Monday, January 23, 2012

"THE FUTURE OF THE NIGERIAN NATION HANGS IN THE BALANCE"

Nigeria is now exhibiting the full symptoms of a failing state in the making and in all reality. These signs are clearly visible all over the 36 federating states of Nigeria and cutting across all the geopolitical zones of this nation of about 160 million citizens and residents .

A failing state is synonymous with the following symptoms:(i) The central government is too weak and has failed in its primary responsibility to guarantee the national security for the life and the properties of Nigerian citizens and residents. Lawlessness and the rule of brutality reign supreme in the nation today (hired killings, political assassinations, numerous unsolved murders, ritual killings and kidnappings for ransoms).

(ii) The federal government headed by President Jonathan Goodluck has lost its partial sovereignty over the certain territories of Nigeria  to terrorists, militant groups and warlords (Niger-Delta region to the oil militant groups  and the North Eastern Nigeria to Boko Haram).

(iii) The national economy is failing, the nation's foreign debt profile is rising, the nation's foreign reserves are almost in red, hyper-inflation of goods and services control the national economy, Nigerians' economic and purchasing power are heavily  reduced, the value of the nation's currency is gradually depreciating against international currencies, foreign investments are not visible in the land, unemployment has risen above 47% amongst youths, poverty rate has hit over 90%, the nation's manpower needs are affected by brain drain and majority of the over five million Nigerians in diaspora are mainly economic refugees.

(iv) The government has failed to provide the citizens with their basic social services, such as electricity, water, good roads and 21st century health care system. (v) The nation's educational systems and our national infrastructures are too old, outdated, obsolete, inadequate and collapsing. (vi) Life expectancy is falling alongside with human development indices that determine the quality of life and the standard of living.

In the final conclusion:what is the way forward for the Nigerian nation today? The government of Jonathan Goodluck should immediately convene a National Sovereign Conference of all ethnic nationalities and religious groups in Nigeria to decide the future of this union of many nations in one.

These are the two different political possibilities and outcomes of a Sovereign National Conference if it is held in Nigeria:(i) A confederacy system of government could be adopted that will break Nigeria into six or more geopolitical regions that are political and economically autonomous and with a weak central government in Abuja. (ii) Secession of those geopolitical zones in Nigeria into independent nations similar to what was done to the former nations of Sudan in 2011 and USSR in 1990s

Sunday, January 22, 2012

IS BARACK OBAMA THE FOOD STAMPS PRESIDENT OF AMERICA AS CLAIMED BY NEWT GINGRICH THE GOP FRONT RUNNER?

 Food Stamps in America is the brain child of Senator Bob Dole who was the longest-serving Republican senate leader. It is also a fact on records that White Americans are the highest number of individuals on food stamps than the African-Americans and the Hispanics since it was established and passed into law in America.

The population of the United States is around 311,907,122, meaning that almost 15 percent of U.S. residents use food stamps. Despite prevailing stereotype, Whites, not Blacks, collect greatest share of public aid dollars. Some 61 percent of welfare recipients are White, while 33 percent are Black, according to 1990 Census Bureau statistics, the latest figures available.

Every American President to date have all supported and promoted food stamps for the needy Americans. Tens of millions of Americans were on food stamps when Newt Gingrich was the Speaker of the House of Representatives under the presidency of Bill Clinton. Why did he not call Bill Clinton a food stamps President? Why did Newt Gingrich not call George Bush Jr, a food stamps President when tens of millions of Americans were on food stamps from 2002 to 2008?

Did Newt Gingrich find out why more people are on food stamps under the presidency of Barack Obama today than others? Obama's presidency has seen the worst economic recession in America since the Great Depression of the 1930s. 700, 000 jobs were lost on monthly basis shortly after Obama took over. President Barack Obama has now stopped these trends by creating more jobs for the last 22 months than all the jobs created in eight yerasby George Bush Jr, and has also reduced the unemployment rate to the lowest rate of 8.5% since 2009. Newt Gingrich on this one, you are totally wrong and misleading to the American voters. You are just playing your race card.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

"1,000 REASONS WHY NIGERIANS VOTED FOR JONATHAN GOODLUCK AND NOT FOR THE PDP"

Nigerians voted for GEJ for all the reasons under the sun except for merit, good leadership skills, exemplary leadership abilities, past records of great performance and achievements in the public elected offices that he held in the past as a public official, as well as his academic achievements as a university teacher and a researcher in zoology. Nigerians in April 2001 voted for JEG on the ground of pure sentiments and never because he was the best presidential material at that election. They voted for JEG because he is a southerner. They voted for JEG because he is a "Christian". They voted for JEG because he was openly anointed by Pastor Adeboye, one of the most popular pastors or the men of God in Nigeria today. They voted for JEG because he came from a humble beginning without having any shoes growing up and his pathetic story of a life of abject poverty growing up as a child. They voted for JEG because he has a PhD in Zoology and the other presidential candidates did not have.

They voted for JEG because they hate to see another Northerner at Aso Rock. They voted for JEG because they hate to see another Hausa or Fulani as the occupant of the Aso Rock villa. They voted for JEG because they hate to see another Muslim at Aso Rock villa. They voted for JEG and not for PDP, because they thought that was how to change a regime or vote PDP out of power in a country that has no independent candidacy in its electoral laws. They voted for JEG because the ACN leaders led by Bola Tinubu told the westerners to vote for him. They voted for JEG because of the uniqueness of his name "Goodluck" that was associated with luck and good omen. They voted for GEJ because he had a very rapid accelerated rise to political power, fame and celebrity status that were all based on the dirty politics of Godfatherism that Olusegun Obasajo designed, planned and executed. The Igbos voted for JEG because he is one of them from the south and has an Igbo name "Azikwe". The South-South voted for JEG because he is the "son of the soil."




"NIGERIA FACES A VERY BLEAK FUTURE AS A NATION IN CRISES"

Today in 2012, the nation has continue to witness violent religious riots for the last 30 years  and terrorism engineered by Boko Haram for the last three years. Tens of thousands of innocent Nigerians have been killed as a result of these religious violents and tens of millions of dollar worth of properties had been destroyed without any arsonists, looters, murderers or their sponsors ever prosecuted fully by the Nigerian government with their laws.

About 80% of Nigerians are living in abject poverty and are surviving on $1-2 a day. Unemployment rate has reached over 30% amongst the youths leaving behind millions of young college-educated Nigerians without employment, hope and future. Millions of Nigerian workers in both the private and the government sectors earn poverty wages that will never allow them to meet their basic needs in life. Nigeria's national infrastructures, education systems and social services are all old, outdated, inadequate and collapsing.

The national population stands at 160 million citizens and residents, it is expected to hit 400 million persons in 2050 when oil experts expected the Nigeria's oil reserves that currently stands at 38 billion barrels to be completely depleted at the current rate of exploration that stands at 2.5 million barrels a day or 1 billion barrels a year.
The oil in Nigeria today has benefited only the nation's elites (serving and retired military generals, serving and retired security chiefs, politicians, public elected officials and their families and cronies, as well as retired and serving top government officials).

Can Nigeria survive without this oil money coming in on daily basis? Time is fast running out against Nigerian nation that has refused through her corrupt leadership for 40 years to manage and invest this oil wealth wisely for the betterment of all Nigerians and the future generations of Nigerians. Are Nigeria's leaders aware of this unavoidable event of the future as they are all very busy at the moment stealing the leftovers from the nation's coffers? Once beaten, twice shy. Time will surely tell.

"THE REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS IN NIGERIA:A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE"

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, religious riots and sectarian violence started in Nigeria in 1966 with the Anti-Igbo pogroms in the Northerner Nigeria after a military counter coup led by a group of some Northern Nigerian army officers under the leadership of Gowon against General Ironsi.

These ethnic cleansings were allowed to go on by the Gowon's government and these arsonists and murderers were left unpunished till today. This was immediately followed by the one of the worst genocides in Africa in which over one million Igbos were killed in the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War and no Nigerian army officers involved in these acts of war crimes against the Igbo were ever tried for war crimes.

The year 1980 in Nigeria witnessed the beginning of a major religious violence on a large scale in Nigeria. It started in the Northern Nigerian city of Kano by a religious bigot and a radical preacher by the name of Mohammed Marwa Maitatsine who led riots in Kano. He was killed by security forces, but his followers were never arrested or prosecuted with the laws of Nigeria. These remnants later started other religious uprisings in other northern cities throughout the 1980s and 1990s under the watch of the successive military governments in power in Nigeria at that time.

The mid 1990s was the beginning of ethnic cleansing of the Ogonis and the political uprising in the Nigeria's Niger Delta region led by late Ken Saro Wiwa against the multinational oil companies operating in Nigeria for environmental degradation of the region and for more share of the Nigeria's oil wealth for that region of Nigeria. The regime of the late General Sanni Abacha supported a state sponsored murder of Ken Saro Wiwa via a Kangaroo court system despite the various international appeals and oppositions against his trial and conviction. His murder gave birth to today's reign of terror in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria by the various militant groups operating freely in that part of Nigeria.

The beginning of the 4th democratic dispensation in Nigeria witnessed the introduction of the Sharia law in many of the states of the Northern Nigeria by a number of their civilian governors in direct violation of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution that stands for secularism in the governance of the affairs of the Nigerian nation. These developments led to the several religious and sectarian riots in the Northern Nigeria under the regime of Olusegun Obasanjo without any serious prosecutions of these fanatics, arsonists, looters and murderers.

The late President Yar'Adua inherited these religious crises, and he followed the same approaches and patterns used by the successive Nigerian governments to address these crises since the 1960s. In 2009, today's  most dreaded terrorist group in Nigeria by the named of Boko Haram was born under Yar'Adua's watch and is inherited today by President Jonathan Goodluck. The nation's security apparatus has proved to be totally helpless in addressing the menace of Boko Haram and the Niger Delta militant groups despite a security budget of over $7 billion a year.

The most important question today is this:what is the way forward for the future of the Nigerian nation in crises? The government of  Jonathan Goodluck should immediately convene a National Sovereign Conference of all ethnic nationalities and religious groups in Nigeria to decide the future of this nation. Two different political possibilities and outcomes are practically possible in all reality which are:(i) A confederacy system of government that will break Nigeria into six or more geopolitical regions that are political and economically autonomous and with a weak central government in Abuja. (ii) Secession of the federating units in Nigeria into independent nations like what was done to the former nations of Sudan in 2011 and USSR in 1990s.