itsme01:






Subsidy removal is important but we can't do it now

Primary responsibility of the Government is to see to the welfare of its citizens using any and every means necessary

United States won't mind piling up debt and selling bonds or going to war in the middle East to steal resources as long as American citizens get to enjoy life with best standard of living, enough social benefits and welfare

Already Land borders are closed, Naira are devalued over 200% , there is 2 digit inflation, gas electricity and other utility is at all time high removing subsidies without a local refinery is terrible move


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HenryThegreat1:
Removal of subsidy will further impoverish the Nigerian poor, writes Ike Okonta
I am happy that Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, General Ibrahim Babangida’s Finance Minister in the 1980s, is alive and well. Dr Kalu, working closely with the then Country Representative of the World Bank, avidly promoted the Structural Adjustment Programme and ensured that General Babangida imposed it on the Nigerian populace. Kalu argued that the government had no role in the economy, that the Naira should be drastically devalued and that subsidies in the education and health sectors should be removed or drastically curtailed. He also called for the privatization of all public enterprises and the removal of tariffs on imports which the federal government had put in place to protect the local manufacturing sector.
Following the introduction of SAP in 1986, the value of the Naira crashed in the foreign exchange market. Local factories that were producing such products as automobiles, textiles and vehicle batteries closed shop. Privatised enterprises did not fare any better. They were subjected to asset-stripping and then abandoned while employees were left to fend for themselves. By the time General Babangida was forced by pro-democracy forces to leave office in August 1993, it was clear to suffering Nigerians that Dr Kalu and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund had sold them a dummy. Nigeria had been forced back into the orbit of the international capitalist system as a marginal satellite that imported everything from toothpicks to automobiles from the Western countries while the fledgling steps she had taken on the path to industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s was abandoned.
Three decades later the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is still making common cause with the discredited World Bank. The government has served notice that it will remove subsidies on petrol and electricity in 2022. It claimed that the burden of subsidizing these two sectors is now too much for the government to bear and that in any case petrol subsidies was benefiting only the well-off. Then the government committed a blunder. It assured Nigerians that the sum of N5000 would be paid to 40 million poor Nigerians for one year to cushion the effects of the petrol subsidy removal. Alert public-interest economics did a quick calculation and found out that the amount of money that would ostensibly be expended in the payment to poor Nigerians would far exceed the yearly subsidy! Who is trying to fool who?

The core argument of President Buhari and the World Bank Country Representative in Nigeria is that the government has no business subsidizing utilities and that such sectors as electricity and petrol should be left to the vagaries of market forces. This is indeed the central position of Neoliberalism, the extreme right-wing regimen that late President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher began to push soon after they were both elected into office in the early 1980s. Neoliberalism, it must be noted, is not about economics. Not at all. Stripped bare, it is a political strategy whose aim is to strengthen the grip of harsh capitalism on the world system and remove socialism as a contending political alternative. This was why Prime Minister Thatcher attacked trade unions in Britain in the 1980s and also sought to cripple the Labour Party. For his part, President Reagan drew up a strategy paper that was later christened ‘The Washington Consensus’ and pushed it to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to implement around the world. The collapse of the Soviet Union a few years later only strengthened the grip of this noxious extreme right political regimen globally.
It is interesting to note that the coming of President Joe Biden in January 2021 has served notice to Neoliberalism that its end has come. Within eleven months President Biden has steered two key bills through the US Congress – one designed to revamp public infrastructure and the other to give subsidies to such vital sectors as healthcare, childcare, and the environment. In short President Biden and the Democrats are arguing that Big Government is back; that the old practice of cosseting the rich at the expense of the poor and public welfare has come to an end. President Biden made it clear that he meant every word when, faced with rising inflation, especially the cost of petrol, he released strategic oil reserves in the US in a bid to force down the price of the product. He did not pay the slightest attention to right wing economists who wanted so-called market forces to continue to determine the cost of petrol in the US – to the detriment of the ordinary consumer.
I have always argued that President Buhari does not have a clear and definable economic strategy. His policies are made on the hoof; not properly thought-out and with the cares of the ordinary Nigerian as their primary focus. Unemployment is currently about 40 percent. Food inflation has further forced those lucky enough to have jobs to cut corners as they struggle every month with their meager salaries. Removing subsidies on petrol and electricity will only jerk up inflation even higher and worsen the plight of poor Nigerians who even now are hardly able to eat three meals a day. The key to prosperity in Nigeria are diversification of the economy through rapid industrialization and expansion and modernization of the agricultural sector. This will entail establishing a vigorous steel-manufacturing sector and ramping up electricity production beyond the current paltry 4000 megawatts.
The Buhari Presidency has not been able to take these steps. Instead it wants to further impoverish the Nigerian poor by removing the few subsidies they still enjoy. I urge the government to rethink this policy. In any case it is now a lame-duck government as fresh elections are already around the corner. The decision whether to remove subsidies should be left for the in-coming government in 2023. President Buhari has given his best and it is simply not good enough.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/12/19/before-president-buhari-removes-petrol-subsidy/

backnbeta:
Buying bra is better than sharing deaths, hunger and poverty all over; at least the bras are not harming us directly. You are all thieves but they steal with a bit of humanity in them

Idiko1:
At least, the government in this discuss bought Bra while your silly government bought nothing.

majamajic:
No be only 79 , na 29
Someone that is around 100

sergio671:
As 2023 draws closer, it's becoming clearer that the muslim north has drawn up their plan to hold onto power come 2023. On both sides of the political divide, referring to the APC and PDP, there has been serious permutations and conversations about who the next president of nigeria will be. These conversations appear to made along party divides, however, the truth not being highlighted is that there is a slient agitation to keep power in the hands of the Muslim Ummah.

Had Nigeria been a muslim republic, this would not have been a problem. However, with the multiplicity of religious leanings and beliefs, and the degree to which this is the case, it is not out of place, but only fair, that participation and inclusivity is ensuered by all; not just institutionally, but also ethically.

Of course, the argument can be made that the choice of the next president should be a matter of competence and not religious or tribal considerations. This argument would have been plausible was Nigeria not standing on of religious, tribal cum regional tension lines. The calls for secession are only fueled by the disregard for these differences that have come to define who we are as Nigeria, and the unique identifiers that characterise each region. The case for one Nigeria can only be made the acknowledgment of the differences that exist among us, and an acceptance and enabling of each other for inclusive participation, progress and development.

So, where are the none muslim candidates? Why are the major parties silent about this reality? What exactly is the grand plan?

In my opinion if the major parties and thrir leading candidates are really interested in the unity and stability of Nigeria, they will insist on having a nonmuslim candidate. The ideal of natuonal interest trumping regional or religious interest should be demonstrated by this. True elderstatemen will clamour for the balance of participation and leadership.

Competence is key. And competence is not the exclusive preserve of any religion. All are equally competent, and all can actively lead.

I beg to submit that the emergence of another myslim president will further enable the lack of prace thag we are currently suffering; this, by no conscious or premeditated effort, but simply a reaction to the feelings of deprivation and exclusion that will characterize such trajectory.


Sergio671 wrote from and for Nigeria.

tete7000:


People don't go to Lagos because they believe it is better governed, but to hustle and if many will find means off livelihood elsewhere with peace of mind, they will gladly run there.

conductor20000:
Hei! God save us from this lying, backstabbing, two-faced, two-mouthed, nefarious mouth odor-having, skull mining unity beggar from Iraji, Osun State

dettolgel:


That is Nigerian problem instead of thinking you chose the lazy way to choose what is available.

That was how you guys chose Buhari and your lives have never been the same. There are always candidates to choose from when other people declare their interest we see.

Have you guys not considered the fact that if you make known your displeasure and total rejection of their candidacy that these parties might be forced to do the hard work of looking for a better candidate?

The parties are run my Nigerians that are as lazy as the masses. They will put minimal effort to get a candidate since the masses are too lazy to use their brains they will vote whatever options that have been provided to them.

Just imagine giving another 8 years of your lives to the number 2 man that wasted 8 years of your lives. That is freaking 16 years of the same cycle of shit storm.

enyi1:

Oga, Osibanjo is morally bankrupt and there's no honor amongst thieves. He is part and parcel of this evil administration and participated in the evil in the land. They came in through deceit and if he is so clean and holy, what is he doing in the gathering of thieves and murderers? If he has intergrity like you claim, why hasn't he resigned? Will he die if he resign? Is anyone forcing him to partake? After partaking in the destruction and desecration of the land for 8 years as a VP, you guys are dreaming of smuggling him in for another 8 years to continue the evil empire of his principal? Never. He is as bad as Buhari and needs to go. We have technocrats and people without blood in there hands to heal the land. Starting with Dave Umahi

Kingstanding:
. Come to Ikenne in Ogun State and see the condition of the roads in Vice president Osinbajo's town. Can you tell me just one single project that was done by Osinbajo in his home town talkless of Ogun State his state of origin? A vice president who cannot lobby or get favour from his boss or national assembly. Osinbajo is a genius academically but he can't be a good Politician and good administrator. He will be a boy boy to northerners if he becomes a president.

blaqtom:


Please o brother I want APC to always rule Lagos state based on they are trying bringing another party might ruin everything.....but bros those of u bragging with Lagos have forgotten Lagos was once capital of the country abi na tinubu build 3rd mainaland bridge? Or was it during His tenure they established those businesses at marina?apapa port was built by tinubu?or u don't know thats one if the reason Lagos is congested 95 percent of goods pass thru Lagos other states had to build from scratch

tete7000:


The way you people talk about Lagos, I sometimes wonder if it is not the same Lagos I know with its chaos, disorderliness, brutality and extortion, a jungle more or less. I am a Yoruba, I grew up in Ibadan, had worked in Lagos and currently work and live in Asaba. I pray everyday not to have to return to that Lion's den called Lagos. I commune so freely in Asaba, no traffic, no Lastma or vio extortion, I don't drive with my heart in my mouth. Yet you are here boating about a jungle. O se. Awon agba ni 'Omo ti o de oko baba elomi ri, a ni oko baba oun lo tobi ju. Stop bragging about Lagos bro, the place na jungle. It once tool me five hours to move from Bonny camp to Jakande Estate in Ajah. Living in Lagos is a torture compare to even Ibadan close by. It used to take me ihr to drive from Ibadan to Ibafo, only for me spending many hrs from Ibafo to enter Lagos, and you call that life. Wake up oga. Lagos is overhyped.

Skybridge33:
Obviously Osinbajo is the better choice. Tinubu that gave all his family members political position. His wife is senator, his daughter is iyaloja, his in-law is commissioner, his son is In charge of Lagos revenue. The guy will just milk Nigeria dry

madmohamed:
we are doing what it can to expose this government

DZTech:
Hmm
A slave or his master?
The one robbing Lagosians blind, or the one who stamped a law giving the robber a gov's pension for life?

Are the Yoruba people truly this bereft of men of honor?
Or anything to gain a Yoruba president?

Meanwhile, the Nigerians who accuse buhari of corruption vis a vis nepotism have become blind, deaf and dumb to the fact that the Southeast is well past due to produce Nigeria's next president.
Yet they blame Kanu for demanding secession?
What's the definition of hypocrisy again?
SMH

Brexxit:
We celebrate mediocrity in this country too much.

The amount of money Akwa ibom state has received for the past 8 years is enough to turn it to a world class standard like Dubai.

The Governors of Akwa ibom are thieves, especially akpabio.

abbeyfel:
I never said our VAT is the highest. I said we are the most taxed considering all we pay tax on one way or another. From federal to state imposed levies, to all the taxes we pay indirectly with so little to show for it.

philip0906:


https://www.thecable.ng/report-98-of-businesses-in-nigerias-informal-sector-pay-taxes-but-to-non-state-actors

This is a report by reputable research firm that alludes to the fact that majority of Nigerian informal businesses pay tax. Nigeria is driven by a largely informal sector(around 60%) and 98% pay their taxes. This report clearly made a recommendation to the tax bodies on how to capture the taxies by the informal sector.

The onus is on the tax authorities to find how to capture those taxes paid.

So you can sink that your theoretical economic jargon down the sink hole. While you live on your high horse of what classifies as tax and trying to draw parity with taxation in the western world driven by a largely formal sector, don’t insult the sensibilities of Nigerians.

abbeyfel:
I never said our VAT is the highest. I said we are the most taxed considering all we pay tax on one way or another. From federal to state imposed levies, to all the taxes we pay indirectly with so little to show for it.

Felimax:
Remove Jonathan, Atiku and Tinubu out of the list.
For crying out loud these guys are tested failures. I don't have any beef with them but I don't see them moving this country to an enviable stage worthy of admiration.
The Tinubu template is very glaring and satanic, it Lagos or nothing. Let the entire country continue to depend on Lagos, Lagos, Lagos, Lagos and the west. Tinubu is a visionary leader who is best fit to be a president for the Yoruba nation alone.
We should be looking out for vibrant visionary leaders who has the capacity to transform our economy and improve the life of average Nigerians with or without oil.

DubaiLandLord2:
Speak for yourself alone.

In this same Nigeria, people dey build house, buy cars,travel to Europe, North America, Middle East etc for holidays.

If you choose to be looking like a mad man in 2023, is your choice.

Dsalvo:


And you are stable when you stand on top of a skyscraper to scream that Mike Tyson and Mohammed Alli are lousy boxers?

Let us focus alone on the political leadership and achievements of all our most prominent politicians since 1999 when our current dwmocracy began.

Even if some of of you are confused because of personal and ethnocentric hatred of BAT, who can you say has done as exemplarily well as Tinubu since 1999? Give me names and cite their achievements.

The achievements of BAT are not hidden, nebulous or unquantifiable. There is ample evidence of those achievements as incontrovertible proof of his outstanding capabilities as a political leader and administrator.

Meanwhile, why don't we inspect others interested in the 2023 Presidency that people like you never mention whereas all your attention , curses and malevolence you reserve for Tinubu?

Where are the legacy projects and achievements of Kalu, Obi, Atiku, Saraki, Tambuwal, Kwankwaso etal?

Where are those they mentored and nurtured?

What is their enduring contribution to Nigeria's administrative and political leadership field?

Nothing more pathetic than a man doing something, like hating others blindly, without a valid and justifiable reason for doing so as peolle like you do.

If Tinubu deserves all this hate, because he is a woeful politician with only failure behind him, then I would have no issues with folks like you.

Yet when a man has excelled in his core field of jurisdiction, with stellah achievement like making Lagos 6th biggest economy in Africa, to then be attacked by you and others non-stop then it is obvious it is Nigerians like you who are mentally unstable.

Ttalk:


What role model should we use jare, Agfanistan or Iraq model

tamdun:

Leave grammar and answer the question, wetin the man do for ur state/region wey u wan kill yaself

conductor20000:

Hahaha. Oso Abiola. They stood on 3rd Mainland Bridge and make noise and many people were running thinking they were about to fight war. But on the 3rd day, Fulani soldiers used koboko to disperse all of them

Abiola was nabbed like a common criminal and was killed like a chicken. Nothing came out of it. Same way Awolowo was forced to take rat poison. But they want us to believe they're very suffersticated and powerful.

Even the president they were compensated with, Igbos chose him for them. Their candidate failed. Igbos gave them OBJ free of charge on PDP ticket even though they themselves voted against OBJ.

Suffersticated Afonja

DabuIIIT:
@the bolded,go and find out how many south western states won by the PDP were won back, practically handled back to, by the respective states elections tribunals to the then ACN under GEJ immediately after the elections and come back and tell us how Gej wanted to weaken the regional ACN. Was that not one of the reasons Obj hated GEJ then? Or you think Gej couldn't have influenced the outcomes of those election tribunal results if he wanted to?
Just don't open ya mouth wide and rant bla bla bla in ignorance. Always endeavour to read books,read far and wide,it's good for your brains.. papa ajasco grin

Gooddeed999:


I can see where your allegiance lies however some of us only stand for the truth regardless of who or what party is involved.
You need to go back, read both posts I made earlier then meditate on it.
You do not know me, I do not need to school you about the Abacha era, I do not need to school you about how the three parties of 1998 were formed until you display capacity to understand and be ready for truth.
What you get from your 30K naira handlers is not always the truth.
I don’t think you ever personally Abacha, Buhari, Pa Bola Ige, Pa Akande and Sir Bola Tinubu and Sir Femi Gbaja so there’s nothing for us to drag here on this faceless forum.

To answer your question about ACN promoting unity within PDP, ACN can cause division within a party if that’s part of their strategy but telling lies to the public is not nation building which is the main task of principled politicians and men of integrity. The same people that wanted disunity in PDP by denying a SW representative the seat of Speaker came out to claim GEJ has no regard for SW.
You claim that by voting PDP SW candidate, it would have weakened ACN but they still voted a northerner, the truth is clear as day light as I stated before, it was all to forge alliance with powerful northern interests, you have not been able to say anything meaningful to counter very clear point but you have been rambling jumping about from 2011 to 2015 to 2019. The whole world knows how Pained ACN block was when Saraki and Dogara emerged in 2015, people like you need to justify your 30k while expecting an increase, I understand that.
You claim ACN was protecting its interest albeit selfishly which is same as what I had earlier stated before you started rambling before trying to fall in line.
ACN doesn’t have to respect PDP zoning but by actively playing a role to betray a zone in the full glare of the public then turn around to tell lies against GEJ who tried his best makes no sense. Tell me why SE was not given senate presidency when the majority party APN had earlier zoned it to SE but SE had no APC rep since it has happened before, school me on this.
Majority party means party with highest reps. Tell us when a minority party in the legislative arm of government produced the speaker or senate president and tell us how many legislators voted.

Marginalisation: S/West PDP leaders to meet Jonathan next week
February 18, 2013
Print
BY HENRY UMORU & OLASUNKANMI AKONI

…As ACN accuses PDP of playing ethnic card…
ABUJA—Leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from the South West Zone of the country have resolved to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan next week over perceived gross marginalisation of the zone in appointments and political recognitions.


This came as Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has said the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is exposing its own folly by blaming the glaring marginalisation of the Yoruba by the Jonathan Administration on ACN, saying, “PDP has nothing but total contempt for the Yoruba in particular and Nigerians in general.”

Rising from a meeting of the leaders of the PDP in the zone convened by the Board of Trustees, South West in collaboration with the zonal leadership of the PDP, Abuja, they expressed deep concern over perceived marginalisation of the zone in national affairs and leadership positions.



According to the party leaders in a communiqué by two former Deputy National Chairmen and members of the Board of Trustees, BoT of PDP, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun and Chief Olabode George at the end of the meeting, they argued that the neglect of the zone was uncalled for despite being the first zone to adopt President Goodluck Jonathan for the 2011 presidential election, adding that the meeting with President Jonathan would help redeem this deplorable situation.

The communiqué read, “the meeting which had in attendance delegates from each state of the South West – Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, Ogun, Lagos, also had in attendance former governors, National Assembly members, ministers and party elders. a state by state discussion of the conflicts in the zone, the party leadership resolved as follows: The meeting underscored that lack of unity among the party leaders in each state has led to attrition and confusion of party members in the zone, there is the need for reconciliation in the party as a platform to reposition the party.


“The meeting was acknowledged as the beginning of a serious and sustained effort at total reconciliation of all disaffected groups in the Party across the South West zone.

ACN accuses PDP of playing ethnic card
However, reacting to the allegation by Dr Doyin Okupe that the ‘’Yoruba people in the ACN conspired against the Yoruba’’ to scuttle the election of a Yoruba as House Speaker, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said in a statement yesterday, that ACN was not bound by the shifty and phoney zoning formula of the PDP.


According to ACN: ‘’If the PDP had indeed wanted a Yoruba as speaker, the party should either have won enough seats in the South-West or used its majority in the House to push through its anointed candidate.

“Failure to ensure the election of its candidate is a reflection of the insincerity of the PDP about the zoning of the post to Yoruba and the gross indiscipline in the party of tattered umbrella.


“In any case, the last option open to the PDP would have been to support any other Yoruba for the post across party lines. We the ACN have very capable members in the House to serve as Speaker. But the truth is that the ruling party wants a PDP member, not a Yoruba, for the post.

‘’Therefore we are not surprised that the PDP easily acquiesced to the defeat of its Yoruba candidate for the post of Speaker of the House. The PDP zoning formula is pivoted on convenience rather than principle,

“After all, the zoning was easily jettisoned to pave the way for Jonathan to contest as President. Even if the PDP had not succeeded in giving the post of House Speaker to Yoruba in accordance with its so-called zoning formula, it could have rewarded them with known choice ministries or other top appointments, instead of totally relegating a whole people into irrelevance in its scheme of things.”

ACN, therefore accused PDP of playing the ethnic card, and rejected the “cheeky and devilish move by the PDP to pigeon-hole the ACN into an ethnic cocoon.

‘We are a national party and our spread attests to it. We have shown by supporting the election of Aminu Tambwal as Speaker of the House that our agenda is not sectional but national, and we have no apologies to offer for that. ‘Let the PDP continue to wallow in insufferable arrogance and disdain for the electorate, by sharing posts before elections are concluded. It is like sharing the parts of an animal that has yet to be killed. This is the stuff of which the PDP is made, and that is why it is crumbling now like a pack of cards.’’

dre11:




https://dailytrust.com/obasanjo-to-nigerians-dont-expect-anything-more-from-buhari