing from the voter register even though he was duly registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the voter registration exercise.

The deputy governor of the state, Efiok Cobham revealed this in Calabar while addressing those protesting the omission of their names from the register displayed by INEC. Mr Cobham said the shoddy job done by the electoral commission will disenfranchised so many eligible voters in the state and called on the commission to do something about it. “Besides the names of prominent citizens of the state missing from the voter register, a particular ward in Bekwarra Local Government Area that registered only 500 voters during the registration exercise has only 18 persons on the register displayed by INEC. This is not acceptable.”

He pleaded with the protesters not to take the law in their hands as the government is trying to address the problem with the relevant authorities.

Mr Adah, a member of the PDP wants to represent the people of Bekwarra/Obudu/Obanliku federal constituency in the House of Representatives when the next government comes to power on May 29.

INEC responds

In a reaction to the allegations over the voter registration exercise by INEC, its resident electoral commissioner in the state, Mike Igini said the commission took time to sort out multiple registration by voters before displaying the register hence, those involved had their names deleted from the register.

Mr Igini revealed that only INEC in Cross River State took the pains to investigate the issue of multiple registration before going public with the register adding that in so many registration units in the state, many people registered in five or more places. “There is a particular woman in Calabar who registered in five different places. At each registration point, she wore different clothes, cap, head gear and gave different names but she failed to know that her finger prints were the same and will give her out. Of course, we caught her. She won’t vote in April.” Mr Igini said.

But on Monday, protesters gathered infront of Mr Igini’s office to make their case before the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC). The protesters who came from all the local governments of the state were carrying placards bearing different inscriptions. In the protest letter signed by six “concerned citizens” of the state on behalf of other protesters, they alleged that INEC left out thousands of citizens of the state during the recently concluded voter registration exercise, an action that will affect the voting strength of the state and other demographic considerations in revenue allocation.

“Thousand of our citizens are left with psychological injuries, pains and agony as they would not be part of the unfolding democratic process because they were left out in the registration exercise”, the letter said.


http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5679360-146/story.csp

Reps probe ex-IG’s missing N20bn

The House of Representatives on Wednesday ordered a probe into claims that the sum of N20bn recovered from a former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, had disappeared.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had recovered the amount from the former IG, following his prosecution for corrupt practices after he left office. However, the legislators said on Wednesday that they were aware of reports alleging that the money was missing.

The matter came up on the floor of the House as lawmakers debated an executive bill seeking to ‘Establish the Nigeria Police Reform Trust Fund and for Matters Connected Therewith, 2010’. The proposed Fund is another name for the former Police Equipment Fund chaired by Chief Kenny Martins while Balogun was the IG.

As lawmakers debated the bill on Wednesday, they also recalled that the N50bn donated to the PEF was allegedly mismanaged.

Most of them had argued that details of how the PEF money was utilised should be made available to Nigerians before the approval of the new outfit. The Chairman of the House Committee on Air Force, Mr. Halims Agoda, had observed that efforts to reform the Nigeria Police Force were always frustrated by the fraudulent activities of the managers of such funds.

He told the House that Balogun converted police funds to his personal use, leaving officers and the rank and file to suffer in the line of duty. Agoda recalled that the EFCC recovered N20bn from Balogun.

“Surprisingly, Mr. Speaker, what we are being told now is that the money is missing; it cannot be traced,” he added.

He said he read comments credited to the Chairman of the EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, in some newspapers recently where she was quoted as saying that the case involving the N20bn had been closed.

Agoda stated, “Has it been closed? If it has been closed, where is the money? The money is not with the EFCC, it is not with the police.

“They checked the Federation Account, they said the money is not there. So, where is the N20bn? N20bn is not a small amount of money? It must be investigated.”

The Speaker, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, who presided over the session, echoed Agoda’s question, by asking, “Where is the money?” The speaker called on the Chairman of the House Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Mr. Rabe Nasir, to confirm Agoda‘s comments.

Responding, Nasir admitted that there had been “a lot of controversies surrounding the issue (N20bn).” He stated that as a result of the controversy, the committee had initiated an internal investigation into the matter. Nasir promised to lay the probe report before the House within two weeks.

Leading the debate on the bill earlier, the Majority Leader, Mr. Tunde Akogun, had explained that it sought to establish the NPRTF for a “period of six years so as to drive the reform process of the Nigeria Police Force.” He noted that the bill would address “such key issues as improved funding, training and retraining of personnel, provision of modern police equipment and welfare issues.”

He added, “Several legislative proposals by way of bills and resolutions of the National Assembly have been passed, with a view to improving effective and efficient policing. The establishment of this Fund will help collate synthesis and systematically administer these proposals in addition to the specific purposes of the Fund.”

The bill later passed second reading in a majority voice vote.


http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20110224281065

Tinubu urges Fashola to sack striking doctors


Former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday advised his successor, Governor Babatunde Fashola, to sack striking medical doctors.

The Medical Guild, the umbrella body of doctors working in the state’s hospitals, went on strike on February 5 over the refusal of the Fashola administration to implement the Consolidated Medical Salary Scale.

But Tinubu told a gathering of Christian leaders in Lagos that the strike was motivated by unnamed politicians. Tinubu also stated that it would be foolhardy for the state government to yield to the demands of the doctors, noting that instead, it should employ new doctors.

The ex-governor, while speaking on the call by the doctors for the reinstatement of a former the Chairman of the Medical Guild, Dr. Ibrahim Olaifa, recalled that the guild’s leader was employed during his administration based on the recommendation of the then governor of Oyo State, Dr. Lam Adesina. Tinubu said he would not condone Olaifa violating the rules of his employment.

He said, “Those people make me angry, there is no point holding a dialogue with them again. Sack them and recruit other doctors.

“We have provided conducive environment for them to work and yet they are still not satisfied. It is not compulsory you work for the state government; if you are not comfortable, you can go to the Federal Government that pays more or other private establishments.

“We are not going to reinstate him (Olaifa) because the moment you subject the authority given by the constitution to blackmail, you are finished.”

Fashola, on his part, explained that the crisis had lingered not because the state government refused to increase the salary of the doctors, but due to their insistence that the state administration must implement the CONMESS fully.

“The doctors are not complaining about the environment where they work. We have provided a conducive environment, with well equipped facilities for them to work with. But they are insisting that we pay what the Federal Government is paying its own doctors.

“Lagos has more doctors than the federal Government. We have increased the salaries of the doctors to 75 per cent and what that implies is that the most junior doctor in the state today has his salary increased from N110,000 to N170,000 while a consultant now has his salary increased from N300, 000 to N700,000,” he added.

He put his monthly salary as the governor of the state at N850,000 while other members of the State Executive Council were not earning above N500,000. He flayed the doctors’ request for the reinstatement of Olaifa, adding that the situation was being politicised as the doctor in question was presently running for the House of Representatives on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party in Oyo State.

When contacted on the telephone, the Secretary-General of the Lagos Medical Guild, Dr. Saheed Olajide, said, “The strike has no political undertone. I don’t believe Tinubu said so because he is a respected person.

“He could not have come out to say that. However, we are professional doctors, they are politicians. They should not link the strike with politics.

“What we are asking for is our welfare. There was a mutual agreement, part of which was that our leader (Olaifa) should be reinstated. They agreed to reinstate him before we called off the last strike but they have not done so.

“If the governor is saying Olaifa is a member of the PDP, he should check his records. Olaifa is running under Accord Party in Oyo State, not the PDP. We are not politicians and we are saying is that government should do what is right.”


http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20110224235418

Egyptian-type revolution impossible in Nigeria – FG


Nigeria’s highest decision-making body, the Federal Executive Council, on Wednesday said it was sure that the type of popular uprising ripping through some North African and Middle East countries could not happen in the country.

FEC said this even as it disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan had ordered the immediate evacuation of Nigerians from the troubled countries.

The body at its weekly meeting in Abuja said Nigeria was being “run on constitutional order,” hence it was not possible for the people to rise against the authorities as currently entails in the North African countries, notwithstanding that Nigeria is facing similar developmental challenges as the affected countries.

Former presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) had warned in an interview at the weekend that Nigeria risked a popular uprising if the government failed to give the citizens credible elections in April.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, was recently swept away from power after 18 days of sustained protest in Cairo, the capital city, and other major cities in the country, after spending 30 years in power. The protest that swept away Mubarak is today known as the “Egyptian revolution.”

Libya, a country with low population but that is oil rich, is located in the Maghreb region of northern Africa. It has been embroiled in violent uprising since February 11 as the people push for the ouster of Muammar Gadaffi, the man who has been at the helms of affairs since 1971.

A young graduate who set himself ablaze in Tunisia on December 17, 2010, in protest against government’s high handedness in the face of high unemployment and economic challenges, sparked off the wave of popular protests in the Middle East and North Africa.

People in Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen and Iran had equally protested against their governments.

Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, who briefed journalists as the end of Wednesday’s FEC meeting said the current situation in Libya topped the discussion at the session presided over by Vice-President Namadi Sambo.

President Goodluck Jonathan was not at the meeting. He was away in Minna, Niger State, where he held a campaign rally on Wednesday.

Asked whether the Federal Government was not worried that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt could spread to Nigeria, Maku gave an explanation that purports that such a revolution cannot happen here. He said, “Yes there are parallels between Nigeria and these other countries when it comes to the level of development, but one thing that is clear is that when you see some of the countries where these protests are taking place, you have one man dictatorships that have lasted in those countries for decades.

“The difference between Nigeria and those countries is that this country today is run in a constitutional order where the tenure of office of leaders is fixed”.

He added, “Nigeria is probably the country in Africa today that has the largest number of former leaders alive.

“So our country has lessons that these countries can learn from.

“The lesson today is that it is more important to build institutions that can endure, because leaders can come and go but the institutions remain.”

Maku said Jonathan was committed to effectively address developmental challenges in the country, particularly problems in the power sector.

He said that once the power problem was resolved, the issues of unemployment and wealth creation would also be addressed.

“One of the major challenges we have in our country is power. “Power is what is going to drive the small and medium enterprises; agriculture and water resources cannot be mobilised without power.

“The fact that President Jonathan has taken firm control of power as his key sector is an indication of his serious commitment and determination to overcome this challenge,” he said.

The minister said, “Council discussed and reviewed the situation in Libya and some Middle East countries, where the wind of discontent has led to protest.

“The condition of Nigerians in these countries was particularly discussed.

“The Minister of Foreign Affairs briefed Council on the directives given by the President and the preparations made to evacuate Nigerians.

“Already Mr. President has directed that stranded passengers in Tripoli and Bengazi who are Nigerians should be evacuated and steps are been taken as we did in Cairo to evacuate these Nigerians back to the country “The standard procedure is that whenever there are conflicts in any country we advise our envoys to evacuate their families to safety so that the officers who are manning our missions can concentrate on the work at hand to ensure that they give attention to and consider diplomatic issues on ground.”

Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, also admitted that, like in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the other countries, “that there are problems of unemployment (in Nigeria),” although he noted that “the president has already put in place measures to address these problems”.

“They are clearly at the fore front of his agenda”, he added.

Ajumogobia further disclosed that the Federal Government “deplores the disproportionate use of force to disperse protesters in the Middle East.”

Instead of the use of force, which had already led to the death of scores of protesters, the Federal Government canvassed “dialogue” as a means of resolving the conflict.

“The crisis can and should be resolved through dialogue in those countries,” Ajumogobia said.

The Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Muhammad Sani-Sidi, confirmed on Wednesday that his agency had received presidential directive to evacuate Nigerians from Libya.

Sani-Sidi said, “NEMA, Federal Ministry of Foreign Afairs, Office of the National Security Adviser, among other stakeholders, have been mandated by the President to work out strategies for a successful evacuation of Nigerians to safety in their motherland.

“The Federal Government is very concerned about welfare, wellbeing and safety of its citizens who are in distress in any country and would do whatever it takes to protect them from the hardship.”

The NEMA boss was quoted in a statement by the spokesman for the agency, Yushau Shuaib, to have spoken when he received the Controller General of Federal Fire Service who paid him a courtesy visit.


http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20110224339993

Jega is a crook. . .thieving mofos

How To Be A Local Government Chairman

Do you fancy being the Chairman of your Local Government Area (LGA)? Well, the general administrative and operational setup of LGAs in Nigeria has changed.

Conceptually, LGAs are supposed to be separate entities from the State government. Not anymore. That original model lasted only until around 2003 when Obasanjo changed things. They also began getting their operational funds from the Federation Accounts directly from their State governors through the structure of the Joint State and Local Government Account. That precipitated the birth of an entirely different ball game.

So, are you currently living abroad (say the UK, USA, Canada, etc), or you are an enterprising middle/upper class Nigerian professional domiciled in Nigeria and thinking about being a Local Government Chairman? Ok, this is how to go about it:

• LGA terms are now all of two years. Elections are conducted by State Electoral Commissions (not INEC) strictly at the governor’s pleasure

• From Abia to Zamfara, there is a proper Rotational system (rotation with a capital ‘R’) in place at this level. Generally, only one term is served. It is strictly a turn by turn, town by town, ward by ward, clan by clan event. First find out when it is your area’s turn. Please do so at least 2 years in advance

• From your base abroad or any of the major Nigerian cities, begin to cultivate your LGA stakeholders

• Your State governor + traditional rulers + political warlords = stakeholders

• Being a Governor is the loneliest job in the world. The man has a short attention span an even shorter memory. But a few folks has his ears: his wife, his ADC, his orderly, his driver, his cook and his kitchen cabinet which, in the main, is made up of his Personal Assistants (PAs) – particularly those that were directly appointed by him and no more than 3 or 4 traditional rulers

• Find out when any of them or their spouses would be coming into your neck of the woods. When they do, pick them up from the airport, pay for their hotel bills or better yet, accommodate them in your home. Tell them that your wife’s cooking is better than the hotel’s. They return home and say wonderful things about you. But don’t be cheap; one bad word from these people and your still-born project goes up in smoke

• Remortgage/refinance your houses (or sell one of them), plus get other loans. On average, £150,000 / $244,000 / N37.5million should suffice. Remember, Primaries week alone would cost you about N10m

• Send ahead a 4-wheel drive jeep to your hometown for later use

• Then begin frequent visits home. Stock up on bags of rice and salt, posh mobile phones and recharge cards

• Stock up on expensive alcoholic drinks

• Sink a borehole or two

• Start attending funerals, chieftaincy parties, church/mosque dedications

• Pay some school fees – but only at the Primary and Secondary school levels

• While you’re doing this, do not let it cross your lips that you are interested in any political office oh

• After about a year of this, step up the frequency of your visits home

• Find out who in your LGA is in sweet with your governor. This is when and where you begin to distribute your fancy mobile phones

• Get what the Italians call a Consigliere. In Nigeria, he is called an Agent – a trusted foot soldier. He should cost you no more than N1m at the end of the day

• Take your expensive drinks and your GMGs (Ghana-must-go) and begin to visit the stakeholders

• Visit all the Ward chairmen, Ward secretaries, Women leaders and Youth leaders and do the needful

• This is called ‘Entry Behaviour’

• Become friends with the controller of the NURTW in your area. These fine gentlemen do more than just the control of road transport workers you will find

• If you can, get a small government contract to build a small road or a small public building in your LGA. The people will think you are doing that in a private capacity. Do not correct that misconception

• Then you make your formal announcement

• Present yourself at a function where your State governor is in attendance. Grab the microphone, make a sizable donation after you have lavished His Excellency with much praise for his socio-infrastructural achievements in your area even if you yourself can’t see any. Don’t stop there, lustily pour invectives on the heads of His Excellency’s political enemies

• The 419 boys will outspend you. Some of them will even turn up at local palaces and community events with a troupe of dancers, but don’t let that trouble you unduly. Play up your professionalism, ideals and gentlemanliness

• If you’re coming from abroad, your ‘greenness’ is actually an advantage. It is perceived as refreshing as you won’t be seen as too negatively clever, hard nosed or cynical like some of your home based competitors. You’ll also come across as more believable

• Play possum; allow a local idiot to be your oga

• Get your good deeds in the local media. Make sure your Agent at every opportunity is telling your governor, “My man did this and that.” And the governor should delightfully respond, “Ah, so and so from London/US/Lagos is still on the ground?” Your Consigliere would say, “Your Excellency, that transformer that we commissioned the other day, that was him oh!”

• All these should get you in

• Now, you’re in, let’s say your LGA is due N98m every month. Your State Finance Commissioner will diligently go to Abuja and collect that N98m

• Your fine supportive governor will only give you – on a good month – about N48m

• On assuming office, you discover that LGA workers have not been paid for 2 months

• There are about 14 wards in your LGA. Councillors earn about N232,000 every month in salary and allowances. Supervising Counsellors earn more

• Recurrent costs, teachers, secretariat staff, sanitation people, technicians, clerks, etc, etc have to be paid promptly every month

• Traditional rulers and political warlords have to be paid even more promptly every month or you are out and the governor would appoint a caretaker LGA chairperson in your stead

• When all that is done, you barely have N3m left

• But that is not all. You are frequently called at short notice to host and entertain State and Federal visitors to your LGA. That means lodging, food, drinks and gifts

• You cannot directly source for this of course. You have to contract it out to one of the stakeholders’ wives - possibly the wife/girlfriend of the governor or one of the traditional rulers for about N1.5m

• Remember the 4X4 you shipped home? Vulcanisers keep planting nails at strategic junctions in town, how many times can you patch one tire. Moreover, your roads are tough and have told on the poor jeep. You have to replace it

• You have laid out close to N40m to be elected and have creditors to settle, plus your wife won’t stop shinning

• Halfway through your tenure, you realise that the financial arithmetic don’t add up so you become a philosopher-politician and begin to think very deeply

• You cannot possibly go back to your old life and old work after your tenure. You would need a moderate modern house in Abuja, Lagos or Kaduna as you plan your future and, hopefully, bigger political adventures like, for instance, being one of the many PAs or Advisers to your governor

• Meantime, on one of your trips abroad, you talk your town’s people in the Diaspora into promising to build a community hall back home

• You’ve come to rightly understand that in Nigeria, loyalty is bought so you begin to cultivate the very special friendship of the Finance man

• With the help of your new special friend, the Finance man, you don’t pay worker’s salary for the last 2 or 3 months of your chairmanship. You simply keep those

• Now, there’s just the one remaining matter – the elephant in the room: You have done bugger-all for your LGA in 2 years. Don’t worry; you simply didn’t have enough time or money for that.

Change is of course, the only constant in life. So this will change too for the better at some point in Nigeria, but for now, that is how it’s done.

Speak later, your Honourable.

demdem@hotmail.co.uk
By Michael Egbejumi-David

INEC Chairman wants N5 billion more
…N140 Million for Refreshment and Honorarium

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Attahiru Jega is requesting an additional N5 Billion with N63.1 and N77 Million set aside for refreshments and honorarium respectively. Few weeks ago, he requested N6 Billion to extendthe voters registration exercise.

Prof. Jega who made the new request while defending the INEC 2011 budget said the N5 Billion is for the lamination of Voters cards. The Budget Office had proposed N2.7 Billion for the lamination of voters card but the INEC chairman was said to have insisted that the job can only be done with N5 Billion.

“The commission will need N5 billion to convert an estimated 80 million voters’ cards to plastic cover. Each of the plastic cover is estimated to cost the commission N64. We will have difficulties with the 40 per cent cut in the N5 billion for the job, because we have registered 67.7 million Nigerians and will continue the exercise after the general elections,” Prof. Jega told the Senate Committee.

The INEC chairman also said the voters’ cards issued to those who were registered would only last for a maximum of two months but would last longer if laminated, adding that the commission registered 67.7 voters in the last exercise and already working on a timetable to continue with the voters’ registration immediately after the April general elections.

He further said the exercise would be repeated after 10 years to capture those who may had reached the voting age after the last exercise.

Prof. Jega also told the Senator Isiaka Adeleke-led committee that the commission would need another N450 million to cover donations and gifts to some agencies that already made presentations for sponsorship of capacity building workshops and seminars.


This was as he also said the commission would spend about N181 million on fueling and lubricants in addition to another N45 million on generators and plant for the 2011 fiscal year.

Similarly, the commission was expected to spend N22 million on local training while N270 million was reserved for foreign training in addition to another N180 million on local travel just as it would need N135 million for foreign tours.

Prof. Jega told the Senate committee that the slash in the commission’s 2011 budget was done by the Budget Office without consultation with the electoral body thus said that N51 billion earlier proposed was expected to put the commission in better position to deliver credible elections in April.


http://www.pointblanknews.com/News/os4619.html

Become? i thought they had always been irrelevant. . .

BB all the way, no turning back

let em know, [b]BB [/b]for life

GEJ is good luck only to himself but bad luck to everyone and everything

i wont waste my time arguing with ppl that will never see the light,there is a clear distinction between light and darkness.

If only we had FOI,[/b]then we can try to see what INEC did wit [b]N87.7bn + N6.6bn.
Wait,do u know how much is one billion? thats one million in one thousand places.
What did Jega do wit N94bn?
how much was spent on DDC machines?
how much was spent corper salaries?
how much was spent on other costs like staff salaries,buying cars,logistics. . .etc?

I can tell u that Jega and co have some change in some bank accounts somewhr, and they will keep coming back for more,trying to squeeze from us as much as they can.

Jega might have been an honest man,but right now he is nothing but a crook,time will expose them. #shikena

This is a prelude to the crashing of our democracy, if the judiciary is corrupt then there is surely no hope for us.

I'll take this with a pinch of salt since its coming from a President who exonerated MEND and also called SW rascals.

so this is the deplorable state Naija has gotten into terrorists, criminals, enemies-of-the-state protesting *smh*

IBB: No deal yet, we still bargaining

@op, topic nd ol,

There is clear distinction between Light and Darkness #Shikena

BB all the way

Nigeria GEJa-GEJa, Fresh air indeed

1025:

@texazzpete,
in your wisdom, one will expect you to do the first thing first which will be to divide N87b by the 67 million voters registered in line with the photocopied papers then add the N6.6b.
do u know what it means asking for money everyday? first it was N87b, then N6.6b and now N5b. these are some of the steps in defrauding this useless country by pdp.
jega knew what it means telling us to release N200b which is his target at once so the best option will be to commit us and then since jonathan is this desperate to remain in power, whatsoever jega asks will be given.
a well organised jega/inec shld have come out with a run down estimate of what it will cost us to organise the next selection(sorry election) so that we will discuss that before getting involved.
are u assuring nigerians that this nonsense will end with platic id card? i know jega will ask for another N4b to put rope on the plastic id card.
all these are not part of the selection(sorry again election) propare.
instead of wasting all these funds and end up the same way we are used to, why can't we let pdp and jonathan continue until nigerians are ready to use the current means of change of leadership now - protest.

bros u hav said it all, i'm beyond amazed why some ppl dont see anything wrong in this. I thought after Jega was given that N87.7bn naira,dats all that inec needed to conduct the entire election selection, and nothing will be heard again from them with regards to funds. But Jega is more than Oliver twist, asking for more and more and more, holding the Nigerian people to ransom.
I doubt if this is a case of poor project management this is pure fraud. Stop saying Jega is incompetent,he knows exactly what he is doing, Hes as corrupt as they come.
And they well never know and see peace.

Becomepoor,u are really ignorant,i doubt if u have evr been to the north,
Do u know how many ppl get married every now and then?
do u know how many ppl hav more than one wife? many have more than 2
do u know how many ppl get married at their early 20s? both make and females
do u know how many families hav more than 10 children?

definitely u dont know all these thats why u are spewing rubbish on NL.
Before u continue running ur mouth or keyboard to look like a dunce go and do some research on the above questions.

@op, u hav a very poor IQ and also an even poorer understanding of politics.
Pls dont put up threads indiscriminately without having facts

I've said it before and i will keep on saying it,Nuhu is working for GEJ to divide the opposition.

@op, dont be mischevious,The person u are talkin about i think should be Mahmoud Jega, hes a former MD of New Nigeria Newspapers,an editor of Daily trust,he like every nigerian has the right to choose who no support not withstanding his brothers position.

Why wont u say that when u hav already made the money, spendthrift mofo. . .

Odechukuw's State is not as big as my local govt, seriously.

wait, if a substantial no of ppl in Lag are not south-westerners,how come we dont have a Chukuemeka or Obi as Gov or Deputy?

the title should hav been: "Govt to misappropriate $10bn yearly through power sector"

Nothing good will ever come out of this PDP govt

kliffo:

Most people are overlooking the fact that PDP has reasonable political structure in the west
and with the large Igbo and SS voters in the S west, GEJ will get at least 35% of the votes in
the SW. If he holds on to his apparent lead in the NC, and the expected block votes from SE and
SS, he will win the presidential polls.
Ribadu at best will win in Lagos and few other SW states and nowhere else outside the SW. If it
is true that he has picked Adeola as his running mate, then it is just to make a reasonable showing
in the SW.
Buhari remains the only real threat to GEJ. All those rooting for a change should vote Buhari and forget
Ribadu.

#GBAM #GBAM #GBAAMMMM