Editorial: How do we capture the desire we all have for Nigeria?

A desire we all have for Nigeria

Great is the wish and desire for better topics than what I am about to write about Nigeria. This is a great country with amazingly unrealised potential that appears to be continually rundown by those who we have elected to represent us at all levels.

The problem is however not just that of leadership, it includes the people too and sadly an inability to grasp the fundamental truths of a situation, an idea or a conversation if there is something emotive to offer upon which they can gorge their sentiments on.

Nigeria cannot be doomed, there is prospect and promise beyond compare and ability that needs to be nurtured to wrestle power from the malefactors in charge and command the heights whilst mentoring those coming up to occupy and take Nigeria to where it rightly belongs – a prosperous thriving country with people willing and able to pursue their goals in happiness with all opportunity and ability at their disposal to succeed.

Those who hold us back

Things need to be uprooted, overturned, jettisoned, condemned and completely excoriated. These things are exemplified and personified in people – men and women who present no glowing future for the entity Nigeria or the identity Nigerian. They clog the corridors of power and need to be bulldozed out of the way, swept into ignominy as light gets shone on their opinions, activities and alliances.

Today, it was the turn of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory to be readied for the scrapheap of odium so vile that it cannot be countenanced by rats cavorting in a metropolitan sewer.

“May I suggest to the Executive Secretary of FCDA, who has the Abuja Master Plan and the Coordinator of Abuja Metropolitan Management Council to rename this place as Goodluck Jonathan District.” He started [1].

“This is because we have not named any district after any president in the past. The president I know is President Goodluck Jonathan and the president I know that is bringing good luck to me and to Nigerians is President Goodluck Jonathan.” He then said.

“Therefore, by the powers conferred on me, I change the name of this district to Goodluck Jonathan District.” He concluded.

Is there just cause?

Now, there is nothing wrong with naming places after past leaders of Nigeria, we have universities, airports, roads and buildings named after many of our heroes past, many long gone but with places in the history of Nigeria.

In most cases, these naming acts though unilaterally done by those in leadership do have popular appeal and support with many Nigerians knowing why.

It is quite strange to rename a district in the Federal Capital after a sitting President who has only been in office for two years and yet to prove himself as an effective master of his brief, talk less of being an all-embracing and inspiring leader of all Nigerians.

Maybe I am being harsh with my assessment so let us hear the citation the Minister gives to make the President worthy of such an honour.

Of the many deserving

"A district has never been named after a President ..." – that is a valid point but we have had many, 14 in all [2], starting with Nnamdi Azikiwe, the 1^st Governor General and the President of Nigeria; Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the 1^st Military Head of State or Murtala Mohammed, the 4^th leader of Nigeria assassinated in 1976. Sani Abacha for his despotic reign is not offered a podium of honour but he is one of the 4 who once ruled Nigeria and have since died.

Other leaders of distinction, I use distinction with a bit of levity are Yakubu Gowon who lead the country through a civil war, ruling for 9 years or Olusegun Obasanjo who ruled the country twice, first as a military ruler and then as a civilian president altogether for 11½ years.

Only last week with full military honours and all the state accoutrements, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was buried, he led the civil war for the secession of Biafra and had long been revered as the leader of the Igbo tribe, it would appear he was the next for the synonymous and eponymous but you cannot curry the favour of the dead. – Surely, there is much to be said for these people.

Really?

The Minister goes on to say, “The president I know is President Goodluck Jonathan …” This could mean the Minister is completely oblivious of Nigerian history or cynically one might be persuaded to suggest this was blatantly currying favour since he is minister at the pleasure of the President.

He concludes the citation by saying, “… and the president I know that is bringing good luck to me and to Nigerians is President Goodluck Jonathan.” Is that all? You ask.

The President is honoured in a shameless display of sickening sycophancy as a fawning minister is innocuously 'bribing' the President to maintain his post by flattering the President and appealing to his ego, building graven images of district renaming like we have returned to the Babylonian times of King Nebuchadnezzar.

The Court of Goodluck I

We sometimes forget we are in a democracy and we operate like an absolute monarchy because it can only be the reason why a Shaykh kanti Aiki Ibrahim Zuru has a calling card with the title Loyalist to His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GCFR).

Obtained from a tweet by @Seedorf with thanks.

This whole charade of leadership in Nigeria is playing out like the Court of Goodluck I where patronage is rife and obsequiousness that can provoke extreme emesis is the norm, as for corruption, that is the currency of the gaining audience with the potentate whose name might soon be emblazoned on anything that can be named or renamed just before our prayer beads are replaced with the mini-busts of Goodluck Jonathan.

Impunity without a care

To crown it all, the Nigerian Senators who receive 350% of their annual basic salaries as car loans payable over 6 years at the annual interest rate of 4% were given cars [3] all same at additional cost of N1.3 billion to the public purse on the premise that they will be used for committee activities. It is illegal and criminal but impunity is the name of the game and accountability is as unAfrican as let’s say homosexuality.

We cannot be sentenced to this travesty of a democracy which is in fact fawning kleptocrats at the head of an unconscionable kakistocracy – Nigeria deserves a lot better than all this.

Sources

[1] FCT Minister renames Abuja’s Maitama District as Goodluck Jonathan District | Channels TV

[2] List of heads of state of Nigeria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Senators receive N1.3billion new cars | Premium Times Nigeria

Other references

Nigeria: Prince Ade Adesanya is expecting your call

Nigeria: The Court of Goodluck I - Special Advisers

Nigeria: Presidency seeks the nth opinion

Editorial: Nigeria - The North, Religion and Politics

The incessant debates

Many a time in the discourses I have had on Twitter on that enigma of a country called Nigeria the politics of religion and the religion of politics have been so conflated that it permeates all facets of life with either associated or distant consequences.

It is quite debatable that many of the problems the country faces are political but the infusion of religion either as political tools of cohesion or ways of tapping of the innate docility of the people opiating them against agitation for lasting change can presage interminable arguments with every view containing nuggets of truth.

Religion and State

I have long advocated a genuine and complete separation of religion and state [1]. In the case of Nigeria, the fact that even the distinctive core religions which are Christianity and Islam are splintered into factions of adherences, creed, persuasion and passion is enough to put forward an strong argument for a purely secular state, religion being confined to the boundaries of the places of worship.

There are many factions of Islam just as there are many denominations of Christianity, the introduction of Sharia Law in the Northern States of Nigeria does not present a uniformity of access to fairness, justice or mercy as a secular civil law requirement will provide. In fact, it will be disingenuous, dishonest and naive for anyone to suggest there is any homogeneity in the North in terms of religion, ethnicity, politics, education or wealth.

The demographics of Nigeria

North of the rivers Niger and Benue you see such an ethnic diversity [2, Graphic] that sadly gets subsumed into the majority Hausa-Fulani linguistic group [3, Graphic] and consequently is presented as predominantly Muslim North – this is far from the truth as the graphics show.

However, much as there are many who might not agree to the idea that religion conflated with either politics and/or traditions has contributed to serious inequalities around the country especially when it pertains to critical fundamentals for economic growth [4, Graphic] as female literacy [5, Graphic] and health [6, Graphic], the correlations in parts of the country cannot be easily discarded with.

Beginning the analysis

This is not the complete picture of the how and why of troubles that Nigeria faces but it presents a starting point for honest discourse of a complex issue that is for long lacked objective truthful and searing analysis that could lead to addressing the problems and creating solutions.

The state maps should already show that beyond the much documented failings of the federal government, the state governments and local governments have hardly really suffered the necessary scrutiny and engaging need for accountability to force them to commit to serving their people – those inequalities are majorly the responsibility of leadership closer to the people than from the centre, it does not however absolve central government from inspirational leadership and infrastructure development necessary to tap healthy and educated human resources.

The cases being made again

More and more we hear from learned people about the need for religion to be personal rather than public. Senator John Danforth [7] of the United States of America has both been a senior politician and is an ordained Episcopalian priest, he probably has devoted a good deal of time considering the issues of religion and politics in society especially in America where an almost implacable activist conservative fringe is gaining undue vocal advantage in the politics of electioneering.

He had this to say about politics and religion [8].

“The language of politics is different than the language of religion -- politics is not religion. The language of religion is based on creedal affirmation, while the language of politics, when it works, is the language of compromise. To confuse politics for religion results in gridlock from the political perspective. To confuse politics for religion from the religious perspective is idolatry.”

In short, politics requires compromise which religion does not condone else you end up in gridlock and idolatry – he cannot have found a better choice of words to address this matter to Americans at first and then it should be amplified in Nigeria too.

Avoiding democratic faux-theocracies

Religion and politics can work together if in the service of humanity where the respect of humanity derives from religious persuasion of whatever sort and the politicians are statesmen with a purpose for progressive change – much of this almost sounds Utopian where selfish interests of leaders in either religion or politics comes before service and allows for the propagation of false doctrines and corruption in public office.

It remains the goal of many voices speaking up for change and coming out onto the streets in protest all around the world for more accountable representation which provides for equality untainted by the influences of religion because as the aptly named Lord Justice Laws of the UK once said [1] in a judgement:

“We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.”

And of theocracies, he had this to say [1]:

"The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.”

In other words, a genuine democracy has to be devoid of religious or political ideological influence for the people of any state to be free. The need to abrogate the religious sway over politics has only become more urgent.

Sources

[1] The case for State law over religious guidance – AkinBlog.NL

[2] Nigerian Ethnic Groups – Courtesy of Fairfield University

[3] Nigerian Linguistic Groups – Courtesy of Fairfield University

[4] Wealth distribution by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[5] Female literacy by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[6] Healthcare accessibility and distribution by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[7] John Danforth – Wikipedia

[8] Paul Brandeis Raushenbush: Rick Santorum's Political and Biblical Mistake – Huffington Post

Other references

Nigeria – Wikipedia

Perry-Castañeda Library - Map Collection – Nigeria – University of Texas at Austin

Federal Republic of Nigeria - "The Oil-Rich Cinderella State That Still Hasn't Quite Made It To The Ball" Julia Macina

Nigeria – A Divided Nation – BBC

CIA – World FactBook on Nigeria

Nigeria: We're Tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan

Two years of hopelessness

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan to the position of the Executive President of Nigeria. Whilst it was only in the acting capacity until Umaru Yar’Adua died in May of 2010, he was effectively in control and evidently his boss was probably comatose and thereby too incapacitated to have a voice in government.

In the first few months, the man appeared to have promise and ability, if not the resolve to bring the change necessary to take Nigeria forward, however, since he received a mandate of his own from the people regardless of the documented irregularities, he has become a glaring disappointment leading Nigeria into even more perilous times.

There are times when many would prefer the President was struck dumb than to be found uttering words that belie a sense resignation and possibly cluelessness as to why he is in office.

We are tired indeed

In a speech given [1] at the commissioning of a cement plant belonging to Nigeria’s foremost billionaire, he once again made some statements that should leave many worried about the rudderless heading of the Nigerian ship of state.

“Story about commissioning is what Nigerians want to hear; Nigerians are tired of hearing that there is bomb explosion in Maiduguri or Kano or Bayelsa states. Yes, we have security challenges in the country. We have challenges in terms of infrastructure but we are totally committed individually and collectively to getting the country out of this situation. Our children want a better Nigeria than this.”

“Our greatest problem as a country is the rate of unemployment. If anybody can come up with policy and programmes that will create jobs, definitely, government will embrace that person and will continue to encourage that person.”

Indeed, the stories we want to hear are of great strides in industrial progress but we cannot just wish away the serious security issues that have engulfed the country over the last 18 months.

An enabling environment

We need to have confidence in the fact that the government is up to the task of providing not just security but an enabling environment for growth and development to deal with the as it were greatest problem that the President has identified.

In terms of the enabling environment for business, it would appear security has raced up to the top of the list with reports of Boko Haram attacks hurting business [2] and the business environment. This has to become a priority such that we cannot afford to have terrorist kingpins escaping police custody for weeks.

Down in the South after the manifestly atrocious amnesty programme that appeared to appease terrorism and militancy presaging a failed state and communities of anarchy, MEND returned to their skilled expertise of attacking oil infrastructure – for a President who is primarily from that area, it is shame that this menace has resurrected to wreak havoc again.

We also are fed up of government boasts of annihilating the terrorist threat or the extra-judicial process of killing suspects long before it has been proven that they are terrorists or where we have not begun to tackle the fundamental issues feeding the terrorist escalation.

Infrastructure issues

Beyond security, the government has to address the matters of basic infrastructure starting with electrical power which for business is a great recurrent expenditure because each business has to generate their own electricity and most depend on fuel. The power generation issue has consumed billions of dollars with nothing to show for it but more promises.

The national grid to support power generation needs to be ungraded and we need to exploit power generation sources beyond water and oil to gas, wind and solar options – w do not have enough food security to go the way of biofuels yet.

Then road and rail transport need to be developed, the gathering yesterday was intimated of the need to work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Sagamu-Benin-Ore Expressway, beyond that, the North is still the bread basket for Nigerian perishable foods – the links with those centres of agriculture need to be improved upon.

Local government

Next is the matter of education, health and local government development, most of the deprived areas in Nigeria are more the evidence of failings at state and local government levels of representation, things need to change.

There are many people with policies, programmes and ideas for job creation in Nigeria, in fact, the country is awash with talent and ability but lacking in opportunity.

Endemic corruption

The things that stifle opportunity in Nigeria are corruption and the lack of ease of doing business in Nigeria. Only today we learnt that the fuel subsidy issue might well be the fence for a massive fraud [3] coming to $12.6 billion in 2011 and this more by government agencies than by the faceless cabal that was the taking all the opprobrium until the Occupy Nigeria protests forced a probe into the scheme.

Nigerians are not confident heads will roll or the purveyors of this corrupt enterprise who seem to be in cahoots with the leadership that they are untouchable will ever be brought to book.

From 2010 to 2011 Nigeria fell in the Corruption Perceptions Index from 134 [4] to 143 [5], sadly, the government has not been seen to be ready, willing or able to tackle corruption. The escalation of the cost of fuel subsidy in 2011 has been attributed to funding of the electioneering campaign [6] of the ruling party in 2011 and it hardly paints the President in any good light but in the ranks of rotten plundering leaders of Nigeria who have gone before.

Hostile business environment

In the rankings of the ease of doing business [7] published by the World Bank Group, Nigeria stands at 133 out of 183 surveyed countries and ranks at 176 and 180 respectively for Getting Electricity and Registering Property – these, the President should already know these are the core impediments to business growth and consequently exacerbate the unemployment numbers – it is no rocket science at all.

No one is asking the President to create jobs but there is a lot he can do to create enabling environments for employment, development and growth with policies, laws and acts that address security, infrastructure, corruption and governance.

After two years in office, Nigerians are tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan; he should start acting like the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sources

[1] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: We're Tired of Bombings - Jonathan

[2] Boko Haram attacks in Nigerian hurting business | The London Evening Post

[3] Nigeria Probes Possible Fraud Over $12.6 Billion Subsidies - Businessweek

[4] Corruption Perceptions Index 2010

[5] Corruption Perceptions Index 2011

[6] Nigeria: Power outage - FT.com

[7] Ranking of economies - Doing Business - World Bank Group

Other references

Nigeria: Why #OccupyNigeria should matter to all

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Health Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Literacy Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]

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.

Editorial: Taking Medicine and Talking Miracles

It is an outrage!

There are very few occasions that I am so utterly incensed about some situation and those are usually with reference to child sex abuse, injustice to women, homophobia and religious abuse.

To varying degrees, I could either submit a whole range of opinions on Twitter or in the heat of the moment craft a blog on the matter.

This morning I overheard on SkyNews that some churches had been advising people with apparently incurable and sometimes terminal illnesses especially those infected with HIV to come off their pills because they had been healed.

I believe in miracles

In the interest of full disclosure, I was brought up a High-Church Anglican but converted to Evangelical Pentecostalism almost 3 decades ago. Within this setting we have a whole range of belief systems that allow for supernatural intervention in natural circumstances in matters of prayer, confidence and miracles.

However, I subscribe to that leaning that engages the intellect fully, demands deep religious scholarship and mixes all the vicissitudes of faith with an abundance of reason.

I am wont to using a very basic analogy on the matter of the interaction of medicine and miracles. If you need A wheelchair and after prayer you cannot verifiably discard of THE wheelchair, you still need THAT wheelchair. In essence, you cannot pretend you can walk if you cannot walk.

When it comes to the miraculous healing by reason of faith and all the ceremony that could include the laying on of hands and other obscure activities beyond the understanding of outsiders, some things are self-evident.

The use of medical opinions

Before the person seeks healing, that person would probably have obtained a medical opinion, will most likely have a confirmed diagnosis and usually have begun a treatment regime.

The desire for healing is not an alien thing to human-beings; people need succour, respite, palliation and possibly cures for their illnesses – some of these can be achieved through medicine over a period of time, if medical science offers that prospect or the good grace of a miracle may offer either accelerated improvements in welfare or a sudden change for the better.

The most important thing to know is that a medical opinion remains the certified opinion until a new medical opinion is sought signifying a change for either the better or the worse accompanied with the particular instructions of the medical expert, the condition is technical still the condition before the "miracle".

Medical science must validate miracles

The faith healer, no matter how sensational, amazing, wondrous or even magical the performance that suggests a person has been healed is NOT a medical expert and as such because the same cannot offer certified confirmation of changes to the physiology and state of health of the person supposed healed – the faith healer MUST NEVER assume the role of medical expert and offer medical advice like stopping the usage of medication.

The faith healer can trust that a person is healed, the person may feel in themselves some change either real or imagined but this all must be verified (to fulfil all righteousness) inconvertibly by the medical profession even with the option of a second and third opinion for the certainty and assuredness of the supposed miraculous healing work.

Unconscionable religious irresponsibility

In terms of the news story - Church Tells HIV Patients To Stop Treatment [1], the church after having engaged in their esoteric activities assumed the role of a medical expert service advising those infected with HIV that they had been healed and urging them to stop using their medication.

The story suggests that six such persons who presumably had received healing had needlessly in my view died because the church in a callous, irresponsible, outrageous and reprehensible egregious extension of influence overstepped its remit as an unregulated religious organisation to become an illegal laboratory for guinea-pigs of snake-oil miracle healings.

The law must act

The church failed woefully in its duty of care to its flock and the health of those concerned to ensure that those who they considered healed should first sign-off with medical advice that allows for such people to then come off their medication.

In an ideal world, such an organisation should be proscribed forthwith and the cop-out that they do not heal but God heals cannot hold water if they as intermediaries between God and man portend to speak in God’s name when projecting themselves as a faith healing organisation and then shirk from responsibility when faced with scrutiny for practices that are at best fraudulent and plain deceptive or murderous at worst by reason of the fact that people had placed their lives in the trust of leaders of those churches.

Miracle happen, medicine works

Now, there are records of people who have obtained amazing miracles in this modern age but they all have medical proof of the changes and the medical advice that allows them to discontinue medication because the need for such had been miraculously removed.

On the matter of medicine and miracles, medicine is NOT evil, it is NOT witchcraft and it serves a purpose in the management of illness. Many people of faith have combined their beliefs and medicine to have accelerated results from the use of medical science.

There are amazing advances in medical science that allow for people with HIV to live productive lives with the virus in the blood diminished to undetectable levels, there is no particular reason not to use medical science and religious beliefs in the finding solutions to illness.

Bunkum!

Reading the detail of the news story, the said pastor suggested persistence of diarrhoea and vomiting show the virus is leaving the body – Bunkum! That is probably evidence that the condition of the person is rapidly deteriorating and such a one is in need of immediate medical attention.

I will to God there was a law of the land to bring those people to book and punish them severely for being quacks, charlatans and dishonestly assuming roles of a qualified medical practice.

These people give Christianity a bad name, pervert the gospel for the spectacular and they are sepulchres for the macabre masquerading as churches – their cultist activities must for all that is good, safe and tolerable in modern society be shutdown with immediate effect.

Sources

[1] HIV Deaths: Church Tells Patients To Give Up HIV Drugs After Claiming They Were 'Healed' | UK News | Sky News

Nigeria: The NEXT awards expose an unconscionable kakistocracy

Our pride

It is always heartening to read of Nigerians winning awards or receiving international recognition for their work most especially if they are resident in Nigeria.

At the best of times, it is not the easiest country to set up business in and going from the experience of some, it is even harder to be a newspaper and a quality newspaper at that.

A few weeks ago, we were informed that the NEXT newspaper will no more appear in print, many lamented the prospect whilst opining about the course that newspaper charted that made it a pariah to advertising agencies thereby starving it of essential revenue to thrive.

NEXT was the best

This blog is not being written as an exegesis to those failings; those issues are for others to ponder. However, accolades have been raining on the newspaper like Noah’s flood; last week, Dele Olojede the founder won [1] the 4^th John P. McNulty Prize and the citation read “in recognition of his ground breaking work to deliver unbiased information to the Nigerian public, demand government transparency and advance journalistic standards in the country.”

On Tuesday, at the FAIR [2] (Forum for African Investigative Reporters) African Investigative Journalism Awards in Johannesburg, South Africa, NEXT reporters Peter Nkanga and Idris Akinbajo emerged as African Investigative Reporters of the Year for their joint work, entitled “Last Minutes Oil Deal that Cost Nigeria Dear” whilst the editor Musikilu Mojeed carted away the Courage Award.

Courage in the abyss

It is important to recount the citations that accompany these awards; in the case of the reporters, “The report is one of the six-part ground-breaking series which catalogued a courageous journey into our heart of darkness, the oil industry, as we investigate brazen attempts by our senior officials, including petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to corner the oil industry for themselves, openly demanding bribes, and using cronies and fronts to grab oil blocs in secretive deals.”

Having compiled their report, it was left to the editor to weigh the consequences of the age-old saying, “publish and be damned,” he courageously published the report and for that he “was honoured for demonstrating rare courage and providing the right kind of leadership to get the stories published in spite of high-level pressures, police harassment, attempted monetary inducement and threats to his life.”

They never cared for corruption

From the analysis that followed awarding these prizes to the now eminent personnel of NEXT, it was suggested that in any other country less corrupt and less tolerant of malfeasance, prebendalism or neopatrimonialism, the minister will not only have lost her job in disgrace, she would duly have lost her freedom too, having to go to jail.

Sadly, it is Nigeria where with all the incontrovertible facts and evidence presented to all that matter, the President with his transformational agenda re-nominated the minister for her old position after the elections and the Nigerian Senate being derelict, irresponsible and nonchalant about these rotten allegations barely questioned her but ratified her appointment thereby granting a seal of approval to a corrupt enterprise that reeked to the high heavens.

The award corroborates the reports

Now, there is no reason for FAIR to wade into the political quagmire of Nigeria and expose the sows with their snouts deep in the trough of corruption, they could easily have adopted other less politically inflammatory pieces to grant their award.

Each entry would have been judged on more than its merits for good reporting but would have been reviewed against the kinds of pressures militating against such activity being exposed to public knowledge.

It automatically lends a lie to the idea that everything that constitutes this government we now have in Nigeria with the majority PDP ruling party have a desire to tackle corruption at any level. They instigate, promote, espouse and embrace corruption as their modus operandi suborning as many as can be bought to that same cause.

They are a corrupt lot

Where the President might have had the backbone to stem the tide at the top, he acquiesced and celebrated the epitome of corruption as the lifeblood of his regime and in swearing-in the minister gave license to impunity, the minister probably continuing from where she left off knowing nothing will come of the investigations of the puny inconsequential reporters of the moribund NEXT newspaper stable.

With this award, one will hope the whole Corrupted Industrial Complex (CIC) that makes up the totality of the Federal Government of Nigeria is duly exposed to the world and our foreign partners that they have no consideration for good governance, probity or transparency and sadly, Nigerians thinking they have a democracy are in fact, caught in the merciless iron grip of a heartless and unconscionable kakistocracy – a government by the worst of men.

For the salvation of Nigeria – woe betide them all.

Sources

[1] 234Next.com | Olojede wins John P. McNulty Prize

[2] 234Next.com | NEXT editor, two reporters win African investigative journalism awards

[3] 234Next.com | Last minute oil deals that cost Nigeria dear

Editorial: Nigerian Government Dishonesty About Fuel Subsidy

The Fuel Subsidy Debate

The Nigerian Social Media space has been considering the possibility of Nigerians waking up from their docility and acceptance of everything thrown at them by their indifferent government to the inspiration of their own Arab Spring early next year.

This has been predicated by the decision of the government to remove subsidies from Premium Motor Spirit what we generally call fuel subsidy early next year.

The chatter has really been confounded by the situation where over decades there have been threats and salami-sliced implementations of the removal but no one is particularly sure of how much that subsidy really is, that it has become some imaginary slush fund of ready cash that the government suggests it will plough back into the economy taking cognisance of the effects such a removal might have on the working classes.

The Truth About Our Government

Sadly, the government has never really had a track record of ploughing oil profits back into the pockets of Nigerians except in the mid-70s after which plunder and squander has been the tack of those in leadership with little consideration of the bottom-line and particular welfare of the generality of the people – there are points for argument in the previous statement but little to dispute in terms of results.

Fundamentally, the fuel subsidy is literally the substrate of the totality of the Nigerian economy, it will touch on every aspect of life in relation to prices for food, goods, transport and every other service apart from the inflationary pressures it will present, but those issues are best left to central bankers and economists whilst one deals with a few other brass tacks.

Plans or Fables?

As a producer of petroleum products, it is bordering on the atrocious that Nigeria imports about 85% of its refined fuel needs because its existing four refineries are poorly managed and are lacking in serious productive capacity which means that the federal government subsidies imported fuel to the tune of $4 billion annually. [TransparencyNG]

Commonsense will suggest that the long-term goal of the government will be to facilitate, encourage or sponsor raising our refined fuel capacity to levels that will ensure that the subsidy expended in imports is radically reduced, at least that is what informed the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the China State Construction Engineering Corporation in May last year to build refineries in Lagos, Kebbi and Bayelsa States at the cost of $23 billion. [TransparencyNG][China in Africa][BBC News]

Whilst it is interesting to note the activity of the Chinese in building refineries in Ghana, Niger and Nigeria, what made interesting news a few months ago was the idea that Niger might get way ahead of Nigeria in commissioning its own refineries and end up exporting refined fuel to Nigeria. [All Africa]

How Much Is The Subsidy?

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]

This amazing discrepancy should have heads rolling faster than when the Bastille movement chopped off heads in the French revolution, but none such will happen because the matter of responsibility leading on to accountability is just absent in Nigerian governance.

As an aside, the real big cost of governance sits within the profligate nature of our Federal Government, the abuse of security votes at state government level and the exorbitance of our legislature that consumes over 25% of our Federal Government overheads without essentially being a productive sector of our economy.

Indonesia Caught in Denials

Much as the idea of building more refining capacity in Nigeria does not seem to appeal to those resolute in finding another largesse to nudge their greedy snouts into, what adds insult to injury in spite of the now seemingly white elephant plans to build refineries in Nigeria is the news that Nigeria plans to invest Rp 24 trillion (US$2.68 billion) in Indonesia to build three refineries. [Jakarta Post]

The Nigerian Government has gone to great lengths to deny this report, but one has to ask why Indonesia will dream up such a scheme if there were no iota of truth in the same. The Nigerian Government unfortunately for all its protestations has a Matilda Complex about it, its propensity for denying fact and defending lies is legendary especially with the instrument of Social Media personnel it has employed for propaganda, obfuscation, distraction and alienation. [All Africa][AkinBlog]

Our Insurrection In Planning

It has become known that any opposition to the government is quickly construed as unpatriotic whilst the government has perfected a complacency of siege mentality proffering more excuse than reason for any action or inaction they have found themselves in.

At the end of the day, the reasonable thing about fuel subsidy is for Nigeria to build and sustain its refining capacity by whatever means encourages that trajectory and it is only after that is put in place that the desire to remove the fuel subsidy can be justified.

Nigerians have two and a half long months to put everything in place to start off their justifiable insurrection against a moribund, ineffective government in détente and inertia, for once, let us – Arise, O Compatriots and heed a call for a democracy that is fair, just, honest and true.