WE ALL NEED THAT BIG BREAK

For those of us who love soccer; there have been those moments when we pray silently in our hearts for the officiating referee to help our teams out of trouble. I do not think there are many football players who will turn down a penalty freebie from a referee when their teams need an equalizing or winning goal.

A lot has already been written about the fairytale leap from grass to grace of Olajumoke Orisaguna so I will not attempt to retell the story. I must express my joy at such a dramatic change in fortune for this young woman and her family. The individual who offered her time and platform to help a stranger deserves a lot of praise in all this and that I must state gives me greater joy.

TY Bello needs no introduction; she is blessed with one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard and her albums her on constant replay on my music playlist. She has done worthy and inspiring things before; she produced a documentary to highlight the activities of an elderly woman Mama Ekundayo who had devoted her life to taking care of orphaned children. Transforming Olajumoke from a bread hawker to a portrait model is not a publicity stunt; I believe it was a reaction to her heart’s prompting and she should be proud of herself.

The human being fails many times to do good to his/ her fellow human so I believe any act of selflessness should be commended. Doing good does not come naturally to many people and some have found it very difficult to see any good out of Jumoke’s story. I have read where a few people made guarded remarks and offered free advice to Jumoke to remain level headed and to ensure that her family did not suffer adversely from her new found fame.

I really do not understand why we always expect that there is a bigger chance that things could go wrong instead of right especially in a case like this. I do not expect that a former bread hawker with a husband and two children would lay waste of a real opportunity to get out of a difficult life. I do not expect her to alter her menu considerably and adopt an exotic lifestyle which is lightyears away from what she was used to simply because she got a big and expected break. Would I lose my mind assuming I got a break of such magnitude? I do not think so even if there is a very slim chance. It will take a monumental failure of character on my path for such to happen; Jumoke may not be formally educated but it will be wrong to assume that a young lady who braved relative indignity and hardship to fend for her children is devoid of durable character.

There are important points to note from #Olajumoke’s story other than a “rags to riches” theme. It could have been an undergraduate young lady without any economic challenge who photobombed TY Bello’s shoot. It could have been a very tall, dark and well-toned young man who was returning from a difficult day at work; Olajumoke was definitely not the only person who strolled past that day but her pleasant smiling face outweighed the well balanced platform of bread upon her head. The first point to note is that TY Bello and all involved in the “Transformation agenda” chose to do something good to a stranger and this Nigerians must emulate. We may have cameras or make-up kits but we can be good and responsible citizens of Nigeria, great friends and caring family members. We can also help complete strangers and those who are unable to pay for our services or repay us for our sacrifices.

Jumoke is 27 years old and can barely put two words of the English language together. There are millions like Jumoke spread across the nation who are without education and reduced to difficult lives despite learning vocations. This clearly shows how Nigeria has failed an entire generation. Millions with potential may never get a stage to showcase their endowments and skills; families and entire communities may continue to wallow in poverty why the privileged few continue to live and parade themselves through the land like royalty which they are not.

This is an emergency which must be urgently reversed. There is no amount of money that is too much to invest in educating and improving the economic strength of the least amongst us. This is what we should all be advocating and fighting for instead of scouting for opportunities to enrich ourselves just like those who have plundered the nation’s commonwealth recently did. We should not allow the children still on their mothers’ backs become Olajumoke ‘pre-TY Bello’ no child should have the dream of hawking wares while hoping to crash a movie shoot. There are many like her, many like me and you who only need one chance for a breakthrough. Jumoke got hers and we should rejoice with her instead of anticipating a meltdown which unfortunately has characterized many lottery winners.

The haters should calm down and simply try to experience good for once. Some are upset the entire event has been attributed to a divine intervention while one individual questioned why God watched on while Jumoke struggled until a few weeks ago. Should it really matter if a winning goal is scored in the first minute or the last second of injury time? I will always be glad that people like Jumoke get the chance to change their lives. Corporate bodies are known to endorse celebrities so Jumoke has simply gotten part of what would have been earmarked for overpampered entertainers and opportunists.

There is no shame in receiving such help when it is offered. May we not miss our opportunities and our big breaks when they come.

MURTALA: ETCHED IN NIGERIA'S HISTORY

Murtala Muhammed from recorded information was one of the few Northern majors who were promoted to Lieutenant Colonel after January 15th 1966 perhaps to pacify the agitated Northern interest groups with respect to the coup that claimed the lives of Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Maimalari, Kur Muhammed, Lagerma and Pam. He was a fiery character who according to Joe Garba never wanted to become Supreme commander but took up the role and moved like a whirlwind albeit short-lived.

It is reported that Murtala was quite vocal and was seen as a pivot to get back at those who took away the leading Northern leaders at the time. The role he played during the July1966 mutiny is there on record; it was more of a leading role and it is on record that they were interested in dismembering the young nation evidenced by the wild and uncontrolled nature of the killings across the nation. He went from negotiating the continued existence of Nigeria to backing Gowon as supreme commander.

The civil war came quickly and he was promoted to Colonel when the war commenced. The atrocities and immense losses in the 2nd division sector of the war are many and undisputed. Asaba, Onitsha and Abagana are notable. The Federal troops under his command suffered severe losses and he was replaced by Col. Bisalla who later became his defence chief in July 1975 and executed for the failed February 1976 coup. The civil war ended in January of 1970 and from that time to July 75; Murtala only went up one rank to Brigadier and was left at the Signals corps of the army just like General Benjamin Adekunle was deployed at a time to clear the congested Lagos port. He was however appointed the commissioner of communication by Gowon in 1975.

I still wonder why a man who identified with violence in 1966 assumed power in July 1975 without a drop of blood shed. What happened to him between 1969 and 1975? Well he became supreme commander and was quite vocal in African affairs. Joe Garba detailed some of his actions and communications in his book "Diplomatic soldiering" especially with handling Angola. He was vocal and aggressive with his foreign policy demands; the Americans were offended and apartheid did not escape his criticism. One wonders if his overly abrasive nature cost him his life.

By October 4 1975, he had set up a 50 member committee to draft a constitution and he proposed the presidential system to them. He fired his military colleagues and "powerful" civil servants. He definitely played with fire as close to 200 senior policemen lost their jobs in two months. Within four months, numerous civil servants, doctors, vice chancellors, judges, typists, gardeners, messengers, and various grades of workers were gone for reasons which ranged from ill-health to lateness and from perceived disloyalty to gross misconduct. Surely very many good people would have been caught up in this web; could this have been the reason why those who survived pulverized the system to provide their own insurance?

The same men who had stood side by side with Murtala about ten years prior to that time to avenge the deaths of Northern soldiers and politicians were the same ones who turned against him. Over 30 officers most of whom were of present day Plateau state extraction were executed for the coup including Brigadier Bisalla who was technically senior to TY Danjuma but was overlooked for one of the two roles eventually occupied by Obasanjo and TY Danjuma. Bisalla maintained his innocence but the deed was done and even his attendance at Murtala's burial did not count since Dimka implicated him.

The nearly four month decimation of the Civil service and government parastatals seems by far his gravest actions against Nigeria. I do not think these actions were carried out to deliberately harm the nation. He went about without the protection that military leaders would have been expected to have and seemed decisive in his attempt to tackle corruption unlike his predecessor whose post-civil war time in charge was marred by corruption allegations and a reluctance to restore Nigeria to civilian rule.

Murtala's legacy in my opinion is one of violence and bloodshed. If we should consider all he did then we would alter the name on the Lagos airport however I think the man went through a reformation and somehow got changed along the line and genuinely sought to make the nation and Africa work. It is unfortunate that his action on the civil service seemingly set Nigeria back in time and complicated everything. One wonders if we would have these same impressions if he was not murdered and had enough time to follow through with his reforms.

P.S: This has been edited here and there but it was mostly a comment I made in reaction to a somewhat similarly themed  Facebook post on the 13th of February by @Chxta. I hope this serves to stimulate the reader to take time to understand the nature of the characters who contributed to what Nigeria has become. It could make us become tolerant if we are able to see our weaknesses in these same men who looked larger than life when they reigned.

Twitter Blast

I had a blast this morning on twitter engaging many Buhari bashers and haters on the budget proposal. One fellow who obviously takes delight in having her tweets retweeted generated an interesting one where she listed some figures from the budget of the office of the secretary to the government of the federation. 

This is what the tweet stated:

Office of the SGF: Sitting allowance

2014 N65M

2015 N60M

2016 N792M

2014 Secretary to the government of the federation HQ Miscellaneous budget

The tweet has surely generated the effect she wanted and her many disciples joined in to bash the president.

2015 Secretary to the government of the federation HQ Miscellaneous budget

She combined information from 3 budget proposals from 2014 to 2016 but she failed to disclose to the gullible ones the whole picture. The portion of the budget she utilized is under the miscellaneous group of expenses and is indicated there as "honorarium and sitting allowance." I must confess that the importance of all these terminologies inherent within the budget are not entirely understood by me. 

I hope that I will not be expected to give detailed summary of such information if I become president tomorrow..lol.

I have here posted screengrabs of the portions where the lethal tweet was generated from so that those who read can analyse for themselves.

Some other folks had a go at me because I mentioned that the 2016 budget proposal could not have escaped influence from the last administration. Some thought I was blaming the faults in the 2016 budget on Jonathan but I think they did not comprehend sufficiently or accurately so they jumped to his defence. Thank God I stated administration and not Jonathasn because the administration was more than one man.

I may have suggested in a previous post that Jonathan's government submitted budgets late; that definitely is wrong information and I retract that if indeed I posted such. Budgets over the years have been sent to the assembly in December or earlier however such may not have been scrutinized well enough like this current one. 

What characterized some of the past budgets was secrecy and hurried readings by the House of Assembly therefore ensuring that all sorts passed under the radar and gave room for various degree of heists. Many Nigerians have shown great interest in this budget which can only be good for our nation in the long run.

Back to the administration and Jonathan. I do not understand why many people expected the 2016 bill to have been markedly different from previous years when the same template was used and when most of those involved in drafting it are still the same cast from last year. I will concede that the ministers were appointed late and a good number of the carry-over permanent secretaries and directors held on to their spots until a moment just before the ministers came on board. 

The president has tried to explain the rot in the system his government inherited but some hear this and all that reverbs in their oscicles are excuses. The Minister of Budget and Planning must have had it very stressful to meet up with the December date for submission; he no doubt would have things clearer and better figured out when the preparation for the next budget gets into gear. The budget office must have continued to operate after Jonathan left office and what they submitted in December must have seen them leveraging on their experience.

2016 Secretary to the government of the federation HQ Miscellaneous budget

The fellow I engaged this morning must imagine in her heart that she means well for Nigeria by discrediting the president and his associates. The budget proposal is flawed and that is clear to everyone but one thing which will most likely ensue is that it will not be business as usual in our ministries and institutions. My boss attended a meeting last week and they were instructed to source for funds on their own especially from corporate bodies to run their activities because there would be no largesse from government. I am sure everyone's eye will turn red and the movement of money will be monitored effectively henceforth.

For effective critiquing, it is important to identify both the merits and demerits in order to avoid misleading others and promoting strife. I am glad that even PDP assembly members are probably identifying scams and inflated items in the bill more than their APC counterparts. We should hope that they do the needful and cut the excesses of the budget significantly. If someone points at "Honorarium and sitting allowance" going up then the same fellow should see that the budgetary allocation for "welfare package" got drastically reduced. The goal should be for us to have a budget proposal which will be fair and beneficial to all and sundry; we still have to think about where most of the funding would come from. Those who came up with the budget of their respective offices and parastatals should appear to defend same.

One fellow tried to give credit to Babaginda for getting rid of Buhari in August 1985. He said that Buhari's stiffled the economy and Nigerians were suffering and found it difficult to have food to eat. He also said that Nigerians were liberated from queuing for essential commodities. I asked him what Nigerians benefitted from Babaginda who liberated the economy and set us free from queuing; he ended with asking me to go and read. Please help me with any book on Nigeria's history, I need to update my knowledge.

EKITIGATE: WHERE CONFESSIONS DON'T MATTER

"Buhari and APC must fail" is definitely the slogan of those who are still aggrieved that a Muslim northerner with only a WAEC certificate and military training overcame a PhD holder and incumbent president at the last presidential election.

Many of my ‘country people’ only see things in one dimension unfortunately; i.e. APC versus PDP. This is perhaps why the on screen confession of a certain TKO Aluko is seen as an attempt by APC to take over the Supreme Court approved governorship of Ekiti state. 

There is nothing about the corroboration of information from Captain Koli's audio recording and the confession by Mr. Aluko that appears to make sense to Ayo Fayose’s supporters.  They do not understand the gravity of the perhaps treasonable crime against the Nigerian state.  All they hear is a man who got angry that he was not appointed ‘thief of staff’ and all they see is Judas Iscariot getting 30 pieces of silver to trade their Jesus.

It's amazing that some individuals brag about having first-hand information on the events surrounding the Ekiti elections because they were on ground while others like me were not.  I will even concede that Fayose would have won the elections fair and square without any external interference but this is the sole reason why his supporters want us to disregard whatever purulent discharge poured out of Aluko's stomodeum; they have however forgotten that there is an audio recording which the army has already acted upon to discipline their erring officers.

Nigerians should realize that there is a battle against common sense to force Nigerians into trenches. Our opponents want to reduce the issues confronting Nigeria to just political party scuffles.  It is more than that.  The future of Nigeria is at risk; we should not let them dictate to us who to handcuff and who to grant bail.  Those who plundered this nation did not consider ethnic, religious or political differences when they probably forced the devil off the table and plundered Nigeria's resources.

Dasuki, Metuh, Fayose NIMASA, Tompolo and a few other individuals and agencies are currently dancing to the beat; the bigger fishes will soon get into the act.  We should be prepared to drown their noise when those moments come. Let's not forget to redirect the social media legislators to the exact location where laws ought to be made.

On Dalori, Ogun and Mischief-makers

Running a government is definitely not "beans" and I very much  understand the protocols involved and why some information get classified. I didn't believe the Chibok kidnap story until the commander in chief at that time informed the people at his infamous media chat that the story was true and not rumours. 

Goodluck Jonathan was in Kano in April 2014, a day after a motor park bomb blast to welcome the former Kano state governor who had decamped from the ANPP to PDP. He was spotted dancing and this greatly infuriated many Nigerians including me.  It seems many actually forget that he visited the scene of that blast that claimed many lives and some injured individuals in the hospital before heading to Kano.

Mr. Jonathan (PhD) demonstrated empathy a few times by visiting the injured and bereaved including the scene of the alien induced building collapse which claimed many South African lives. It was not really the failure to visit Chibok, Buni Yadi or Baga which caused his approval ratings to go south; it had more to do with Nigerians learning that the commander in chief did not wield his powers when there was still a chance to rescue the Chibok girls just after their abduction.  The Nyanya bombing occurred on the 14th of April 2014 and the abductions took place only hours later before his trip to Kano. Major events were going on at the same time and he didn't appear to act.  He did not at that point need to visit Chibok but simply needed to give the orders to ensure the girls were recovered.

Whether we admit it or not, Nigeria is in a major conflict and the leaders should not be expected to visit the conflict zones when threat levels are high and where reasonable security cannot be guaranteed. Our intelligence gathering may not be of CIA or MI6 quality but it cannot be so bad that the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria does not have a clue when an incident occurs especially within the war theatre. 

I do believe that certain information should be classified or not immediately brought into the public domain.  News outfits are always scrawling breaking news so a few things get distorted along the line. The latest in the series of terrorist attacks happened in Dalori a town in Borno state where a little over four scores of people including women and children were reported to have been brutally killed. Many Nigerians including those supportive of the president have expressed their displeasure at what appears to be insensitivity to the news about young children and many others burnt alive by members of the Boko Haram sect; some have even questioned why the president has not paid a visit to Dalori and Chibok town which was also attacked a few days ago.

Many online media outfits have gone into overdrive with this story; there are gory images of charred bodies including those of children all over the web.  One problem here is that the agenda of many of these online blogs and news outfits is suspect and may just be the voice of groups which are not in support of Nigeria or her government. A quick glance at the comments section of many of these news reports clearly show hate and bias towards the government even though some of the information may have been made up and attached photos completely unrelated to Dalori.

Some issues are clear and undisputed; Dalori was attacked and women and children killed just like it has happened in other attacks elsewhere. The figures may be accurate or not and news platforms are entitled to report these. What should be unacceptable is using images from unrelated events to generate effect.  This unfortunately was done by a few sites with respect to Dalori. Someone on Facebook pointed this out on a thread where a link to the story was placed and I thereafter searched the Internet and found out that images taken from Boko Haram attacks on Niger and Cameroun towns a few years ago were added to the authentic images from Dalori.

Such activities as this are incredibly sad; some people think this is a justifiable way to discredit the incumbent administration and express their lack of support for religious, ethnic or political reasons.  It is even more tragic when a private citizen is attacked by a fabricated story authored by one well known to the individual concerned. This young fabricator has obviously traded his conscience for monetary gain and will surely reap his reward.

I will not ask the president to visit an attacked town just for the sake of visiting or to appear objective because I slated Jonathan when he was in charge.  I understand the current limitations of our military and I have seen some encouraging images of how they are currently deployed in the Northeast.  These men and women though without anyone to relieve them are doing their best and I support them.  Dalori and some other spots were attacked but there were also reports of averted bombings, destruction of terrorist positions and recovery of territory.  I chose to dwell more on these progress reports but it doesn't mean I'm insensitive to the plight of those bereaved.

President Buhari went to Ogun state to join in the 40th anniversary celebrations of that state. There was plenty of music and dance but this was not exactly like going to welcome a “decampee”. I understand if people felt offended that he opted for Ogun instead of Borno but I'm certain this event was already planned for long before Dolari occurred.  As much as it is important that we genuinely mourn our lost fellow citizens; I think identifying with projects that will be of enormous benefit to some other citizens is a worthy act especially if the Ogun state government do not hand over such projects to task masters who will only end up enriching themselves and making the people they ought to serve even more miserable. One wouldn't avoid a naming ceremony because of a burial ceremony fixed for the same period. 

HALF FULL

With respect to the 2016 budget; I’m not particularly disturbed because it's still just a proposal.

Government is a continuum and I'm certain those who put together the 2016 bill must have leveraged on the previous budget and input from every government agency and establishment in order to have something presented in December 2015.

These agencies, parastatals and ministries must have begun drafting their budgets based on the expectation that Fortunato would continue as president and then the subsequent shakeup when that didn't work out could have caused delays. There is an uncompleted four storey building where I work that was begun in 2010; it is still far from completion despite the great importance ascribed to the project when it was first initiated.

This project still gets listed in the budget every year despite the fact that the former administrator has already placed a commissioning plaque on its wall bearing his name; he did this just a few weeks to the end of his tenure a little over a year ago but the project remains at practically the same stage it was about 3 years ago. If this has happened in one establishment, one then can only imagine what other absurdities exist throughout the entire budget.

There's only so much President Buhari could have done to proofread the budget proposal before presentation; the document is out in the public domain and before the House of Assembly to do the needful and sieve out the repetitions and outright scams.  Hue and cry that Buhari wants to defraud Nigerians make absolutely no sense.  If he was interested in doing that, should he not have treated the budget with secrecy like his predecessor did at a time so that it would get hurriedly read and passed by the assembly?

It should be simple; the health facility at Aso rock has a budget which dwarfs all other health facilities across the nation meant to serve other Nigerians. What should the assembly do about this? They should determine if it makes sense or not; it obviously doesn't so they should excise it from the final document.  What our dear legislators are capable of doing is to use such as a tool to blackmail the executive to concede to their own excesses instead of working for the common good.

Many modern day Nigerians aren't particularly good readers; the majority cannot be said to have a reading culture and may have trouble comprehending whenever they take time out to read. The alarm over the budget has helped to improve many Nigerians who now read and pay greater attention to detail. The members in support of the past administration have also found detecting irregularities within the budget very easy. It may appear like a monumental embarrassment to the current administration but I chose to disagree.  It will only become a full scale embarrassment if the budget emerges from the assembly without greatly losing weight and if the next budget after this still contains astronomical allocations for kitchen utensils, softwares, furniture and the civil service.

The many beneficiaries of government jobs due to "man know man" from the last administration cannot all just be laid off overnight in order to trim the civil service; it will require some time and patience before the many scam networks entrenched within the government's structure are all exposed and excised.  Time and patience are two things Nigerians must value this time around. I don't claim to know how the country's budget is put together, what I know is that the president cannot veto it however perfect or imperfect it is. The scrutiny which that document is undergoing presently can only be beneficial to Nigerians eventually.  In the interim, let us continue to shine the light to expose the scams and put pressure on the assembly to do jobs they get mysterious and bloated allowances for. 


PS:
Two portions of this article have been edited to reflect a retraction of wrong information which suggested that President Jonathan presented his budgets late. The error was not intended to mislead the reader and I sincerely apologise for the error.