Tuesday 11 December 2018

Why President Muhammadu Buhari Second Term is Sure

Buhari Reelection

The major fundamental problem confronting Nigeria is the lack of an effective system of governance. It is therefore very important that a serious government first and foremost tackle this issue in order to create an enabling environment that will guarantee sustainable development.

To this end, it is commendable that the Buhari government effectively concluded the implementation process of Bank Verification Number (BVN) started by the previous administration by giving national deadlines for compliance. And in the same vein, the full and effective implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy by insisting that all government agencies and institutions comply with it provided the needed foundation for running an efficient and transparent government.

Note that while the Bank Verification Number increase security and prevent bank customers from illegal transactions and fraud, the Treasury Single Account ensure all revenue receipts and payments are done through a Consolidated Revenue Account (CRA) at the Central Bank of Nigeria.

And the full implementation of these two policies helped to enhance and increase the effectiveness of the operations of Nigerian financial regulators and anti-corruption agencies. This therefore creates the much needed foundation for good governance and economic development.

Also, the capital expenditure for the 2014 budget was N1.10 trillion representing 22.16% of the budget while the capital expenditure for the 2018 budget is at N2.87 trillion representing 31.5 per cent of the budget. This implies that the Buhari government is spending far more on capital projects and infrastructure than the previous government.

Below is an overview of the Buhari government policies and achievement in different sectors of the country.


Agriculture


The Buhari government increased the budget for the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources from N34 billion in 2014 to N130 billion in 2017 to ensure more investment into the agricultural sector with respect to food production and processing. This according to the government have reduce our dependence on food importation most especially rice importation from Thailand and other countries.

A good example is the “Anchor Borrowers Scheme of the Central Bank of Nigeria” which the government said has substantially raised local production of rice in 2016. The report stated that yields from rice farming improved from 2-3 tonnes per hectare to as high as 5-6 tonnes per hectare.

This programme also produced a model agricultural collaboration between Lagos and Kebbi States whereby rice produced in Kebbi state find easy and ready market in Lagos state thereby leading to “Over N300 billion investments in the rice value chain.

There is also the Home Grown School Feeding Programme whereby farmers are linked to available market for their produce through the government sponsored School Feeding programme in their neighborhood.


Power Generation and Distribution


It is important for Nigeria to be pragmatic in its plans to Generate, Transmit, and Distribute power to the consumers and this was probably why the Buhari government increased the budget for the Ministry of Power, Works, and Housing from N106 billion in 2014 to N325 billion in 2017. And this is one of the contributing factors for the increase in power distribution capacity from 2,690 MW in 2015 to 5,222 MW in 2018, as stated by the Minister of Power, Works, and Housing Babatunde Raji Fashola.

He also clarified that “the DISCOs complained about lack of enough power to distribute in 2016, but that the problem today is that the DISCOs cannot distribute all of the Power that is available, leaving the sector with an unused capacity of 2,000 MW, with the approximately 1,150 MW projected to come this year and 2019.”

The Minister also anticipates that the wheeling capacity of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) will increase to 20,000 megawatts by 2020.

On the university power projects, the minister explained that the idea was to use the universities as the “anchor” for supplying electricity to the rural communities where they are located for the dual purpose of serving both the universities and the communities and that among the beneficiary universities are those in Sokoto, Makurdi, Lagos, Ile - Ife, Bauchi, Awka , and Kano.


Infrastructure Development


The Buhari government increased the budget for the Ministry of Transport from N14 billion in 2014 to N127 billion in 2017 as a result of its drive for infrastructure development. And one of such project is the completion of the first phase of the Abuja Light-Rail system in 2018. Its first line connects the City centre with the Airport and also includes a link with the Abuja-Kaduna railway line.

Another ongoing railway project is the Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway from the Atlantic Ocean port of Lagos to Kano, near the Niger border which is being built in segments. Only the segment between Abuja and Kaduna has been completed so far, and services began officially in July 2016. The segment between Lagos and Ibadan is under construction.

There is also the Abuja Airport Runway which was promptly completed in 2017 to improve its standard and ability to function optimally.

And on August 27, 2018 Vanguard published that the Federal Government released a list of 69 ongoing roads, and bridge projects in the south-east of Nigeria alone.

In the aspect of Health Infrastructure development, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, said the ministry has revitalized over 4,000 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across the country to position the country on the path towards achieving sustainable development and universal health coverage.


International Relations


It is a sign of good omen when World leaders like Emmanuel Macron (President of France), Theresa May (British Prime Minister), Angela Merkel (German Chancellor), and Prince Charles of England, all visited Nigeria under the present Administration of Muhammadu Buhar this is an indication that the World now has a more positive view of Nigeria and its people due to the effects of some of the policies of the present government.


Social Investment 


The Buhari administration said that “all four components of its Social Investment Programme (SIP) have now taken off. The SIP happens to be the largest and most ambitious social safety net programme in the history of Nigeria, with N140 billion released and more than 9 million direct beneficiaries so far. Below is a brief overview of these four programmes.

Home Grown School Feeding Programme
The Buhari government said that the “Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP) currently feeds a total of 8.2 million pupils in 45,394 public primary schools across 24 states.” And that Over 80,000 direct job have been created from the School Feeding Programme; with 87,261 cooks currently engaged in the 24 participating states.

NPower Programme
The federal government acknowledged that no fewer than 200,000 graduates were enrolled in the first phase of the NPower job scheme and that additional 300, 000 graduates have enrolled in the scheme’s second phase in 2018.

These NPower graduate volunteers are entitled to N30, 000 monthly stipends and a mobile device gadget to facilitate the on the job learning process in their place of deployment.

Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program
The MarketMoni is a BOI Social Intervention Programme which is part of the Buhari government Social Investment Programme. MarketMoni attracts no interest except a one-time 5% administrative fee. So far over 24,000 beneficiaries have accessed MarketMoni.

If an association or cooperative registers for it and it qualifies, a MarketMoni agent would be sent to the group to capture it members for loan assessment. The beneficiaries receive loans ranging from N10,000 to N100,000 per applicant for as long as 6 months.

Conditional Cash Transfer
The Conditional Cash Transfer is a federal government programme to aid the poor and vulnerable households in Nigeria through a Conditional Cash Transfer scheme. A government official said that “So far, about 297,973 households have been mined and are being paid stipends in 20 States” of the country.


Security


It is understood that before the Buhari government came to power, Boko Haram was in control of many local governments in the North East of the country. But the army under his watch and in cooperation with the security agencies of neighboring countries like Chad, Cameroon and Niger was able to reclaim these territories from the terrorists.

The federal government also successfully freed some of the kidnapped Chibok school girls  and the kidnap of secondary school girls in Dapchi, Yobe State from Boko Haram. Although, some news media alleged that the government paid €3m for the release of the Chibok school girls from the Boko Haram.

Although the recent Boko Haram attack on Nigerian soldiers which is said to have led to fatal casualties on the part of the military indicates that the Nigerian government and Army need to do more in order to completely eliminate the threat posed by these groups.


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Sunday 9 December 2018

World Political Game


This is an extensive list which provides access to an up to date news on Political Power Games World over and hence unraveling the true nature of the mystery of political sainthood or human right protector status of some individuals and countries.

Saturday 13 October 2018

Nigeria 2019 General Election Dynamics


Those people who think the opposition party will win the Nigeria 2019 Presidential election simply believe the 2015 scenario will repeat itself. But that is not likely to happen because the dynamics of the 2015 elections will be quite different from that of the 2019 elections.

The major factors that affected the 2015 elections are:

  1. Region/Tribe - The North has more voting power and they felt it is their turn to produce the President hence the block vote APC got from there. The South West is next in line with respect to voting power and they also largely supported APC because of their VP slot.
  2. Religion which was part of the few things that heightened the political atmosphere at the time.
  3. Personality: APC candidate was presented as a man of integrity while his opponent (the incumbent President) was perceived as being corrupt.

Fast forward to 2019! The major factors that will shape the outcome of the 2019 election are:

  1. Personality- This will mainly center on past records of the candidates most especially with respect to integrity. And this will favour Buhari. 
  2. Political Party- This will center on the popularity, Structures and Resources of the parties. And this will favour APC.
  3. Region- Majoritu of Northern votes are likely going Buhari/APC just like South Western votes but majority of Southeast and South-south votes will go to Atiku/PDP. And you know the implications of these, right?
  4. Performance- PDP which already spent 16 years in power with little to show for it will lack moral right to criticize APC for not developing Nigeria in 4 years.

So, you can tell where the pendulum will swing as the Nigerian 2019 general elections get to its last days.


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Thursday 28 December 2017

The Nigeria We Need

The Nigeria We Need

On October 1st, 2016 we celebrated 56 years of independence amid insecurity, power failure, poverty and economic recession. These are some of the challenges that beset us as a nation at the moment and we have lived with them and many more others in the last five decades with no meaningful improvement. This is not because we lack the resources and intuition to make the required and desired changes that we need, but for corruption and greed.

Corruption is Nigeria's Main Problem

The fact remain that our greatest challenge is how to eliminate or at least reduce the effect of this menace in our public and private lives.

I am convinced that if we can achieve the above objective, every other of our problem will naturally be taking care of, such that with little effort we will be able to build our dear nation into a great empire.

We Can be Proud of Nigeria

The Nigeria we need therefore is a nation that can offer its citizen the following and even more so that we will be proud of her anywhere and anytime:

  • A Nation with a defined national dream.
  • A Nation that can provide her citizens with the basic necessities of life.
  • A Nation that can guarantee the security of her citizens both those within and outside her territory.
  • A Nation that is resolved to develop by engaging in human capital development which will in turn Lead to infrastructure and technical development.
  • A Nation that offers a level playing field to all Her citizens.
  • A Nation that will make the List of leading and largest economies in the world.
  • A Nation that can influence the world positively.
  • A Nation that encourages patriotism and justice.
  • A Nation that encourages and reward creativity and hardwork.
  • A Nation that play by strictly by its own constitution and laws.
  • A Nation that respects and encourages local content.

Wednesday 27 December 2017

December 2017 Fuel Scarcity in Nigeria


Fuel scarcity as of December 2017 through out Nigeria like in every other areas of our national life, is as a result of lack of initiative on the part of our leaders. This is because this issue of fuel scarcity during the yuletide as becomes a trend for some years now.

It will interest you to know that some group of people are actually cashing in on this and smiling to the bank while majority of Nigerians struggle in pain and stress as they strive to buy this scarce commodity or paying higher transport fare thereby having their little savings wrongly taking from them. In fact, many are in darkness as they cannot power their generators which happens to be their main source of electricity due to poor or nonexistence national power supply.

This annual disgrace and demonstration of ineptitude by the management of NNPC will persist until proactive steps are taking to find a lasting solution to it. It will interest you to know that even though the Nigerian Federal government initially said no to reintroduction of fuel subsidy, it was actually commenced for about fourteen days now and it cost us N2.1164 billion daily, and hence amounting to N29.68 billion in the last 14 days as reported by New Telegraph.

So, what can the Federal government do through the NNPC and other relevant agencies to find a lasting solution to this fuel scarcity menace! My submission in this respect comes in two folds.

Upfront Fuel (PMS) Storage

The first option is upfront fuel storage in anticipation of this period that is (November to January). This calls for National storage facilities as against using private sector storage facilities since some of the owners of such facilities are already betraying the trust placed on them.

Adequate Fuel Price Monitoring

The second option is using the Civil Defence to adequately monitor compliance to the regulated fuel price and empowered to seal and subsequently handing such marketers over to the law enforcement agencies.

The question that always come to mind during situations like this is ” where do black marketers get their fuel product from" if the recognized distributors can't even pull it through"? A carefully analysis of this question brings to mind the shady activities of the fuel distributors/marketers, and hence the need to adequately make use of the second option suggested above to complement the first one.

Now, over to you fellow Nigerians! Use the comment box to report the state of petrol availability and cost of transport fare in your area. Let send this message to the relevant authorities now!!


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