Black Lives Matter - Manchester

Staying at home

On another day and at another time, I probably would have gone out to join the Black Lives Matter protest in the centre of Manchester, but I had to be conversant of a number of things. I could be vulnerable given my medical history, then considering how it is said the Coronavirus appears to affect people of the Black, Africa and minority ethnic origins disproportionately, one should not take unnecessary risks. [BBC News]

Yet, once should be careful not to engage in gestures that might have no impact, though the teeming crowds around the world are sending a clear message that Black Lives Matter. It so happens that some would give the refrain of All Lives Matter. Indeed, all lives do matter, but what is important at present is when a part of the All is affected and identified, that particular part is addressed.

From a finger to the body

My whole body matters, in health and wellbeing, but if I hurt my finger, I don’t say my body hurts or my head hurts, I say, my finger hurts. At that point, my finger matters and until that finger issue is addressed and healed, I will not be thinking of anything else.

Blacks are part of the whole of the human race, we have observed the murder of George Floyd, a black man with the knee of a white officer of the law on his neck until he expired, we are reviled and outraged. His story encapsulates that many occurrences of the loss of black lives at the hands of white policemen or people with privilege acting with impunity all without any consequence.

Even with the obvious public extrajudicial killing and a good video record of the heinous act, it took four days for the law to take the perpetrator into custody with a charge.

Until it matters

Take that all together, indeed, All Lives Matter, but today, knowing and seeing what has been happening to blacks in all sorts of situations going back to time immemorial with too much to list from deprivations, discrimination, denigration, abuses, slavery, and much else, Black Lives Matter.

Until Black Lives Matter, Black Rights Matter, Black Aspirations Matter, Black Freedoms Matter, Black Opportunities Matter, Black Equalities Matter, we would always, always fall short of the greater encompassing cry of All Lives Matter. Each element of identity, grouping, or expression that finds themselves bereft of the greater goals of human achievement and actualisation make the goal of All Lives Matter less true and we cannot ignore that.

We are the hurting finger

When anyone is compelled to say All Lives Matter, they should look around to lift up those who are not standing on the same plinth as them celebrating the fulness of the comforts that gives them the laudable voice of All Lives Matter.

It is Blacks today, the hurting finger of the whole body of humanity, it could be another other group tomorrow, and to them now and in the future, we owe in our strength to comfort the afflicted, soothe their pain, recognise their yearnings and gather to give them not just the vision of better things but helping them on to the route to human prosperity.

We must strive to see that no one is left behind and everyone regardless of where they are in life or station can in honesty and truthfully say All Lives Matter because we are in the common cause to make Every Life Matter, from one to all.

Nigeria: How much do we pay our lawmakers? - Part II

Back on the streets

The Nigerian youth marched out to our legislative houses all around the country on Thursday the 26^th of September 2013.

On Twitter, they mustered and gathered organised under the Twitter hashtag of #OurNASS where Nigerians demanded accountability, transparency and better representation. [Al Jazeera]

The occupation of elected political office had long shifted from the call to service to what was self-serving interests exemplified by outrageous remunerations that make the eyes water.

A salary to feast on

It is the long held belief that our democracy is both profligate and extravagant, it is safe to assume that the cost is unsustainable.

However, when the people congregated at the National Assembly in Abuja, some senators braved the crowds and came out to chat with the people where for the very first time a senator presented his payslip detailing the salary for one month paid in January 2010, in the previous electoral cycle as tabulated below:

Without considering inflationary changes and reassessments up to 2013, this alone presents an interesting reading on the percentages scale.

Multiples beyond belief

A senator will take 735% in allowances beyond his basic salary monthly with 200% going to housing and 250% going to managing a constituency office.

If the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) deductions total more than the basic salary, you then wonder if the allowances are taxed too.

Besides this, the vehicle loan is 400% of annual basic salary, but if a term is 4 years, how does a senator pay off that loan without seeking extra funds over and above the salary?

It would mean the legislator will would have either to meet that from the allowance pool or engage in other business activity to meet possible shortfalls, this remuneration structure is uneconomical and presents the framework for nefarious activity, possibly corruption.

Not sustainable

What does not show in this salary payslip is the furniture allowance, which is 75% of annual salary paid in a lump sum at the commencement of legislative tenure and 5% for housing allowance.

We still need to get a current figure representing what we pay our legislators but in percentage terms with reference to the basic salary, it is unlikely as I have said before that any private sector job rewards people this well, this democracy at this rate and cost is unsustainable.

Other reading

Nigeria: How much do we pay our lawmakers? - Part I

Nigeria: The relative cost of our democracy is unsustainable – AkinBlog.nl

Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) – About page.

Senator earns N12m yearly, says RMAFC – The Nation

Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders Salaries and Allowances etc, (Amendment) Act of 2008

Nigeria: #OccupyNigeria and Occupy their lives

Uttering nonsense

When a man is unable to allow his utterances be controlled by his cranial matter we assume the person is drunk because alcohol has a way of loosening the tongue. If there is no sign that the person is inebriated we begin to question the mental capacity of the person and words like stupid, dolt, idiot or cretin come to mind.

However, if such a person falls into neither category because we are aware of the person’s intellect and his bearing is such that alcohol and stupidity are excluded, you are left to wonder and ponder at what the issue might be.

Running Nigeria is neither for the inebriated nor the stupid, it is a job that calls on all faculties; the exhibited ones need to be alert, sharp and commanding of the authority and bearing expected of such who dare to lead.

Taking stock

The time has come and the time is now that we can no more acquiesce to low expectations and levels of achievement that are redolent of indolence rather than hardworking effective and efficient leadership.

In our 6^th decade of independence, we have no time for people learning on the job, lacking aims, plans, mission or a vision as to where they intend to take Nigeria in the short term and at the end of their term in office.

Our democratic experiment is now close to concluding its 13^th year and what we have seen more of is profligacy, prodigality, waste, corruption and a lack of accountability. Billions of dollars have been ploughed into infrastructure as power, roads, transport, rail, health and education but there has been very little to show for those investments.

Rather our legislators have growth fat on the largesse of the country earning humongous sums that will make the eyes of real creators of jobs and masters of industry water – to think from anecdotal evidence that our federal legislators earn more than presidents or leaders of more advanced economies and then to see a paltry work rate that is self-serving rather than in the service of the people is unconscionable, dishonest, corrupt and unsustainable.

Things are NOT changing

However, the biggest question remains what plans do they all have for the progress of Nigeria and when will they stop promising and start delivering?

After the 2 weeks of Occupy Nigeria and the strikes that ended yesterday, it appears the reluctant government in perpetual inertia was forced to be responsive albeit unilateral in all their decision-making dispensing of the rule of law for expediency and convenience that the legislature is found having to exert itself as the usually careless overseer of executive excess.

And careless they have been because they have still not addressed the criminally fraudulent matter of noticing the executive budgeted N250bn for fuel subsidies in 2011 and actually had spent N1.3trn by September and they are asking for more to cover the whole of 2011.

It still beggars belief that there are no checks and moderating influences over the executive to ensure they do not overspend without recourse to the legislature and if they do, there are no sanctions and repudiations to be made to all responsible with the possibility of criminal prosecution.

It is incredible that any organ of government can overspend by 500% and the other organs of government abdicate their responsibility with impunity; it indicates how corruption has eaten into the fabric of Nigerian governance that it is impossible for it to reform without some radical act of the people or God forbid some other intervention that forcibly resets this untenable and flagrant abuse of democratic processes.

We are caught as I once said before in the grip of an unconscionable kakistocracy – it is the government by the worse people ever selected to be in leadership.

Doing the worst of the least

Just before words could be taken out of our mouths, the president when addressing certain youths who in their excellence might abdicate their initiative and innate abilities for subservience to the government we have today, he said, “If we cannot build good roads for our children; if we cannot leave hospitals for them, then one thing we must not leave for them is debt, for them to come and pay.”[1]

I have been trying to get my head round what the president really meant by this statement because try as I might, I have found it impossible to make anything positive of it.

Then to think someone thought this statement was so positively profound that is was the quote on the FrontPage advertisement of BusinessDay just shows how low our expectations of this government have precipitously fallen that the government is not even exerting itself to anything at all.

Nigeria needs roads and she needs hospitals, those will contribute to the lifeblood of our economy and wellbeing. Even theoretical economists who always tend to leave out the serious human dimension in their modelling know that road infrastructure and healthcare are critical elements of development that if we end up in debt facilitating such the long term economic benefits will eventually pay off the debts.

A race to ruin

What I read here is a man that we have in elected office as president who has no vision for the country, he is as laidback as a rug with not particular goals apart from the default of not leaving the debts to our children whilst in the 5 years that he has been running mate either as vice-president or president he has presided over such an expansion of government to no end but for the aggrandisement of their debauched lifestyles of untold opulence leaving nothing for the people.

It is a race to ruin that does not address the real problems that affect the country be it corruption, profligacy or the security deficit that allows a high-level terrorist suspect to escape from custody at a time when the country is in a heightened state of security.

Occupy their lives

This, my friends can no more continue, we have another 40 months of this regime and something must give, it cannot be the people giving in to business as usual anymore, we need to make these people responsible, accountable and earning each kobo of their keep.

Our Occupy Nigeria movement needs to spearhead a series of tenacious occupations, we must occupy their minds, occupy their thoughts, occupy their time, occupy their space, occupy their lives, audit their time, audit their spend, audit their lives, micro-manage all their activities and call each and every one who takes money from the Nigerian coffers to account.

Politics in Nigeria must stop being a cushy job of high-living in ostentatious consumption to feed insatiable hedonistic appetites, these people should be too busy to find time for such excess and if they cannot stand the heat, they should resign.

Occupy and force change for the better

If a politician is not ready to put their best forward and make Nigeria the main priority of their lives with everything Nigeria being front and centre of their focus, it is time for them to retire with no benefits, they should take to life like all other Nigerians do. Enough of this nonsense, enough of the rottenness that is eating this country to the core and enough of the clueless leadership that needs to be given a good boot kick in the backside to start performing.

Occupy Nigeria for the change we deserve and we either force these people to do it or force them out but by God, we will not wait until 2015 for this indolence to become so ingrained that the future would have been eternally mortgaged to this looming debacle and apology of a state of affairs.

Occupy! The time is now.

Source

[1] Jonathan blames politicians for Nigeria's woes | Premium Times Nigeria

Editorial: #OccupyNigeria for reforming our democracy

Personal Goodluck, Nigeria’s bad luck

Nigeria has been caught in the wave of revolutionary fervour as some might suggest and this has all been triggered by the amazing deftness of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Like King Midas of old his wish to have everything he touched turn to gold had been granted only that what has gained affinity to his touch is the Nigerian coffers. As the proverbial 1^st Lord of the Treasury he has presided over a profligate and wasteful consumption of resources all to maintain a life of unseemly opulence along with his cohorts rather than address the matter of progressive leadership of Nigeria - He is both prodigal and a spendthrift.

An overly costly government

The expansion of government that allows for three-quarters of revenue to go into recurrent expenditure is untenable, unsustainable and unconscionable but his government fattened on the largesse of Nigeria’s good have neither the discipline nor restraint for a diet that will cut government excess, government waste and corrupt expense.

For the past few months, they had set their eyes on fuel subsidy with the view to completely removing it and promising to invest those proceeds in public infrastructure, primary health and social development schemes.

The fact is the government has no track record in concluding any of those schemes in Nigeria, in most cases the government has majored in vacuous good intentions offered as promises, none of which ever get to see the light of day. Goodluck Jonathan sadly leads a hopeless and hapless clinging to forlorn hope; there is no reason or basis to find any iota of optimism in anything he has to say to the Nigerian people.

Guessing and paying off the charts

Three months ago, I wrote Editorial: Nigerian Government Dishonesty About Fuel Subsidy in which I noted the discrepancies between the estimated cost of the subsidy and the actual cost that was inflated 5 times more than the budgeted cost.

Besides, it appears no one is sure of what the cost of subsidising fuel is, the Central Bank in its MPC Meeting minutes suggested that the cost was about $6 billion, the on-going debate in the Nigerian Senate suggests the Federal Government budgeted NGN 240 billion ($1.54 billion) for subsidies in 2011 but have found that cost inflated to NGN 1.5 trillion ($9.6 billion) in what is a looking like a typical Nigerian scam. [CBN (PDF) Page 3][All Africa]

What is amazing is how the legislature or any vested party is not in apoplectic rage at this malfeasance in the executive by carpeting those involved and prosecuting the principals for the fraudulent misuse of Nigerian funds – the idea that the executive could overspend by 500% and no one be called to account beggars belief but also shows how complicit the whole democratic system is in the endemic corruption that makes the cost of this Nigerian democracy unsustainable.

Incubating #OccupyNigeria

I feared that the government might expect the so-called “resilience” of Nigerians to allow them implement this blatant corrupt enterprise to feather their over-pampered nests on the premise that they were doing Nigerians some great good that I did suggest that if the people will not take to the streets the army should come out of the barracks and reset this brigandage of wanton debauchery masquerading as the government of the people.

Goodluck Jonathan however forced his hand just like King Midas of old when he touched his beloved daughter and she turned to gold. He announced that he was removing fuel subsidy on New Years Day and that set in motion the movement called #OccupyNigeria.

Nigerians came out to protest against their government that the usually indolent and overpaid legislature came out of recess to discuss the matter.

Meanwhile ministers and stooges of the government took on the airwaves to threaten the people and make pronouncements that could only sound acceptable in Nigeria, because most of those pronouncements if spoken by Western politicians who are regularly our examples of convenience would have those politician blabbermouths out of a job before sundown.

Stop the killing

However, other knowledgeable and articulate Nigerians countered each and every claim the government put forward, as they set their dogs (security personnel) upon the people killing some by reason of the savage and barbaric Force Order 237 which according to the Amnesty International report “instructs police officers in “riot” situations to “single out” and fire at “ring-leaders in the forefront of the mob” ”and “directs officers to fire “at the knees of the rioters” and explicitly prohibits firing in the air.” [Amnesty]

It makes you wonder how policing has been allowed to thrive in Victorian impunity for the convenience of presumably 21^st Century politicians, it is shocking and a shame that we have policing standards that make the Apartheid massacres look tame.

Global Nigerian unrest

With Nigerians in civil unrest that has taken on a global significance with demonstrations in Europe and America as well and the labour unions acquiescing by ordering indefinite strikes one can only hope that the people who matter are not enticed by unscrupulous means that the government has adopted in bribing the hungry and the unprincipled to speak up for the atrociously untenable.

There is no doubt that the fuel subsidy should go but only after we have achieved local sufficiency of the refined product; the government should address the real problem of the corrupt nexus of officials and companies robbing us blind whilst facilitating the development and effective functioning of our local refineries working to capacity.

Beyond fuel subsidies

#OccupyNigeria is however now beyond the matter of fuel subsidies, it has to go the heart of the cost of our democracy that demands swingeing cuts to not just basic salaries but to allowances and perks that are beyond belief. All allowances should be cut to a fraction of the basic salaries of politicians which are in any case already excessively huge.

Going into politics in Nigeria should lose the allure of untold riches paid for sanctioned indolence, politics should be about selfless service with Nigerians only meeting basic middle-class needs of our politicians – if these people need more they should go get a job elsewhere, Nigeria’s udders have been milked to incurable sourness by political jobbers at all levels of government.

Sadly, the government of Goodluck Jonathan with the once excellent but now terribly disappointing Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala are incapable of implementing reform but one hopes that after they have been stunned by the forceful and determined reaction of Nigerians they will move to cut costs, cut waste, prosecute the frauds, restore the subsidy, lay off the majority of advisers, cut unnecessary ministries and ministerial posts, impose economy on the legislature, partner in building working refineries that will obviate the need for the subsidy and dare to earn our trust.

We could not have imagined a Nigerian version of the Arab Spring but today we have a Nigeria of all tribes and persuasion united as one for that entity called Nigeria and the identity that is Nigerian - #OccupyNigeria is our Nigerian Harmattan of Discontent and long may it continue until our democracy begins to represent its people, our aspirations and our hopes and the people we have elected to lead us begin to serve.

Tweets of interest

RT @resourcedat: DOWNLOAD KPMG REPORT ON NNPC: http://is.gd/JkOXaw Need to read this - Favourite it. An embarrassing catalogue of corruption, ineptitude and waste that should have had ministers, officials and company executives shot in a former time.

@ElRufai Interview on AIT on Fuel Subsidy – YouTube bit.ly/ye1xWz He takes it all apart and the government has no comeback. Someone to be credited for knowing the workings of the Nigerian government and exposing its failings.

RT @disgeneration: Fuel subsidy removal: Nigeria’s Finance Minister speaks to Al Jazeera http://bit.ly/yTxaBZ I could not help but notice her fluency in the parseltongue.

BBC News - Nigeria fuel protests: Union threatens oil shutdown http://bbc.in/w2sITG The government is far from embracing humility.

RT @OKShorty1: @BukkieSho Oil production will be shut in. Nigeria will lose $200m/N33b everyday. < Brought on by government incompetence.

#OccupyNigeria is no more just about reversion of subsidies, it demands a root and branch reform of our government & governance.

Yes, let us end the #OccupyNigeria strikes by getting the government to cut spending, cut waste and restore subsidies.

#OccupyNigeria has gone global - We, the people of Nigeria are out to take our representative democracy back from hoodlums.

…as AGF reads riot act to protesters http://is.gd/pIr8F2 No, we are reading the Riot Act to the Nigerian Government.

The end of paternalism in Nigeria, we'll not be threatened by the people we have elected to serve us, they're accountable to us.

OPS decries effects of strike, urges NLC, TUC to call it off http://is.gd/loz9hA Address the problem head-on, it's the government.