The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) on Saturday urged Nigerians to be patient with the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration and give it the needed support to achieve its mandate. The Director of MURIC, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, said in his Easter message to Christians that the essence of Easter revolved around patience, fortitude and tolerance. “We invite Nigerians to compare President Muhammadu Buhari’s character, frugality and pedigree to the greed, recklessness and selfishness of past leaders. “ It is important that we are patient. “Let us all imbibe and exude the lessons of Easter which are patience, fortitude and tolerance,’’ he said. Akintola urged Christians to use the period to reflect on the current situation in the country. “Nigeria is blessed with abundant human and material resources; the `numero uno’ producer of crude oil in Africa that cannot supply enough for its citizens.` “Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with about 180 million people; with vast arable land, yet it cannot feed its population. “Nigeria, the ‘giant’ of Africa and a country which has helped other nations in Africa to quell disturbances, is today ravaged by a five year insurgency which has claimed thousands of lives,’’ he said. Akintola urged religious leaders to preach love and avoid flamboyant lifestyle in order to teach followers simplicity and the need to avoid greed. “These are issues we must reflect on; we must seek to build this country, we must not destroy it. “Religious leaders must preach love; we must be models in tolerance and forgiveness. “We must also shun hate speeches and all acts capable of inciting our followers. “We must avoid extravagant and flamboyant life in order to teach our followers simplicity and the need to avoid greed and avarice; these are the things we must do to get out of the doldrums.’’ The cleric said that there was need to have hope in spite of all the travails on the country. He said that all hope was not lost as stolen funds were being recovered and transparency, probity and accountability were on the front burner once again. “The price of oil has started rising and governments at both federal and state levels are tightening their belts; this gives cause to believe that Nigeria will rise again. “Therefore, we all must rise to our responsibilities and stir positive changes around us,’’ the MURIC director said.
Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com /2016/03/patient-president-buhari-led-administration-muric-begs-nigerians/
Saturday 26 March 2016
Buhari’s all stick and no carrots government Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com.com /2016/03/buharis-stick-no-carrots-government/
One of the “bad” habits of professional economists is the tendency to quantify virtually everything. They develop metrics for assessing real human experiences in a manner that reveals certain truths which might be hidden from others. Like most Nigerians, it was clear to me, as a strong supporter of Buhari, long before the 2015 presidential elections that we might be electing a military-style disciplinarian. After all, the best guess regarding what a person would do in a given situation is provided by his performance when placed in a similar situation in the past. In January 1984, Buhari became the Head of State after a coup planned and successfully executed by others. Thereafter, he and the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarter, late Major-General Tunde Idiagbon, unleashed the most draconian regime Nigeria had ever experienced until Abacha’s more murderous one. Incidentally, of all the military leaders in their set, only Buhari could be trusted by Abacha to work with him as Chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF. Those of us who remembered the lop-sidedness of the allocation of funds between North and South will not readily agree that it was a great accomplishment. We have forgiven but not forgotten what happened. We expected Buhari to be a stern disciplinarian as civilian president. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” – as everybody knows. But, we also assumed that we missed the chance to see the benevolent side of the man because his former “All Stick and no Carrots” regime was short-lived. To be quite candid there was no lasting legacy from that regime other than the monthly sanitation exercise. So eager were they to whack everybody on the head they hardly found time to introduce any programme designed to make life worth living for Nigerians. With his second coming as a civilian president, supported by others who we thought understood the meaning of democracy, it was expected that his government, this time, would serve the people a mixture of the discipline needed to set Nigeria right again after sixteen woeful years under Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and mostly Jonathan and compassion. Ten months into his four years and what we are witnessing is a government that is all stick and no carrots. The point was made about quantifying everything. At first, the tendency was unnoticeable. But, gradually, it became so obvious it could no longer be ignored. More than his so-called body language is his choice of words and the frequency. Words like vandals, culprits, looters, saboteurs etc. With every one of those attached to, usually unnamed individuals, the president declares that they will be punished, dealt with etc. Harsh words, and perhaps deserved by some people if they are identified. But, not once in the month of March was it announced that President Buhari sent a condolence message to the leaders of Agatu in one instance or to Governor Ambode of Lagos State after the building collapse which claimed many lives. Granted a presidential condolence message would not revive the dead. But, it would tell the people of Nigeria that they have a leader who cares about their lives – wretched as those lives might be. What is even more disturbing is the fact that having declared the unnamed individuals saboteurs, Nigerians waited for weeks or months for the broad accusation to be substantiated. Yet no proof emerges. The allegation that the 2016 Budget was padded was made by Buhari on February 23, 2016. Till today, not a single person had been presented to the public as one of the “culprits” who he vowed will be punished. How much time is required to spot where the budget was padded and who did them? The emphasis on punishment has become so common that the question can be asked if Buhari thinks that arrest, detention and imprisonment of offenders is the sole business of government. “If you can keep your head while others around you are losing theirs…you will be a man my boy” said Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936. But good old Ruddy could be wrong; you might be keeping your head because you don’t have a good grasp of the situation. In sharp contrast to the fast and easy answers about punishment of miscreants, Buhari had been very silent and almost unconcerned about the economy and how it is affecting the lives of 170 million Nigerians. The only statement credited to him about the economy was totally wrong. He claimed that the Nigerian economy is the fastest growing in Africa and one of the fastest in the world. That shows how totally divorced from reality our leader is. It is understandable. He and his Ministers and assistants have no problem – they have well-paid jobs and there is free food in the Aso restaurant. The same cannot be said about millions of Nigerians – including the employed who are owed salaries by their employers. Public servants in most states are in a fix and riots might soon break out in some states on account of mounting unpaid salaries. Simultaneously, prices of goods and services are going up and his own government has added some surcharges to peoples’ expenses. The Federal government’s budget is in a mess and the outcome is doubtful. Perhaps out of desperation, Professor Wole Soyinka proposed an economic summit or conference (what’s in a name?) to address what concerns most people in this country – their means of livelihood. It was shocking that the government had to be prodded to undertake something which other governments globally take as routine. As if to prove that the economy was not considered important enough, a panel was established. Then, a date set; and no summit was started on due date. That is the peoples’ carrot they are toying with. What is coming through in all these is a government lacking in compassion; it provides neither psychological nor physical sustenance to the people. History might be repeating itself in one aspect. From January 1984 to 1985, Buhari and Idiagbon also ran a self-righteous government without compassion. In the end, even their colleagues in the armed forces had enough; and the rest is history….. COMING SOON – SENATE DOMINATED BY PDP. “Thanks for Fortune and her treacherous wheel. That suffers no estate on earth to feel secure.” Geoffrey Chaucer, 1342-1400. VBQ 65. If the “All Stick and no Carrot” approach to governance continues, Nigerians can expect the Senate to return to the PDP any time soon. APC now has a slim majority of four. Three, names withheld, are poised to move immediately. Another two or three might join them….. 23
Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com /2016/03/buharis-stick-no-carrots-government/
Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com /2016/03/buharis-stick-no-carrots-government/
Friday 25 March 2016
NNPC discharges one cargo of PMS
he Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it has discharged one cargo of 44 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to ensure availability of the product across the country.
sulyben.blogspot.com
This is contained in a statement signed by Mr Garba Deen Mohammed, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, on Friday in Abuja. “Our immediate concern is to make petrol available through the interventions and processes put in place so that the queues will disappear within the next one to two weeks. “As at 4 p.m today, one PMS cargo containing 42 million litres has completely discharged. “Two more PMS cargos with a combined ‘Remaining on Board’ (ROB) of 44 million litres are currently discharging while another PMS cargo containing 44 million litres is berthed and awaiting discharge,” it said. According to the statement, the corporation have enough products lined up to ensure that the supply gap which created the problem is bridged. It added that in order to ensure effective distribution, NNPC would work with Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), oil majors and over 1,000 NNPC staff nationwide to overcome the obstacles in the distribution of the products. It noted that for long term solutions, the NNPC and the Government were working to put in place machineries to ensure that the refineries were fixed and working optimally. It added that the pipelines which had been under attack for some time now were repaired. “The Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangement for crude would commence in the first week of April,” it said. It further stated that the President had given his support to increase the crude supply to NNPC to ensure local sufficiency of products. This, it said, would go a long way to solve the problems in the short and long term. It assured that while the Easter celebration last, the NNPC would continue to work hard to bring the fuel scarcity to a speedy end. “We urge Nigerians to continue to be patient because the difficulties being experienced as a result of the situation will soon be alleviated. “We would like to assure all Nigerians that the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, and everybody else associated with this situation is working tirelessly round the clock to ensure relief is brought to Nigerians.’’
Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com
This is contained in a statement signed by Mr Garba Deen Mohammed, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, on Friday in Abuja. “Our immediate concern is to make petrol available through the interventions and processes put in place so that the queues will disappear within the next one to two weeks. “As at 4 p.m today, one PMS cargo containing 42 million litres has completely discharged. “Two more PMS cargos with a combined ‘Remaining on Board’ (ROB) of 44 million litres are currently discharging while another PMS cargo containing 44 million litres is berthed and awaiting discharge,” it said. According to the statement, the corporation have enough products lined up to ensure that the supply gap which created the problem is bridged. It added that in order to ensure effective distribution, NNPC would work with Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), oil majors and over 1,000 NNPC staff nationwide to overcome the obstacles in the distribution of the products. It noted that for long term solutions, the NNPC and the Government were working to put in place machineries to ensure that the refineries were fixed and working optimally. It added that the pipelines which had been under attack for some time now were repaired. “The Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangement for crude would commence in the first week of April,” it said. It further stated that the President had given his support to increase the crude supply to NNPC to ensure local sufficiency of products. This, it said, would go a long way to solve the problems in the short and long term. It assured that while the Easter celebration last, the NNPC would continue to work hard to bring the fuel scarcity to a speedy end. “We urge Nigerians to continue to be patient because the difficulties being experienced as a result of the situation will soon be alleviated. “We would like to assure all Nigerians that the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, and everybody else associated with this situation is working tirelessly round the clock to ensure relief is brought to Nigerians.’’
Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com
The Change President and his slumberous Police Force Read more at: http://sulyben.blospot.com/2016/03/change-president-slumberous-police-force/
Bail is now free. Isn’t it? One thing the APC does fairly well is appropriating moral high grounds. Intolerable hypocrisy happens in politics. Delusion is worse but excusable. A troublemaker can insist on being renamed ‘Papa peace’. We have humored many of them. The society is better if morons marched around with the self esteem of geniuses.
Every politician thinks himself smarter than the ordinary woman. But deception is unpardonably fraudulent, so campaign promises must be vows. Only fraudsters seek benefits on false or impossible promises. But if hypocrisy is not pretense but merely failure to match sensible words with tangible action, then it could represent ambition. And that is why the APC isn’t a ‘419’party and is perhaps better than the PDP. There is an amorphous, incoherent desire to be different. That in a sense is infinitely better than honest shiftlessness. The sort of unpretentious resignation that the PDP came to be. And left the society mired in hopelessness. So Buhari can continue talking about change. Even if he has come with nothing besides personal integrity. Even if there are no tangible plans of making the APC what they claim it is. If the recourse isn’t to blatant tokenism, he may yet succeed in retarding societal decadence. May time not correct my optimism. Sadly though, I don’t know of any government agency or institution that takes the President seriously. None has pushed the idea of change beyond mantra. Talk is cheap. But it is better than the dumb indolence of the past. I know of a few agencies that have made some noises and punched the air in contrived triumph. Their Change is heard, not seen. There should be a new order, it’s Buhari’s regime! But everywhere you go, it has been ‘business as usual’. The change that has come must be in hiding, somewhere. But it is not anywhere near the police formations. During the Christmas season, I plied Port Harcourt -Owerri road twice. That road was a dramatization of the comedy that policing has become. Acute predatoriness combining well with opportunistic joviality. The sort of capriciousness ‘Area boys’ live on. At a certain section of that road the police constituted themselves into an infernal nuisance. The sort of nuisance that resides on the stretch between Badagry and Seme border in Lagos courtesy of the Customs. Police checkpoints littered the road like polythene bags on Amukoko streets before Fashola tarred them. With less than 50 metres between some check points, the police were conspicuously oblivious of absurdity. Such a determined effort at defying reasonableness, at resisting change, in the open. In being utterly ridiculous , they were daringly defiant. That is what familiarity perhaps breeds. The police are our friend. The Customs’ siege at Seme is inconsistent with commonsense but they can blame it on smugglers. What was the police doing between Elele and Owerri? There is something about the police that makes a mockery of this Change president. Like a pastor whose choristers can’t help but gulp lungfuls of ganja in between songs on the altar. Some other services have conducted some wishy-washy audits. Some Change induced formalisms. But they could pass for accountability , some kind of responsiveness, or an awareness of the times. They could be hollow and shallow but they are symbolic. We now know that our Air force that only recently existed only on the ground was crippled by theft and greed. Government officials and civil servants played manifestly despicable roles before and during the transition. Since we deny it is not systemic rot, we must sacrifice “ a few bad eggs”. In many departments some scapegoating has happened. The former head of the EFCC is wanted by the senate. Another probe is underway at the EFCC and ICPC. Many were forced away from the customs service. The military is still probing and cleansing itself. But strangely in the police, nothing has happened. The police have carried on without pretense, without bother. The police should champion change. But theirs has been inexplicable obduracy? Their seeming imperviousness to change is in a sense gross insubordination. This change president evokes nothing in them. Others mouth change but not the police. Others hide to take bribes but the police won’t. Police officers who desecrated norms of civility in their desperation to serve politicians, got promoted. Infamy and rascality were valorized, no reset has been attempted. The syndrome of professional pauperization of the police entailed more than their conversion to porters and pimps. And shoe-shiners. Servility meant their senior officers took up roles as political thugs and displayed uncommon brazenness. If Change cannot confront these, then what is change really about? Those who committed disreputable acts of gross misconduct got away unscathed. A redeployment to a training school is considered a punishment? Those who padded the budget, we are told, have been seriously dealt with. They have been redeployed! So the very embodiment of thuggery and everything uncouth can be assigned to groom young police minds. Change was supposed to re institute law , order and reason. But Change , it appears, is very comfortable with petty lawlessness. When the police hierarchy makes a pronouncement bordering on discipline, no one listens. It belittles itself by doing nothing to enforce what it says . The distribution of police men and police activity are democratic goods. Fairness and justice ought to guide all such allocations. But the police will allocate 10 mobile policemen to one Alaba trader. And When robbers take on banks in Festac town the police there will go into hiding. A convoy of policemen is now the paraphernalia of sudden wealth. The pocket of the moneyed man inflicts stupidity on the system. Some communities have no police presence, yet some politicians have 50 policemen permanently loitering around them wherever they go. Businessmen and politicians have left police stations bereft of crime response power. And when the moral embarrassment pricks the police hierarchy, they will announce “an immediate withdrawal of all police protection for private individuals and politicians”. Because change is rhetorical, only the public is fooled. The fee would go up, but money and power will keep the policemen they have taken. And the one who gave the order will slouch back into customary complacency. The public will be left to moan interminably about worsening insecurity. Kidnappers take victims and hold them for months and Festac residents lament the failure of the DSS to intervene. The helplessness of the police is familiar. People are being beheaded in Rivers as if ISIS has moved its headquarters there. The police have been impotent in Rivers as they have been in Agatu, as they were in Ketu. Everywhere they meet a little violence they plead for the Army. When Olu Falae was kidnapped the Inspector General relocated to Akure. Against a few herdsmen who operated on foot, it was Ransom that came to the rescue of the elder statesman. Are the police willing to fall into irremediable redundancy? Many of our police officers are patriotic and hardworking. So why is the system so rickety? When you think you have heard it all, you are confronted with allegations of school children detained in a police cell in Orile Lagos. Conscientious police officers bemoan the nonchalance of the president towards the police. Police officers who waited for the arrival of change to unleash their patriotism and zeal which corruption had stifled are despondent. If Change didn’t have the impotence of a paper tiger, its first port of call would have been the dilapidated police barracks and pathetic police welfare and training. But because change is still a mere slogan, the squalid barracks continue to leak feces , breed toads and encourage shamelessness and corruption. Change stares confusedly at the police. Change is aware that policemen who have been collecting bribes in broad day light since Lord Lugard do not get livable wages. Change lets them subsidize their income . Let’s them recoup operational expenses as they have been doing since the last century. Change knows what happens at check points but Change is too timid, or too considerate to frown at it. Has change cared to ensure that policemen do not fuel police cars from their private pockets? President Buhari must tackle the inevitability of corruption from its roots. The police’s eternal embrace with “business as usual” is perhaps not so puzzling. The police stations should be centres of change. Not change spoken or written on walls , but that felt by criminals, detainees, victims and the general public. Buhari has come but police stations have remained what they have always been. If the president feels a drastic touch is necessary then a radical, fiery junior officer could be made head of the police to test their degree of sclerosis. But ‘siddon look’ is not an option. For how long will the president’s casual lack of concern for the police go on? Change can’t be this carefree. The Inspector General is a fine gentleman. But the force needs a radical change agent. And he need not be an idealist or a purist. He needs to have sufficient activism in his heart. And regardless of how tainted his past, he must turn his back on corruption on assumption of office. But because practical righteousness alone will not suffice he must have a clear vision and feasible redemptive plan. The force is in dire need of a cultural revolution. Only a committed radical holistic transformation, championed by the president, that prioritizes personnel welfare, recruitment, training , operational funding and ethical reorientation can salvage the police. Before then let the police summon the courage or effrontery to join in the chorus , pretending to change. For now, they are an embarrassment to the president.
Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com/2016/03/change-president-slumberous-police-force/
Every politician thinks himself smarter than the ordinary woman. But deception is unpardonably fraudulent, so campaign promises must be vows. Only fraudsters seek benefits on false or impossible promises. But if hypocrisy is not pretense but merely failure to match sensible words with tangible action, then it could represent ambition. And that is why the APC isn’t a ‘419’party and is perhaps better than the PDP. There is an amorphous, incoherent desire to be different. That in a sense is infinitely better than honest shiftlessness. The sort of unpretentious resignation that the PDP came to be. And left the society mired in hopelessness. So Buhari can continue talking about change. Even if he has come with nothing besides personal integrity. Even if there are no tangible plans of making the APC what they claim it is. If the recourse isn’t to blatant tokenism, he may yet succeed in retarding societal decadence. May time not correct my optimism. Sadly though, I don’t know of any government agency or institution that takes the President seriously. None has pushed the idea of change beyond mantra. Talk is cheap. But it is better than the dumb indolence of the past. I know of a few agencies that have made some noises and punched the air in contrived triumph. Their Change is heard, not seen. There should be a new order, it’s Buhari’s regime! But everywhere you go, it has been ‘business as usual’. The change that has come must be in hiding, somewhere. But it is not anywhere near the police formations. During the Christmas season, I plied Port Harcourt -Owerri road twice. That road was a dramatization of the comedy that policing has become. Acute predatoriness combining well with opportunistic joviality. The sort of capriciousness ‘Area boys’ live on. At a certain section of that road the police constituted themselves into an infernal nuisance. The sort of nuisance that resides on the stretch between Badagry and Seme border in Lagos courtesy of the Customs. Police checkpoints littered the road like polythene bags on Amukoko streets before Fashola tarred them. With less than 50 metres between some check points, the police were conspicuously oblivious of absurdity. Such a determined effort at defying reasonableness, at resisting change, in the open. In being utterly ridiculous , they were daringly defiant. That is what familiarity perhaps breeds. The police are our friend. The Customs’ siege at Seme is inconsistent with commonsense but they can blame it on smugglers. What was the police doing between Elele and Owerri? There is something about the police that makes a mockery of this Change president. Like a pastor whose choristers can’t help but gulp lungfuls of ganja in between songs on the altar. Some other services have conducted some wishy-washy audits. Some Change induced formalisms. But they could pass for accountability , some kind of responsiveness, or an awareness of the times. They could be hollow and shallow but they are symbolic. We now know that our Air force that only recently existed only on the ground was crippled by theft and greed. Government officials and civil servants played manifestly despicable roles before and during the transition. Since we deny it is not systemic rot, we must sacrifice “ a few bad eggs”. In many departments some scapegoating has happened. The former head of the EFCC is wanted by the senate. Another probe is underway at the EFCC and ICPC. Many were forced away from the customs service. The military is still probing and cleansing itself. But strangely in the police, nothing has happened. The police have carried on without pretense, without bother. The police should champion change. But theirs has been inexplicable obduracy? Their seeming imperviousness to change is in a sense gross insubordination. This change president evokes nothing in them. Others mouth change but not the police. Others hide to take bribes but the police won’t. Police officers who desecrated norms of civility in their desperation to serve politicians, got promoted. Infamy and rascality were valorized, no reset has been attempted. The syndrome of professional pauperization of the police entailed more than their conversion to porters and pimps. And shoe-shiners. Servility meant their senior officers took up roles as political thugs and displayed uncommon brazenness. If Change cannot confront these, then what is change really about? Those who committed disreputable acts of gross misconduct got away unscathed. A redeployment to a training school is considered a punishment? Those who padded the budget, we are told, have been seriously dealt with. They have been redeployed! So the very embodiment of thuggery and everything uncouth can be assigned to groom young police minds. Change was supposed to re institute law , order and reason. But Change , it appears, is very comfortable with petty lawlessness. When the police hierarchy makes a pronouncement bordering on discipline, no one listens. It belittles itself by doing nothing to enforce what it says . The distribution of police men and police activity are democratic goods. Fairness and justice ought to guide all such allocations. But the police will allocate 10 mobile policemen to one Alaba trader. And When robbers take on banks in Festac town the police there will go into hiding. A convoy of policemen is now the paraphernalia of sudden wealth. The pocket of the moneyed man inflicts stupidity on the system. Some communities have no police presence, yet some politicians have 50 policemen permanently loitering around them wherever they go. Businessmen and politicians have left police stations bereft of crime response power. And when the moral embarrassment pricks the police hierarchy, they will announce “an immediate withdrawal of all police protection for private individuals and politicians”. Because change is rhetorical, only the public is fooled. The fee would go up, but money and power will keep the policemen they have taken. And the one who gave the order will slouch back into customary complacency. The public will be left to moan interminably about worsening insecurity. Kidnappers take victims and hold them for months and Festac residents lament the failure of the DSS to intervene. The helplessness of the police is familiar. People are being beheaded in Rivers as if ISIS has moved its headquarters there. The police have been impotent in Rivers as they have been in Agatu, as they were in Ketu. Everywhere they meet a little violence they plead for the Army. When Olu Falae was kidnapped the Inspector General relocated to Akure. Against a few herdsmen who operated on foot, it was Ransom that came to the rescue of the elder statesman. Are the police willing to fall into irremediable redundancy? Many of our police officers are patriotic and hardworking. So why is the system so rickety? When you think you have heard it all, you are confronted with allegations of school children detained in a police cell in Orile Lagos. Conscientious police officers bemoan the nonchalance of the president towards the police. Police officers who waited for the arrival of change to unleash their patriotism and zeal which corruption had stifled are despondent. If Change didn’t have the impotence of a paper tiger, its first port of call would have been the dilapidated police barracks and pathetic police welfare and training. But because change is still a mere slogan, the squalid barracks continue to leak feces , breed toads and encourage shamelessness and corruption. Change stares confusedly at the police. Change is aware that policemen who have been collecting bribes in broad day light since Lord Lugard do not get livable wages. Change lets them subsidize their income . Let’s them recoup operational expenses as they have been doing since the last century. Change knows what happens at check points but Change is too timid, or too considerate to frown at it. Has change cared to ensure that policemen do not fuel police cars from their private pockets? President Buhari must tackle the inevitability of corruption from its roots. The police’s eternal embrace with “business as usual” is perhaps not so puzzling. The police stations should be centres of change. Not change spoken or written on walls , but that felt by criminals, detainees, victims and the general public. Buhari has come but police stations have remained what they have always been. If the president feels a drastic touch is necessary then a radical, fiery junior officer could be made head of the police to test their degree of sclerosis. But ‘siddon look’ is not an option. For how long will the president’s casual lack of concern for the police go on? Change can’t be this carefree. The Inspector General is a fine gentleman. But the force needs a radical change agent. And he need not be an idealist or a purist. He needs to have sufficient activism in his heart. And regardless of how tainted his past, he must turn his back on corruption on assumption of office. But because practical righteousness alone will not suffice he must have a clear vision and feasible redemptive plan. The force is in dire need of a cultural revolution. Only a committed radical holistic transformation, championed by the president, that prioritizes personnel welfare, recruitment, training , operational funding and ethical reorientation can salvage the police. Before then let the police summon the courage or effrontery to join in the chorus , pretending to change. For now, they are an embarrassment to the president.
Read more at: http://sulyben.blogspot.com/2016/03/change-president-slumberous-police-force/
Tuesday 8 March 2016
ANOTHER GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL DIES
Barely 24 hours after Mr, James Enojo Ocholi, Minister of State for Employment was killed in a motor accident on kilometre 67 Kaduna-Abuja road, after Doka village, another officer of the Federal Government has also been killed in another motor accident.
General Yushau Abubakar, Chief of Training and Operations of the Army, died on Tuesday in a road accident along Maiduguri-Damaturu Road.
General Abubakar was the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, before his recent deployment in Army Headquarters, Abuja.
The road accident also involved General MSA Aliyu, the Acting General Officer Commanding 3 Division, and Brigadier who sustained some injuries and is currently receiving medical treatment.
The Director Army Public Relations, Colonel Usman Kukasheka confirmed the accident.
Wednesday 2 March 2016
$117m USAID-funded education project for 3 northern states underway sulyben.blogspot.com 016/03/117m-usaid-funded-education-project-for-3-northern-states-underway/
Bauchi—GOVERNOR Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi State yesterday, launched a five-year USAID funded education project worth $117 million for three northern states. Bauchi State Governor, Mohammed Abubakar Launching the project, Abubakar said the USAID’s Northern Education Initiative sought to reach nearly 1.6 million children and would be implemented in Bauchi, Sokoto and one other yet-to-be announced state. According to him, the project would also reach out to more than 500,000 out of school children and youths attending 11,000 Non-formal learning centres. The Governor said in the past, concerted efforts had been made with a view to improving the system in the state without commensurate results and impacts. He said for his administration to attain “education for all” as encapsulated in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development goals and Millennium Development Goals, within the shortest possible time, the educational sector must be carefully planned through effective programmes and policies. The governor said; “I am happy to note that what we are doing here today is to improve the social well-being of our people, particularly residents in the rural areas. This will go a long way to reduce poverty as enshrined in the change agenda” Speaking, USAID/Nigeria Mission Director, Michael Harvey, commended the state government for restructuring the educational sector , assuring that the project would boost the capacities of schools to educate and increase enrollment of more girls and boys.
Read more at: sulyben.blogspot.com sulyben.blogspot.com /2016/03/117m-usaid-funded-education-project-for-3-northern-states-underway/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)