"NIGERIA'S SQUANDERED OPPORTUNITY" - JOEL BRINKLEY

Just outside President Goodluck Jonathan's office sat 17 ambulances, just in case he or one of his aides fell ill. They were seldom if ever used.

No actual health-care facility nationwide had as many, and in fact a few still have none at all. But as soon as a Nigerian newspaper took a photo of the ambulances and published a story about them, they suddenly disappeared -- probably to an underground garage.

Jonathan is president of Nigeria, which should be among the world's most prosperous nations. After all, it produces an estimated 2.4 million barrels of oil each and every day. With oil now selling at $93.61 a barrel, that's $224 million in income daily. And yet many hospitals can't afford to buy an ambulance. The reason, in my view: Nigeria is the most corrupt nation on earth.

Sure, Transparency International lists almost three dozen states as more corrupt -- Chad, Haiti, Laos, Yemen, Cambodia and the like. But are any of those nations as wealthy as Nigeria -- taking in $81 billion annually, just from the sale of oil? No, not even one of them. So Nigeria steals and squanders more money than any other nation, making it the world's most corrupt, by that measure.

Nigerian journalist Musikilu Mojeed finds all this so discouraging.

"With its geopolitical power, economic resources and middle class," he laments, "no country (with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia and Egypt) has the power to change the course of black/African civilization like Nigeria." After all, Nigeria is Africa's most populous state -- and large, twice the size of California.

So Nigerians are living an opportunity squandered -- particularly now. Egypt is in turmoil. In just the last few days, in fact, many Egyptians have been calling for a military coup -- anything to rid the state of its widely despised Muslim Brotherhood government. And a new report by the World Economic Forum ranked Egypt the least safe and secure tourist destination among 140 tourist nations evaluated.

Egypt has lost its place as the Arab/African worlds' leader, and Saudi Arabia never had it. So for Nigeria, the time is ripe. But its leaders seem interested only in stealing the state's money to make themselves rich beyond imaging. Think about it: $81 billion a year just from the oil, while most every local government official still tells his people the nation just doesn't have enough money to fix the roads, schools or hospitals. (Roads are in such terrible shape that government officials generally travel any distance by helicopter.)

And Nigeria's people -- well, they are as mistreated as any on earth. In only nine nations -- among them Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia -- do more mothers die during childbirth. And in only 10 states, including Chad, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, is the average life expectancy lower. Right now the average Nigerian's average life span ends at 52. That may be why the median age of Nigerians is just 18.

A few months ago, the Economist Intelligence Unit published an evaluation of the best places for babies to born in 2013, given their probable welfare as children and the chance for a safe, comfortable, prosperous life. Switzerland, Australia and Norway were the top three. The United States came in at 16th, largely because "babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation."

Dead last: Nigeria. "It is the worst place for a baby to enter the world in 2013," the report said.

Even with all that wealth, only just over half the population has access to clean drinking water, and one-third to a toilet, UNICEF says. Two-thirds live below the poverty line. Only one child in four who contracts pneumonia is given antibiotics, and only about half the population is literate.

The CIA also cites endemic "soil degradation; rapid deforestation; urban air and water pollution." All this in a county whose gross domestic product stands at $236 billion a year, in the same league as Denmark, Chile, Israel and the United Arab Emirates -- prosperous, successful states to be envied.

Goodluck Jonathan is certainly aware of all of this. After all, taking the oath of office, he swore to "devote myself to the service and well-being of the people of Nigeria. So help me God."

Well, just last week he demonstrated who he really is and what he stands for when he pardoned a former state governor who'd been convicted of embezzling state funds and laundering the money. That pardon triggered a broad, angry uproar.

Good luck, Mr. Jonathan. It's time you were impeached.

(Joel Brinkley is the Hearst professional in residence at Stanford University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former correspondent for The New York Times.)

"THE CHRISTIANITY OF GREED GOSPEL AND RELIGIOUS EXPLOITATION BOOM IN NIGERIA"

The Churches in Nigeria today that are under the banner of modernization or pentecostalism have all become heavily money minded and totally materialistic. Christianity to many Nigerians is the primary way to become quickly rich or wealthy in all ramifications. Churches are now specialists and financial consultants on how to make their members rich through the deceptive message of taking their tithes and offerings and giving them the false hope of wealth or riches in return for their sacrificial givings. 

The so called prosperity gospel that entered Nigeria in the early 1980s has produced two very distinct and mixed results in that country since its introduction to the Nigerian Christian community by the visting America's prosperity pioneers and teachers as well as their Nigerian trained and mentored prosperity gospel pastors. The primary beneficiaries from this prosperity gospel or the greed message of religious exploitation are the prosperity teachers who are now super-rich. The tens of millions of their gullible, vulnerable, exploited, deceived followers and givers continue to live day in and day out in midst of hopelessness, abject or chronic poverty that prevents them from enjoying the most basic needs of life, such as a decent shelter, regular nutritional meals, transportation, health care, education, personal savings and decent clothes on their bodies.

BIBLICAL REFERENCES:
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver - 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV Translation). 
He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he that gives to the rich, shall surely come to want - Proverbs 22:16.
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ - 2 Corinthians 11:13.

Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself . But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out . And having food and raiment let us be therewith content . But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after , they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows - 2 Timothy 6:5-10.
Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver - 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV Translation).

"THE QUESTIONS THAT NIGERIANS WILL NEVER ASK THEIR LEADERS"

(i) Where did David Mark, a public elected official and the Nigerian senate president get the $300,000 to buy a Ferrari car for the Nigerian singer 2Face Idibia as a wedding gift? (ii) How much did David Mark make as his employment incomes during his entire military career and as a public elected official that made it easily possible for him to doll out this expensive gift to a private Nigerian citizen?

(iii) Why should the government of Nigeria and her leaders be directly involved in the wedding expenses of a private Nigerian citizen by spending the tax payers' money to sponsor and to support the private decision of one Nigerian citizen that decided to marry? (iv) Where in the world today is this type of mismanagement of state resources by elected leaders are allowed to go on unchallenged?

(v) Did Nigerian voters elect David Mark to the senate and Godswill Akpabio as the governor of Akwa Ibom state respectively to be spending the government resources lavishly on an ordinary Nigerian citizen that decided to marry? (vi) What is the business of the government at all levels and her officials in the private marriage of one Nigerian out of the 160 million other Nigerians that this special and anointed Nigerian must be singled out for those pricey gifts from the state funds or tax payers' money?

"THE FIVE DIFFERENT CRITICS THAT COULD NOT DESTROY CHINUA ACHEBE OF NIGERIA"

(i) The first set of critics of the Chinua Achebe's last book on the Biafran war that took place in Nigeria from 1967 to 1970 have attempted to humanly exonerate the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo from the principal roles that he played in the prosecution of the Biafran war from its beginning to its final end when he was the Vice-Chairman of the then Federal Executive Council and the Finance Minister of the then Federal Military Government of Nigeria. Chief Obafemi Awolowo principally managed the Nigeria war economy.

(ii) The second set of critics tried to denounce the fact that the Biafran war was an act of genocide as conducted by the then Nigerian military government against her Igbo tribe and had tried as hard as it was humanly possible to justify the reasons why an estimated 3 million Igbos needed to die or must die in order to keep Nigeria together and intact as one nation in the name of national unity. (iii) The third set of critics were very upset with Chinua Achebe for having the courage, boldness and the audacity to reopen the old wounds of this brutal war that had refused to heal in all truth, honesty and reality since 1970 when it ended officially.

(iv) The fourth set of critics cannot truly understand the rational behind Chinua Achebe's attempt in his book to straighten out the 42-year old fabricated records and true history of this Biafran war in 2012 when Nigeria is at a major crossroad of her existence again with the menace of Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants, MOSSOB, Odua, Egbesu and others. (iv) The fifth set of critics tried unsuccessfully to tarnish and to degrade the international reputation, achievements, legacies and the integrity of this erudite writer/scholar by calling him a failed, unpatriotic Nigerian, an ethnic lord of the Igbos and a frustrated academician.

"THERE WAS A COUNTRY:A PERSONAL HISTORY OF BIAFRA" - CHINUA ACHEBE

The hard truths that were exposed and supported with many valid evidences as well as the most important questions that Chinua Achebe asked all Nigerians in his last book before his death last Friday in Boston, United States have both truly divided Nigerians and the national public opinions about this war into two different camps.

The Biafran war was the worst chapter of human event in the entire history of the Nigerian nation to date. Every effort has been made since 1970 after this brutal war was officially over by every successive government in Nigeria to date including the military government that prosecuted the Biafran war to sweep the whole truth about this war under the carpet of history forever and have all attempted to rewrite the true account of this war to suit their own tribal or regional goals and the myopic national objectives of the Nigerian leaders that are neither patriotic nor nationalistic in the name of one Nigeria and national unity.

Achebe's book on the Biafran war was his biggest personal legacy that was based on the first class account from one of the major actors on the Biafra's side of this deadly war. The book asked the most important questions about this war that were never asked before at the national and international levels except the use of the common phrase "No Victor and No Vanguished". This book also serves as a national warning to the present Nigerian nation that has never learned any vital lesson of life to date from her brutal and past history.

Chinua Achebe is now gone and the Nigerian nation that he truly loved as a patriot and a nationalist is now facing the likely possibility of this destructive event been repeated again in our lifetime in a nation that is passing through the same similar events of the 1960s that gave birth to the Biafran war when the true wound of this Biafra war has not truly healed in all honesty and reality in 2013 in Nigeria.

"THINGS FALL APART AUTHOR CHINUA ACHEBE DEAD AT 82" - ASSOCIATED PRESS

 Chinua Achebe, the internationally celebrated Nigerian author, statesman and dissident who gave literary birth to modern Africa with “Things Fall Apart” and continued for decades to rewrite and reclaim the history of his native country, has died. He was 82. Achebe died following a brief illness, said his agent, Andrew Wylie. “He was also a beloved husband, father, uncle and grandfather, whose wisdom and courage are an inspiration to all who knew him,” Wylie said. His eminence worldwide was rivaled only by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison and a handful of others. Achebe was a moral and literary model for countless Africans and a profound influence on such American writers as Morrison, Ha Jin and Junot Diaz.

As a Nigerian, Achebe lived through and helped define revolutionary change in his country, from independence to dictatorship to the disastrous war between Nigeria and the breakaway country of Biafra in the late 1960s. He knew both the prestige of serving on government commissions and the fear of being declared an enemy of the state. He spent much of his adult life in the United States, but never stopped calling for democracy in Nigeria or resisting literary honors from a government he refused to accept.

His public life began in his mid-20s. He was a resident of London when he completed his handwritten manuscript for “Things Fall Apart,” a short novel about a Nigerian tribesman’s downfall at the hands of British colonialists. Turned down by several publishers, the book was finally accepted by Heinemann and released in 1958 with a first printing of 2,000. Its initial review in The New York Times ran less than 500 words, but the novel soon became among the most important books of the 20th century, a universally acknowledged starting point for postcolonial, indigenous African fiction, the prophetic union of British letters and African oral culture.

“It would be impossible to say how ‘Things Fall Apart’ influenced African writing,” the African scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah once observed. “It would be like asking how Shakespeare influenced English writers or Pushkin influenced Russians. Achebe didn’t only play the game, he invented it.” “Things Fall Apart” has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe also was a forceful critic of Western literature about Africa, especially Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” standard reading for millions, but in Achebe’s opinion, a defining example of how even a great Western mind could reduce a foreign civilization to barbarism and menace.

“Now, I grew up among very eloquent elders. In the village, or even in the church, which my father made sure we attended, there were eloquent speakers. So if you reduce that eloquence which I encountered to eight words … it’s going to be very different,” Achebe told The Associated Press in 2008. “You know that it’s going to be a battle to turn it around, to say to people, ‘That’s not the way my people respond in this situation, by unintelligible grunts, and so on; they would speak.’ And it is that speech that I knew I wanted to be written down.”

His first novel was intended as a trilogy and the author continued its story in “A Man of the People” and “Arrow of God.” He also wrote short stories, poems, children’s stories and a political satire, “The Anthills of Savannah,” a 1987 release that was the last full-length fiction to come out in his lifetime. Wheelchair bound in his latter years, he would cite his physical problems and displacement from home as stifling to his imaginative powers.

Achebe never did win the Nobel Prize, which many believed he deserved, but in 2007 he did receive the Man Booker International Prize, a $120,000 honor for lifetime achievement. Achebe, paralyzed from the waist down since a 1990 auto accident, lived for years in a cottage built for him on the campus of Bard College, a leading liberal arts school north of New York City where he was a faculty member. He joined Brown University in 2009 as a professor of languages and literature.

Achebe, a native of Ogidi, Nigeria, regarded his life as a bartering between conflicting cultures. He spoke of the “two types of music” running through his mind— Ibo legends and the prose of Dickens. He was also exposed to different faiths. His father worked in a local missionary and was among the first in their village to convert to Christianity. In Achebe’s memoir “There Was a Country,” he wrote that his “whole artistic career was probably sparked by this tension between the Christian religion” of his parents and the “retreating, older religion” of his ancestors. He would observe the conflicts between his father and great uncle and ponder “the essence, the meaning, the worldview of both religions.”

For much of his life, he had a sense that he was a person of special gifts who was part of an historic generation. Achebe was so avid a reader as a young man that his nickname was “Dictionary.” At Government College, Umuahia, he read Shakespeare, Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson and Jonathan Swift among others. He placed his name alongside an extraordinary range of alumni — government and artistic leaders from Jaja Wachukwa, a future ambassador to the United Nations; to future Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka; Achebe’s future wife (and mother of their four children) Christine Okoli; and the poet Christopher Okigbo, a close friend of Achebe’s who was killed during the Biafra war.

After graduating from the University College of Ibadan, in 1953, Achebe was a radio producer at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corp., then moved to London and worked at the British Broadcasting Corp. He was writing stories in college and called “Things Fall Apart” an act of “atonement” for what he says was the abandonment of traditional culture. The book’s title was taken from poet William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” which includes the widely quoted line, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

His novel was nearly lost before ever seen by the public. When Achebe finished his manuscript, he sent it to a London typing service, which misplaced the package and left it lying in an office for months. The proposed book was received coolly by London publishers, who doubted the appeal of fiction from Africa. Finally, an educational adviser at Heinemann who had recently traveled to west Africa had a look and declared: “This is the best novel I have read since the war.”

The opening sentence was as simple, declarative and revolutionary as a line out of Hemingway: “Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.” Africans, Achebe had announced, had their own history, their own celebrities and reputations. In mockery of all the Western books about Africa, Achebe ended with a colonial official observing Okonkwo’s fate and imagining the book he will write: “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.” Achebe’s novel was the opening of a long argument on his country’s behalf.

“Literature is always badly served when an author’s artistic insight yields to stereotype and malice,” Achebe said during a 1998 lecture at Harvard University that cited Joyce Cary’s “Mister Johnson” as a special offender. “And it becomes doubly offensive when such a work is arrogantly proffered to you as your story. Some people may wonder if, perhaps, we were not too touchy, if we were not oversensitive. We really were not.”

Achebe could be just as critical of his own country. The novels “A Man of the People” and “No Longer at Ease” were stories of corruption and collapse that anticipated the Nigerian civil war of 1967-70 and the years of mismanagement that followed. He not only supported Biafra’s independence, but was a government envoy and a member of a committee that was to write up the new and short-lived country’s constitution. He would flee from Nigeria and return many times and in 2004 refused the country’s second-highest award, the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic, in protest over conditions under President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“For some time now, I have watched events in Nigeria with alarm and dismay,” he said in an open letter to the president, referring to allegations of corruption and lawlessness in Achebe’s southeastern home state of Anambra. “A small clique of renegades, openly boasting its connections in high places, seems determined to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. … I had a strong belief that we would outgrow our shortcomings under leaders committed to uniting our diverse peoples.”

Besides his own writing, Achebe served for years as editor of Heinemann’s “African Writer Series,” which published works by Nadine Gordimer, Stephen Biko and others. He also edited numerous anthologies of African stories, poems and essays. In “There Was a Country,” he considered the role of the modern African writer. “What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue,” he wrote. “A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories — prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.” - The Associated Press (AP) writer Jon Gambrell in London contributed to this report.

"THE SIX MAJOR QUESTIONS THAT CHINUA ACHEBE ASKED NIGERIANS IN HIS LAST BOOK"

Below are the last six key questions that Chinua Achebe asked all Nigerians in his last book that he published in 2012 before his death few months ago this year. The late Chinua Achebe in his last book titled "There Was A Country:A Personal History of Biafra"  that was published in 2012 that I presently owned a personal copy of the book. I have also read this book personally from its front cover to its back cover. In that book the late Chinua Achebe asked the boldest, the hardest, the most controversial and the toughest questions about Nigeria and the Biafra war that took place almost 50 years ago, but remained the worst human event in the Nigeria's history to date as a nation.

The fundamental questions that this literary giant asked all Nigerians are as follow:(i) Was the Biafran war not an act of genocide against the Igbo tribe from all the available and valid evidences today? (ii) Were Yakubu Gowon and Obafemi Awolowo not both equally guilty of genocide against the Igbos in the ways and in the manners that they both used to prosecute this brutal war, through the use of economic blockage and the food starvation that led to the preventable physical deaths of about 2-3 million of those defenseless Igbo children, women and the non-combatant men?

(iii) Has Nigeria as a nation ever truly learned any vital historical lessons from this brutal past so that history does not repeat itself again in our lifetime? (iv) Are the present events in Nigeria today not very similar to those events of the 1960s that gave birth to the Biafran war? (v) Why is the Biafran war and its most important lessons kept away from the public, the young Nigerians today and are never taught in any of our public educational systems? (vi) Why did all the successive governments in Nigeria since the end of this deadly war to date have all attempted to suppress the information about this war, to manipulate the true account of history about this war, to distort the historical importance of this terrible war in Nigeria that wiped out more that 10% of the Igbo population at that time who were the lost members of the future generation the Igbo tribe?

"A TRUE GIANT HAS FALLEN IN NIGERIA:CHINUA ACHEBE IS DEAD"

WHO WAS CHINUA ACHEBE OF NIGERIA? Professor Chinua Achebe stood out clearly amongst his contemporaries or equals in Nigeria in particular and in the entire continent of Africa as well as all over the literary world in general. This erudite emeritus professor of the African literature, an internationally acclaimed author and essayist, a controversial political- historian and a great writer of human and African events was one of the few highly placed Nigerians that I personally held in the highest esteem in his eventful, controversial and colorful life. Chinua Achebe refused to sell his precious birthright like the way the biblical Esau did to his brother Jacob forever in order to satisfy his hunger with only one single meal of bread and lentil stew.

Chinua Achebe refused in his lifetime as a Nigerian to compromise his personal principles and his strong commitment to the truth about Nigerian nation that is in a deep national crisis today for those enticing and the highly juicy political appointments, inflated government contracts and patronage, the Ghana-must-go bags or the so called Nigeria's national honors that are normally given to Nigerian traitors instead of the true Nigerian patriots and nationalists on two different occasions and under the two different administrations as an academician, a researcher and a political commentator.

Chinua Achebe's place in the Nigeria's annals of history is now fully determined, known, secured, settled and written in pure gold forever and for the present generations of all Nigerians that are living today and for the future generations of Nigerians that are yet unborn to tap into for the much needed and for the missing inspirations that are not seen in the current leadership in Nigeria in 2013, but can be found in the life, legacies and the times of this great mind of African literature that is not gone and had now closed an historical era.

"NIGERIA:IT IS A MIRACLE IN THE NATION OF RELIGIOUS IGNORANCE, BIGOTRY AND FANATISM"

The term "miracle" which is attributed universally to God's intervention in the human affairs and which God alone is able to do has many relative and different meanings around the world today. What is considered in one part of the world to be a miracle or a God's divine intervention may be simply treated in another part of the human world as a normal natural event of this life that is humanly possible and has no single element of the divine involvement in it. Miracles to a typical Nigerian are never miracles at all to a typical American or a westerner.

To secure a simple job in Nigeria after you have graduated with a university degree in a country that has an unemployment rate of about 40% to 50% and with millions of unemployed and unemployable graduates roaming the streets of Nigeria for years and without securing any means of livelihood is a miracle in Nigeria. To get an ordinary visiting visa that does not give that visa holder any legal right to live and to work in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom or in the other developed or advanced nations today in 2013 in Nigeria is a miracle and a divine intervention to an ordinary Nigerian.

To buy a used and a high mileage old model automobile that is equipped with those outdated technologies in it in Nigeria today is a miracle in a country where 80% live on $1-$2 a day budget and millions earn poverty wages in the private and public sectors of the Nigeria's economy. To own your own home in Nigeria is a miracle in a nation where home ownership is not available to tens of millions of the ordinary Nigerians today.

Nigerians in their religious fanatism find it very difficult and totally unrealistic to accept that bacterias, viruses, fungi, protozoans, genetics heredity, individual style of living, lack of access to nutritional foods, health care and modern sanitation are responsible for most of the human sicknesses and diseases today, but they will blame demons, witches and wizards for them.

A married Nigerian woman that did not have an access to the 21st century health care in Nigeria was declared barren for 18 years by Churches and doctors. When this woman had a very rare lifetime opportunity to travel to the United States, the doctors in America put here on the fertility drug treatment program. Today, she is a proud mother of three beautiful children and she personally considered her experience in America simply as an act of modern advanced medicine.

The human universe will never have one standard or one globally accepted definition of what miracle is or is not. What is accepted as a miracle in one part of the world will be treated in another part of the world as a regular human event. So whatever is humanly imposible to an individual in one part of the world will be considered a miracle when it becomes a reality and the same thing is now humanly possible for another human being in another part of this world, this will not be considered or treated as a miracle.

"NIGERIA IS THE ONLY OIL-RICH NATION THAT BORROWS MONEY TO LIVE TODAY"

"Nigeria is the only "major oil-rich nation" in the world in 2013 that keeps borrowing money day in and day out from the World Bank, the IMF and the European financial institutions to survive as a nation despite her GDP of about $273 billion a year, her annual economic growth rate of 7% and her daily production of about 2.5 million barrels of oil at $100 a barrel in the international market that generates about $250 million a day or $7.5 billion a month or $90 billion a year.

Why and why are we still borrowing so much as a developing nation to live in the midst of our oil wealth and we are also very busy digging this nation and her future into huge debt that may eventually bankrupt the entire system one day? The answers are not too far-fetched for any sound-minded and thinking Nigerian to figure out. The two reasons are:(i) The unabated national culture of treasury looting by our political leaders, the top civil servants and their cronies . (ii) The massive mismanagement of our state revenues by our elected, appointed and government officials for decades.

"NOBODY IN NIGERIA IS TRULY SAFE IN ALL REALITY INCLUDING THEIR LEADERS IN 2013"

If the Chief Law Officer of Nigeria by the name of Bola Ige can be killed just like that without any of his alleged murderers ever arrested or brought to book to date. If the Chief of Police of one of the states in Nigeria, precisely the Kwara State can be cheaply taken out of this life without any reliable clues about his true killers. If a whole Divisional Police Officer who is the Chief of Police of an entire local government area in Kano State of Nigeria can be easily cut off from this life in that simple manner without arresting her real killers. 

The revered Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero almost lost his life recently to some unknown killers despite his armed security or body guards that protected him. If the federal headquarters of the entire Nigerian Police Force, the United Nations offices and the This Day Newspaper Plaza can be easily bombed all in Abuja which is the seat of the federal government of Nigeria and a major Nigeria's military base can also be easily bombed in Kaduna. Then the question that every Nigerian should ask themselves is thiis:who is truly safe in Nigeria today in all reality and truth in 2013?

"BOKO HARAM IN NORTHERN NIGERIA:ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS CLEANSING OR GENOCIDE"

WHAT THE BOKO HARAM IS DOING IN THE NORTHERN NIGERIA TODAY IS SIMPLY ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS CLEANSING OR GENOCIDE:The primary goals and the fundamental objectives of this Islamic terrorist group in the Northern Nigeria is in twofold in all reality:(i) They want a Sharia or a full fledged Islamic Northern Nigeria that will be governed by the traditional teachings of the Koran instead of the western type of democracy that is presently in the Northern Nigeria since 1999 which is based on secularism (a separation between state and religion) as it is depicted in the Nigeria's constitution of 1999.

(ii) They are using terrorism and genocide (as their political vehicle) that are based on ethnic and religious cleansing of the Northern Nigerian Christians and their Churches, the Southern Nigerian Christians that are living and working in the Northern Nigeria, the Northern Nigerian ethnic minorities that are mainly Christians or the traditionalists and the capturing mostly of the western foreign workers in the Northern Nigeria as their political hostages or even killed them in most cases to score political points.

An objective analysis of the many comments from the leadership of the Boko Haram that are based on their secretly granted newspaper interviews, released Youtube video clips and the patterns that this terrorist group had used and are using in their various targeted bombings across the length and the breath of the Northern Nigeria speak volumes about the political and the religious expectations of this dreaded terrorist organization in Nigeria today that its members are unknown, ghosts, faceless and invisible persons. Will the presently weak, mediocre and the highly corrupt government of Jonathan Goodluck be able to safe this nation from the menace of Boko Haram? Will Boko Haram win this war of ethnic and religious cleansing or genocide in the Northern Nigeria one day in the nearest future? Only time can tell.

"THE 4 HARD LESSONS FOR ALL NIGERIANS UNDER JONATHAN GOODLUCK'S PRESIDENCY"

(i) Elections of all our public officials at all levels of government, whether at the local, state or federal branches of our government all have serious domestic and international implications or consequences for Nigeria as a nation in particular and for all Nigerian citizens in general that may be good or bad outcomes. 

(ii) A visionless, a corrupt and a mediocre leader in power like President Jonathan Goodluck and many members of his cabinet, several state governors, senators, house members, state commissioners, state assembly members, local government chairmen and their councillors will always move this country that is known as Nigeria in a very wrong direction and from bad to worse. (iii) A leadership that is born by a highly corrupt political and electoral systems cannot truly and sincerely fight the same highly corrupt system that is in place that gave birth or produced that type of leadership in all reality. A personified corruption cannot fight its corrupt parents sincerely or effectively.

(iv) The leadership that is the truly going to be the expected messiah that will move Nigerian nation forward and better in our lifetime as Nigerians as well as in all reality must be based on meritocracy and the election of our best brains and minds with realistic visions, policies and plans in place that will address all our major challenges as a nation. Nigerians should never elect their leaders again based on politics of religious considerations, ethnicity, geographical entity, zoning system, nepotism and Godfatherism.

"THE TRUE PICTURE OF THE NIGERIAN CHURCHES IN THE DIASPORA"

Nigerians are globe trotters since the late 1800s. Nigerians can be found in almost all the 6 continents and close to the over 200 nations in the world today. Nigerians travel to the other nations of the human universe for all reasons, such as, (i) Asylum seeking during the former days of the military dictatorships of Buhari, Babangida, and Abacha in Nigeria. (ii) Business opportunities in the other nations, the professional advancement of their academic/personal careers, on-the-job trainings from their employers in Nigeria and for more advanced education,. (iii) Medical check-ups and treatments. (iv) International professional conferences, meetings and Church preaching engagements abroad by Nigerian pastors. (v) Economic refugees, employments, permanent immigration visa applicants, prostitution and drug trafficking. (vi) Vacations and recreational purposes. Nigeria is also a highly religious nation with every Nigerian either practicing Christianity, the religion of Islam or the traditional religions.

The last 10-15 years have also seen the rapid influx of the major Nigerian Church denominations to the diaspora communities of Nigerians, such as, The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCC), The Deeper Life Church Ministry, The Living Faith Church, The Redeemed Evangelical Church, The Christ Embassy Church, The Kingsway International Christian Center and The Word of Life Bible Church into the developed nations, such as, America, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, France and Germany.

The following distinguishing trademarks are visible in all these Nigerian Churches abroad or in the diaspora:(i) They are primarily populated mainly by the same Nigerians in those countries where these Nigerian Churches are found and with insignificant or limited membership from the locals. (ii) They are the direct extensions of their parent Churches in Nigeria. (iii) They are never autonomous in any of their local operations in those foreign countries, but they always take their final orders from their headquarters in Nigeria. (iv) They always send a major part of their collected tithes and offerings back to their parent Churches in Nigeria. (v) Most of their pastors and bishops are always selected from their parent Churches in Nigeria before sending them abroad. These pastors can easily be recalled back to Nigeria by their parent Churches and leaders. (vi) The Churches are run exactly like a multinational corporations for profit making and the profits that are made in the diaspora are sent back to their corporate headquarters in Nigeria. (vii) These Churches in diaspora are always patronized by the same popular Nigeria pastors in Nigeria during any of their very important yearly programs. (viii) These Churches in the diaspora have failed to directly evangelize the local populations significantly into their midst, but are generally patronized by the Nigerians in diaspora that were members of these Churches when they once lived in Nigeria.

In conclusion:Are these Nigerian Churches in diaspora set up primarily to truly evangelize the local populations in those nations where they can be found today all over the world or they are simply another avenues for the money making for their general overseers and  Church headquarters in Nigeria? Is this present pattern of Church growth that are used by these parent Churches in Nigeria biblical by falling completely in line with what we can see clearly in the entire account of the early Church as it is depicted in the New Testament Scriptures? Is this truly global evangelism in all reality, truth and honesty or the avenues to make those hard-currencies in the name of Christianity?

" AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF THE NIGERIAN NATION TODAY IN 2013"

We are a nation of religious bigots and fanatics. We have the largest numbers of Churches and Mosques per square kilometer in the world and we are still far behind the rest of the world in 2013 in terms of international human development indicators, such as life expectancy, infant mortality rate, standards of living, availability of social services, modern infrastructures, security of life and properties, educational and employment opportunities for our youths (who are our only hope and future as a nation) despite our naturally endowed oil-wealth that has generated over $600 billion for the federal government of Nigeria as our state revenue in the last 40 years . 

Our problems today in Nigeria are bigger than the terrorist group that is known as the Boko Haram and its menace in the Northern Nigeria. We are truly a failing nation in the making, our government is bulit on electoral frauds and pseudo-democracy, our leaders are deeply soiled with official corruption, our state policy makers are mostly political opportunists, shady men and women as well as mediocres who are busy mismanaging and wasting our state funds. We are surrounded by lawlessness and brutality of the highest orders. Our oil revenue to date has only benefited our highly corrupt leaders and our top government officials to date in Nigeria. Nigerian nation has left behind about 80% of the ordinary Nigerians in the state of helplessness, hopelessness and abject poverty. 

There is nothing physical visible on the ground today in the entire Nigerian nation to truly justify our status as an "oil-rich country" except a handful of the serving and retired military generals, senior civil servants, politicians, public elected officials, political appointees and their cronies who are now billionaires and millionaires who made their fortunes from the government patronage, the highly inflated and uncompleted government awarded contracts, the shady distribution of the nation's oil blocks, the monopoly of the import licenses for the importation of goods and for the provision of the basic services for Nigerians as well as our treasury looters. Our nation does not work fairly for all Nigerians from every ethnic, religious, social and cultural background in 2013.

"AMERICA SETS UP A DRONE STATION IN NIGER (WEST AFRICA)" - NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — Opening a new front in the drone wars against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, President Obama announced on Friday that about 100 American troops had been sent toNiger in West Africa to help set up a new base from which unarmed Predator aircraft would conduct surveillance in the region.

The new drone base, located for now in the capital, Niamey, is an indication of the priority Africa has become in American antiterrorism efforts. The United States military has a limited presence in Africa, with only one permanent base, in Djibouti, more than 3,000 miles from Mali, where insurgents had taken over half the country until repelled by a French-led force.

In a letter to Congress, Mr. Obama said about 40 United States military service members arrived in Niger on Wednesday, bringing the total number of those deployed in the country to about 100 people. A military official said the troops were largely Air Force logistics specialists, intelligence analysts and security officers.

Mr. Obama said the troops, who are armed for self-protection, would support the French-led operation that last month drove the Qaeda and affiliated fighters out of a desert refuge the size of Texas in neighboring Mali.

Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, signed a status-of-forces agreement last month with the United States that has cleared the way for greater American military involvement in the country and has provided legal protection to American troops there.

In an interview last month in Niamey, President Mahamadou Issoufou voiced concern about the spillover of violence and refugees from Mali, as well as growing threats from Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group to the south, in neighboring Nigeria.

French and African troops have retaken Mali’s northern cities, including Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal, but about 2,000 militants have melted back into desert and mountain hideaways and have begun a small campaign of harassment and terror, dispatching suicide bombers, attacking guard posts, infiltrating liberated cities or ordering attacks by militants hidden among civilians.

“Africa Command has positioned unarmed remotely piloted aircraft in Niger to support a range of regional security missions and engagements with partner nations,” Benjamin Benson, a command spokesman in Stuttgart, Germany, said in an e-mail message on Friday.

Mr. Benson did not say how many aircraft or troops would ultimately be deployed, but other American officials have said the base could eventually have as many as 300 United States military service members and contractors.

For now, American officials said, Predator drones will be unarmed and will fly only on surveillance missions, although they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens.

American officials would like to move the aircraft eventually to Agadez, a city in northern Niger that is closer to parts of northern Mali where cells of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other militant groups are operating. Gen. Carter F. Ham, the leader of the Pentagon’s Africa Command, visited the base last month as part of discussions with Niger’s leaders on closer counterterrorism cooperation.

The new drone base will join a constellation of small airstrips in recent years on the continent, including one in Ethiopia, for surveillance missions flown by drones or turboprop planes designed to look like civilian aircraft.

A handful of unarmed Predator drones will fill a desperate need for more detailed information on regional threats, including the militants in Mali and the unabated flow of fighters and weapons from Libya. General Ham and intelligence analysts have complained that such information has been sorely lacking.

As the United States increased its presence in Niger, Russia sent a planeload of food, blankets and other aid to Mali on Friday, a day after Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov warned of the spread of terrorism in North Africa, which the Russian government has linked to Western intervention in Libya.

Mr. Lavrov met on Thursday with the United Nations special envoy for the region, Romano Prodi, to discuss the situation in Mali, where Russia has supported the French-led effort to oust Islamist militants. But Russia has also blamed the West for the unrest and singled out the French in particular for arming the rebels who ousted the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

“Particular concern was expressed about the activity of terrorist organizations in the north, a threat to regional peace and security,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement after the meeting. “The parties agreed that the uncontrolled proliferation of arms in the region in the wake of the conflict in Libya sets the stage for an escalation of tension throughout the Sahel.” The Sahel is a vast region stretching more than 3,000 miles across Africa, from the Atlantic in the west through Sudan in the east.

In a television interview this month, Mr. Lavrov said, “France is fighting against those in Mali whom it had once armed in Libya against Qaddafi.”

On Friday, suicide attackers detonated two car bombs near Tessalit, a town in Mali’s far north, according to news reports, while Islamist fighters clashed with Malian soldiers farther south in Gao, where fighting has flared in recent days.

The twin suicide bombings in Tessalit killed three fighters for the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, known as the M.N.L.A., an ethnic Tuareg armed group that has allied with the French forces, a spokesman for the group said, according to Agence France-Presse. The attackers were killed as well. On Thursday, a guard and an attacker were killed in a car bombing in Kidal, south of Tessalit, that appeared to have targeted a civilian fuel depot, France’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Responsibility for that attack was claimed by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, an offshoot of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The group said it would continue to press its fight and also intended to retake Gao, hundreds of miles to the south.

In central Gao late Thursday morning, Malian and French forces killed about 15 militants from “infiltrated terrorist groups” that had seized the town hall and court, according to the French Defense Ministry. The initial firefight involved only Malian soldiers and militant fighters, the ministry’s statement said, but several French armored vehicles and two helicopters were later involved.

Two militants were killed outside a checkpoint north of the city after “sporadically” attacking the Nigerien soldiers standing guard, the Defense Ministry said. As many as six Malian soldiers were reported wounded.

On Friday, sporadic gunfire and at least two rebel rocket attacks were reported in Gao, according to a Malian officer cited by The Associated Press. Most of the militants fled to the east of the city aboard seven vehicles, the officer said.

Russian officials have pointed repeatedly to the unrest in North Africa and the political turmoil in Egypt as evidence that the Western-supported Arab Spring has created a dangerous and chaotic situation and potential breeding grounds for terrorists. Russia has also used the examples of Libya and Egypt to justify its opposition to any Western effort to oust the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

"BOKO HARAM, NIGERIA'S SOVEREIGNTY AND THE AMERICA'S MILITARY DRONES"

The online newspaper, the Sahara Reporters reported that an unconfirmed military source said that the America's military mission in Africa has its drone base in the Chad Republic and that their drones are now flying over the airspace of the Northern Nigeria and are busy looking for the Boko Haram terrorist elements to take down from the space.

The veracity of this very important intelligent and military information may be very difficult to verify, but the truth is that American government today in 2013 in their global war against international terrorism will never fold her hands and be bothered by the so called invasion of the sovereignty of Nigeria if the Nigeria's entire security services cannot effectively curtail the terrorist activities of the Boko Haram that indirectly threatens the America's citizens and their foreign interests all over Nigeria.

"THE NIGERIA THAT I KNEW GROWING UP IN THE 1970s"

I remember vividly growing up in Nigeria in the era of her oil boom when her national economy was truly prospering in the 1970s before Nigeria became a borrower nation, a reliable client and a good customer to the IMF, World Bank, European financial agencies and now the rising China. In the 1970s in Nigeria, there were no prosperity gospel pastors, preachers and prosperity-based Churches anywhere in Nigeria at that time.

The young men and women that graduated from the Nigeria's post-secondary institutions, such as, universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, nursing schools or trade schools all went directly into the workforce either in the public sector or in the private sector of Nigeria where they pursued their different professional careers and life goals unlike today when they are all flocking in droves into the pastoral work or the Church ministry for economic survival and free access to tax-free money from their devotees.

In those days in Nigeria, the post-secondary education was publicly regarded as the surest passport, the most reliable path and the easiest avenue to financial prosperity and financial security as well as to the Nigerian popular dream of a life of comfortable middle-class status, new car ownership every 4 to 5 years, a future home ownership, access to a good health care, periodic vacations even to the western nations, financial security or stability and a future that is very secured with a decent retirement.

Today in Nigeria almost 30 years or more later, we have Churches in every nook and cranny of this nation in the midst of rising youth unemployment, chronic poverty of 80%, massive official corruption, unabated mismanagement of our state resources, a nation of lawlessness, insecurity of life and properties, terrorism, lawlessness, the rule of brutality, violence, religious fanatism and bigotry, sectarian riots, kidnapping for ransoms, ritual killings and murders that all point to a truly failing nation indeed and in the making in 2013.

"NATIONALIZATION IS A BETTER ECONOMIC POLICY FOR THE DEVELOPING NATIONS"

Most of the developing nations today are mostly consuming economies, import-oriented markets, weak national currencies, lower standards of living and poor workers' wages when compared to the developed nations or to the advanced economies of our 21st century human universe. The privatization policy of the World Bank, the IMF and the western financial institutions that were forced on the developing nations through those developmental loans that were given to them by these banks have never helped to advance the national economies of most of these countries and had never helped the majority of the citizens of these countries to move from poverty into financial abundance, prosperity and security. The indigenization policy that were also adopted locally by many of these developing nations ended up by creating the few super-rich citizens and wealthy locally owned businesses that have left hundreds of millions of workers from these countries with poor monthly wages and abject poverty.

Nationalization policy in my own judgement is the best way to go with these developing economies. The major national industries of these developing nations, such as energy, transportation, banking, oil and gas, mining, communications and natural resources should be nationalized instead of privatized or indigenized to primarily benefit the western lenders, multinational corporations and few wealthy local and foreign businessmen at the expense of the poor citizens of these developing nations. Profits from these nationalized national entreprises should be directed for the benefits of the citizens of these developed nations by spending them on job creation, social services, national infrastructural developments, public housing programs, universal health care, scientific research and development, education, agriculture that will lead to national food security, better wages for workers and decent retirement programs for retirees.

‎"THE NIGERIANS WHO OWN THOSE OIL BLOCKS"

Why did it take a major public outcry and an international outburst from the Nigerians across the whole world before the authentic list of the truly owners of those oil blocks could be made known as a public record for all Nigerians to see despite the fact that Nigeria practices a Freedom of Information Act as the law of her land? Is the ownership of an oil block in Nigeria a national security risk to the Nigerian nation that made it almost impossible for any Nigerian including a serving federal senator not to know the true identities of those Nigerians who are the real oil block owners, but to publicly misinformed all Nigerians about the true picture of our nation's oil block ownership? 

Is it morally right to give 11% of our national wealth intentionally and to supernaturally enrich a handful of those selected Nigerians in the name of indigenization policy in a nation with 80% of her citizens living in abject poverty of $1-$2 a day budget and her youths face over 50% unemployment rate? How does an ordinary Nigerian benefit from the sharing of their commonwealth to some anointed Nigerians in a country that millions of her hardworking workers earn poverty wages, her social services are all inadequate, her educational structure are still in the 20th century era and her national infrastructures are all old, outdated and over-stressed?

Is this oil in Nigeria truly a blessing to this nation or a curse? There is nothing today on the ground in the whole nation or in the life of an ordinary Nigerian citizen to truly justify the "oil-rich status" of the Nigerian nation except a handful of wealthy Nigerians who are the only direct beneficiaries from the Nigeria's oil wealth today. Is nationalization of our oil as a nation not a better alternative in all truth, honesty and reality than the so called indigenization policy that was designed from its onset to enrich just a handful of those lucky Nigerians and then leave the tens of millions of the other Nigerians not selected behind in the name of sharing of the Nigeria's national cake?

IS PRIVATIZATION THE TRUE ECONOMIC ANSWER FOR THE DEVELOPING NATIONS TODAY?

Privatization is the principal economic policy that the World Bank, the IMF and other western financial agencies (London and Paris clubs) have forced on the throats of the many developing nations that took their so called developmental loans from these banks in the last 30-40 years. These global financial institutions have successfully enforced this economic doctrine of privatization to be the true practical answers for any realistic national economic developments in those developing nations.  Privatization is an economic way to transfer any nation's common national resources or wealth into the hands of the few individuals and foreign corporations. 

Privatization transfers the economic control from the hands of the governments of the developing nations into the private hands of the few but very rich individuals and the big corporations. Privatization demanded that all government owned or controlled state corporations should be privatized to make them more effective and profit-oriented by reducing wastes and internal bureaucracies. Privatization policies maintained that all government subsidies on all the social service programs for their citizens should be removed, the nations' civil service should be downsized, the national currencies of those nations should devalued, most of the governments' revenues in those nations should be used to service those high-interest loans and the importation of certain important commodities should be banned or increased taxes on them.

Privatization in my own judgement is a tricky and a deceptive way of  transferring wealth or economic opportunities from the hands of the working class people to the corporations and the few rich individuals. Privatization creates massive wealth gap, kills trade unions, promotes national unemployment, creates inflation, supports monopoly instead of consumers' access to many choices, encourages brain drain, advances income inequality and massive poverty in any developing nation that have taken these loans from those banks and then implemented their economic policies . It is the biggest anti-poor people economic agenda of the World Bank and the IMF to the so called developing nations for the so called economic developments that have only enriched the few and the corporations in all reality, but had also left many behind today in social crises, abject poverty and hopelessness in all reality.

"POPE FRANCIS IS NOW IN CHARGE OF THE 1.2 BILLION ROMAN CATHOLICS"

The election of the son of the Italian immigrants, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina, the Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergogblio as the new Pope of the Roman Catholic Church is a major global development today in our 21st century human universe because of the power, the position and the global importance of the 1.2 billion members of the Roman Church worldwide or 17% of the world's current human population of 7 billion people. This is also the first time in the last 1,200 years that a non-European who is from a developing nation was elected as the Pope of the Catholic Church. The new Pope after his election today immediately adopted the named "Francis" as his papal name in honor of the Francis of Assisi.

Who is Pope Francis? What does he stand for? What are his core beliefs? Is this new Pope an agent of change that will truly reform the Roman Catholic Church? How will he handle the massive sex scandals that have befallen the Roman Catholic Church worldwide? What will this new Pope do with the Roman Catholic Church that is presently faced with the major challenge on the issue of the same-sex marriage? Will Pope Francis continue to be an anti-establishment figure who will speak hard truths to powers and continue to fight against the sharp-elbow global capitalism that lacked human face, social and economic justice that has put hundreds of millions of hardworking people in abject poverty worldwide?

Before his elevation today as the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the secular head of the Vatican City. This former high school chemistry teacher in Argentina with a master of science degree in chemistry speaks Spanish, Italian and German fluently. He lived in an apartment in Argentina and never in a mansion. This man cooked his own meals from his own kitchen without hiring cooks. This man rode public transportation (the bus) to work from his apartment in Argentina. This man spoke loudly against abortion and publicly supported the use of limited contraceptions to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. This man opposed the same-sex marriage and called it "demonic in origin". This man spoke against chronic poverty and economic structures that promoted financial inequalities and he called them the violations of human rights in the world today.

In conclusion, the next few days, weeks and months ahead of us will all continue to reveal to us gradually the true nature of the new Pope to the Roman Catholic Church in particular and the the rest of the members of the human family in general. Will Pope Francis continue on his already known and established positions on the world's most important issues of today or he will completely deviate from his old path that he followed and known for  before his ascension today into the headship of the Roman Catholic Church?  Only time and time alone can tell.

"THE SECULAR PONZI SCHEME AND THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL ARE BOTH IDENTICAL TWINS"

These are the five fundamental similarities between the secular ponzi scheme and the so called prosperity gospel:(i) Both are dubious schemes that promise their inventors, givers, tithers and offering donors the hefty and unrealistic financial returns for their givings or investments. (ii) Both schemes are based on deception, lying, exaggerations, manipulation of the truths and the minds of their givers and investors with false hope and unrealistic promises of huge financial returns. (iii) The owners of the ponzi schemes and the prosperity gospel preachers are the only direct beneficiaries from this type of dirty deals at the end of the day.

(iv) The owners of the ponzi schemes and the prosperity gospel preachers are the only ones that live those luxurious lifestyles in all reality that they promise their inventors, tithers and givers for their financial contributions and investments. (v) These types of evil schemes directly destroy the life and the finances of their donors, tithers, givers and inventors by making them worse than their previous situations in their financial or material life.

The only key differences between the secular ponzi scheme and the prosperity gospel is simply the fact that the ponzi scheme is secular in nature and origin, while the prosperity gospel appears to be religious and godly in nature. Ponzi scheme also does not use the name of God, the cover and the scriptures of the Bible, the name of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the global evangelism and the twisting of those biblical truths to diabolically and deceptively exploit others unlike the prosperity gospel.

WILL THOSE MUCH NEEDED FOREIGN INVESTORS EVER COME TO NIGERIA OF 2013?

 All nations of the world, both the developed and the developing are all eagerly looking for foreign investors or investments as a major boost that will add beautiful colors to their national economies. The foreign investments create jobs and financial opportunities for the citizens in countries where they go to. The foreign investments bring new tax revenues to the governments of the nations where they move to, contribute to their national GDPs and international image.

Why are these foreign investments not coming to Nigeria? These foreign investments always operate in nations that have the supremacy of the rule of law effectively in place. A nation where those investments are truly safe and are protected by the laws in those countries. A nation where the public elected officials and the top civil servants do not demand favors, bribes or kickbacks from the would-be investors before they are allowed or licensed to operate or run their businesses in those countries. A nation where the life, properties and the personal security of the citizens and the foreign residents are truly guaranteed. A nation where foreign workers are never kidnapped for ransoms by the Niger Delta militant groups or kidnapped and killed by the terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and Ansaru to score political and religious points.

WHO IS KEEPING THE OFFICIAL RECORD THAT SHOWS THE TRUE OWNERSHIP OF THE NIGERIA'S OIL BLOCKS?

The national confusion that is recently generated over the true ownership of the  Nigeria's oil blocks in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is a national shame and a disgrace to Nigeria with Senator Ita Enang publicly claiming that about 83% of the oil blocks are owned by the Northerns and the Nigeria's human rights lawyer Femi Falana claiming in an article that 80% of those oil blocks are owned by foreign oil companies and foreigners.

Who do we believe as Nigerian citizens? Which information is accurate, reliable, dependable and trustworthy to believe? Why is the Ministry of Petroleum and the minister in charge of that federal government agency completely silent over this highly explosive national issue that has already heated up over national discourse as a nation?  Why are Nigerians kept in the dark over the ownership of their common national wealth?

Is this development not a major sign of mediocrity of the highest order and inefficiency in the leadership of this oil ministry? Why should a very important information about the allocation of the Nigeria's oil wells be so difficult to come by when we practice the Freedom of Information law in Nigeria? Why is our public elected officials and political appointees are always speaking about our national issues from both sides of their mouths? - Sunday Iwalaiye.

"FOREIGN OIL COMPANIES OWN 80% OF NIGERIA'S OIL BLOCKS NOT NORTHERNERS" - FEMI FALANA

“During the debate on the Petroleum Industry Bill last week on the floor of the Senate at Abuja  the names of a few Nigerians to whom the Federal Government had allocated oil blocks were revealed. It was specifically  alleged that 83 per cent  of all oil blocks in the country are owned by northerners. Not unexpectedly, those who are won’t to complain of neglect and maginalisation of their geo-political zones have been demanding for equitable distribution of oil blocks  among the comprador bourgeoisie of the various ethnic groups. Embarrassed by the disclosure and the diversionary furore it is generating the Arewa Consultative Forum has called for a public inquiry into the allegation that northerners are the largest beneficiaries of the oil block largesse  in the country.

While I have never supported the policy of allocating the oil blocks owned exclusively  by  the Federal Government  to selected individuals and foreign oil companies it is pertinent to point out that the list published by the media last week is totally outdated and grossly misleading. The list contained only the names of those who were allocated oil blocks under the defunct military junta.  In other words, the list did not contain the names of the other traders who have been allocated oil blocks by the ruling party since 1999. Equally missing from the list are the names of multinational  companies otherwise called “Oil majors” which control and manage the lion share of the oil and gas industry. For instance, I have a suit pending at the Federal High Court against the Ministry of Petroleum Resources  over the renewal of the expired  40-year old licences of  three oil blocks (which produce 580,000 barrels of crude oil per day) for Mobil Producing last year for the sum of $600 million notwithstanding that a Chinese oil company had offered to pay $5.8 billion for the same oil blocks !

Apart from Mobil there are about 17 other foreign oil companies which are the major key players in the oil industry  while Nigerians are forced to operate in the marginal fields .The said foreign companies or Oil Majors own 80 % of the oil blocks and as such they  are completely in charge of the oil and gas industry. They produce the oil and gas, and  declare the figures they like. They smile to the banks daily while Nigerians fight over the crumbs from the Master’s Table. In spite of the indictment by the National Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) some of the companies have continued to withhold billions of dollars from the Federation Account. The joint venture agreements between some oil producing countries and oil companies are in the ratio of  80/20 percent in favour of the owners of the oil. But in Nigeria it is 60/40 percent in favour of the Federal Government of whatever is declared by the oil companies. It is common knowledge that some of the foreign oil companies operating in Nigeria have, with the connivance of the Federal Government, been leasing oil blocks allocated to them to other persons or companies.

Incidentally, the disclosure in the Senate  last week coincided with the death of President Hugo Rafael Chavez of Venezuela who nationalised the oil industry which enabled his government to generate enough revenue to fund a comprehensive welfare programme for the  hitherto improverished people of the Latin American country. But the enomous commonwealth of the Nigerian people have been cornered by a few rent collectors and other members of the parasitic ruling class. A few of them who raked billions of dollars from the illegal  sale of the oil blocks have openly confessed that they do not know what to do with the huge fund! Because such wealth has been privatised  Nigeria cannot, like Venezuela, meet the eight Millenium Development Goals by 2015.

In view of the confusion caused by the partial information released by the Senate last week the Ministry of Petroleum Resources should, without any further delay, publish an up-to-date list of all local individuals and foreigners who have been allocated oil blocks by the Federal Government.  After the publication the Goodluck Jonathan Administration  should proceed to cancel all oil blocks  allocated to a few interest groups  and vest them in  the Federal Government in line with section 44 of the Constitution. In other words the oil and gas should be nationalised in the interest of the Nigerian people. Instead of empowering either the President of the Republic or the Minister of Petroleum Resources to dole out oil blocks to serving ministers, party members, personal friends and business partners the National Assembly should ensure that all blocks are owned by the Federal Government in trust for the Nigerian people. This demand accords with section 16(1)(c ) of the Constitution which states that the  State shall “manage and operate the major sectors of the economy”.

CAN NIGERIA TRULY BE GREAT LIKE AMERICA IN OUR LIFETIME?

 A lot of Nigerians that live in a non-realistic world are full of optimism and positive energy by believing that Nigeria will soon be great in our lifetime. They always say that Nigeria is only 52 years old and it took America over 236 years to reach her present height. Did America go through the same massive unabated official corruption from her public elected officials, the massive mismanagement of her state resources by her leaders, lawlessness and the rule of brutality for the first 52 years of the formation of America?

Those Nigerians also like to point to the national unity and the patriotism of all Americans despite their diversity in terms of their race, ethnicity, culture, nationality and religion. They believe that Nigeria will soon attain the same cohesion as a nation. Have these Nigerians forgotten that the original 13 colonies that formed America held a sovereign national conference and addressed all their concerns, such as resource control, taxation, slavery, citizenship, personal liberty, defense, immigration, national currency, separation of powers, national budget, constitution amendment, the checks and the balances amongst the 3 branches of their national government in the 3 national legal documents that are known as the Declaration of Independence, the Bills of Rights and in the United States Constitution that all remain the only official Bible that governs the American nation and her people to date?

IS THE BANKING SECTOR IN NIGERIA BIGGER THAN HER OIL INDUSTRY?

The recent revelation on the floor of the Nigeria's House of Senate by Senator Ita Enang that 83% of the oil wells that are owned today by Nigerians belong to a handful of some anointed Nigerians from the North. This highly divisive and very explosive development has once against brought back the issue of the agitation for the resource control by the federating units of the Nigerian nation back to the nation's national discourse. Some Nigerians have also openly and publicly defended this imbalance and the shady ways in which these oil wells were allocated to some few Northerners by claiming that the Southerners also dominate the Nigeria's banking sector also. This biggest questions that are left unanswered are simply these:how big is the Nigeria's banking sector when it is compared with the oil industry? Do those Southerners who are the owners of these banks make more money from these banks than the Northerners who are the owners of those oil wells? Did the Federal Government of Nigeria act more transparent, liberal and then followed the due process in awarding those banking licences to the interested Nigerians than the way they awarded these oil wells as gifts and in a shady manner to these selected Nigerians?

According to a recently available financial data on the size of the Nigeria's 23 commercial banks. The total value of all the assets of the these 23 banks in Nigeria stood at about $10.5 billion in December 2011 and a total of $8.5 billion out of these assets are customers' personal deposits alone leaving the banks with only $2 billion worth of fixed assets. What about our oil sector? Nigeria produces and exports an average of 2 million barrels of crude oil a day, at about $100 a barrel for 365 days a year. This will give us $200 million a day or $6 billion a month or $72 billion a year. The annual revenue of the Nigeria's oil sector alone is about 8 times bigger than her entire banking sector when both are compared together.

"THE LOOTING OF NIGERIA:THE BIG OIL'S $140 BILLION A YEAR AND COUNTING" - T.C. MOUNTAIN

As western oil companies loot some $140 billion a year of Nigeria’s black gold, two thirds of the country’s 100 million people live on less than $2 a day. Nigeria’s “official” oil production figures show about 3 million barrels a day being pumped from their oil fields into the holds of western tankers, though for decades now informed observers have estimated up to one third of all Nigerian oil is actually “stolen”, secretly loaded onto oil tankers after bribes are paid to corrupt government officials.

If 4 million barrels of oil are being shipped out of Nigeria daily at $100 a barrel, times 30 days a month, times 12 months, you arrive at almost $150 billion a year in potential oil revenues for Nigeria. The problem is not just theft but the fact that the western oil companies are literally looting Nigeria’s oil, paying as little as a 9% royalty. Do the math, 9% of $150 billion minus the one third oil that is stolen and the Nigerian government only receives about $10 billion a year of this amount.

Simply put, at $100 a barrel, the western oil companies get $91 and Nigeria only gets $9. Or more shockingly, Big Oil makes $140 billion a year vs. Nigeria’s $10 billion. The Big Oil robber barons famously promote themselves as “investors” in Nigeria, though when looking at the loot they are making from what should be Africa’s richest country it is doubtful that they have invested $140 billion in Nigeria in total over the last decades (Big Oil is notorious for sticking the host countries with a major share of infrastructure expenses, deducted from their royalty checks).

In other words, Big Oil has made its investment back almost exponentially. And all the while Nigerians are hungry, sick, and increasingly fed up. What have the people of Nigeria gotten from all this wealth being looted from their country? Malnutrition and disease are rampant across the country. Many if not most of Nigeria’s children have never seen the inside of a school room. Many if not most of Nigeria’s people simply cannot afford even primary medical care. Malaria, water borne diseases, TB, HIV/AIDS, the list of sicknesses killing Nigerians in the thousands every day is criminal.

Nigeria’s environment has been a victim with a large swath of the coast lying under a toxic blanket of oil, mainly as a result of the criminal failure of Big Oil to do even basic maintenance on its pipelines. Yet Nigeria has the largest, best equipped army in west Africa, the better to enforce Pax Americana. As I write, Nigerian troops are pouring into Guinea Bissau, there to restore “democracy”—something they have done many times in the past.

Nigeria should be wealthy, its people the envy of Africa, if not the entire developing world. Instead its cities are filled with homeless children begging for their daily bread. Nigeria imports almost all of its fuel needs, selling its oil for $9 a barrel and buying back the gasoline, diesel and kerosene made from its oil for hundreds a barrel. Nigeria is in constant need of IMF bailouts and pays the price for such predatory loans. Earlier this year after Queen of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, paid a visit, Nigerian President “Badluck” Jonathan was forced to kneel down and kiss her feet, promising to more than double the price desperate Nigerians are forced to pay for their fuel.

The kleptocrats that rule Nigeria under the banner of “democracy”, for they stole the elections fair and square, cannot even provide electricity to their people, with most Nigerians receiving only a few hours a day of electric supply, if any at all. Nigeria’s other infrastructure, what little there is, decays by the day with even its once functional railroads now barely operational. Yet this is all applauded by the west, with Nigeria’s President a permanent member of the so called G-20 council of world leaders.

One of the leading candidates for the title of “Queen of African Kleptocracy”, the Nigerian Finance Minister, complained bitterly after she was rejected by Pax Americana to head the USA majority owned World Bank. Talk about the fox wanting to rule the chicken coop. All this looting and theft has left a once proud and self-sufficient people on the brink of a major explosion with government repression barely containing a cauldron of ethnic/religious violence that continues to erupt in murder and mayhem. Muslims killing Christians, Christians killing Muslims, and the army killing ethnic rebels taking up arms over the looting and destruction of their homelands by the western oil companies.

These days the western media have begun carrying alarming reports of a dramatic decline in Nigerian oil production, down according to some reports by as much as 25% in the last few months. As bad as matters are already for Nigeria’s suffering millions, what is to come may be far worse, for without even the small morsels that their western masters allow to fall from their oil burdened tables the Nigerian economy is headed for a collapse, being almost completely dependent on their oil exports. What is going to happen if Nigeria’s oil fields begin to run dry? Only time will tell, though thanks to the looting of Nigeria one might be forgiven for holding little hope for what should be one of the jewels of Africa - By Thomas C. Mountain is an independent western journalist based in the Horn of Africa, and has been living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He was a member of the 1st US Peace Delegation to Libya in 1987.