Soul winner

Opinion: If I were President Buhari…

 

President Muhammadu Buhari

 

Imagine having an excellent idea. Also imagine how helpful this idea could be, not only to yourself but to an extended number of friends and relations.
Imagine too, how unfortunate it would be, if one of those anticipated beneficiaries should be behind a plot to thwart this good intention.
Nothing can be frustrating than an unappreciated genuine sacrifice. But your best friend, they say could be your worst enemy. When President Muhammadu Buhari resumed duty in Aso Rock as the fourth democratically elected leader of Nigeria since 1999, he left no one in doubt about his love and belief in the capacity of civil servants especially the bureaucrats to deliver, at least, as key assistants in the execution of government policies and programmes.
For about three months, President Buhari kept Nigerians in suspense. He ran the government without a cabinet, (the Federal Executive Council). While that lasted, President Buhari explained that but for the country’s constitution, he would work without ministers and operate with civil servants who remained the engine for the implementation of government programmes.
As far as the President was concerned, political appointees, especially those who occupied the positions of ministers were noise makers.
“It is what we know-and which we learnt from the western system. The civil service provides the continuity, the technocrat. And in any case, they are those that do most of the work. The ministers are there, I think to make a lot of noise,” he told a foreign television station last year.
During the period, President Buhari received weekly briefs from Federal Permanent Secretaries and other heads of parastatals and agencies on the true position of state affairs, so he could set in motion the direction of his government.
They had a field day. Once that was over, he first sacked not less than 17 permanent secretaries and appointed a new Head of Service for the Federation Mrs. Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita.
This action indeed sent an early signal that something was wrong.

The President may have gotten inkling that these set of technocrats he had so praised openly could be the major problem of his government.
If not checked, maybe, they could stand in the way of his new agenda of purging the Nigerian system of its cancerous corruption. Unfortunately, this has played out with the recent revelation that, yet to be identified persons in the civil service aided the padding up of the 2016 Appropriation Bill currently before the National Assembly for consideration and passage into law.
Like the President himself, many Nigerians were astonished by the development which also generated friction between the legislature and the executive.
At some point, the Senate had even accused the presidency of being responsible for a perceived disappearance of the appropriation bill.
The other time, news filtered into the air that President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Senate Matters Ita Inang had smuggled in a different version of the budget from the one presented to the joint session of the National Assembly in December 2015.
Soon after, the presidency uncovered what it described as systematic corrupt practices by top government officials who assisted in the preparation of the appropriation bill.
There are indications that the Federal Government had also engaged a few consultants from the private sector to join these officers. Whether they collaborated in this sharp practice is a subject for another day.
In the near past, what Nigerians knew that budget padding was a system where top government officials including even cabinet ministers connived with members of the National Assembly (NASS) to inject certain figures into the budget with the hope of pulling out these funds during implementation.
Often times, this was done during the budget defence by the respective Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government. Like I said, this was done with the inputs of the lawmakers.
But this time, the padding was done outside of the NASS as being claimed even without the knowledge of ministers. Obviously, this is the more reason why the issue generated the controversy too.

The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole had to come publicly to disown his ministry’s budget claiming that it was not what was initially submitted.
But, the only known scapegoat from this crisis at the moment is the sacked Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation Yahaya Gusau. He is believed to have failed to effectively deliver on his duties.
Agreed that it may not be possible for the President to peruse the voluminous financial document to scrutinise what has been imputed.
The question is that what specific role did the Minister of Budget, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma play in this case? He has since been given a clean bill of health by the President himself.
Notwithstanding this drama, it is critical to understand that a serious crime has been committed against the Nigerian state and its people. For me, this is not less than a treasonable felony, in this case, “a group of persons not necessarily planning to overthrow the government” but to undo government.
There is a wider conspiracy to this whole thing, one that was designed to sabotage the new government which is perceived to be coming with a bang of effective force to rubbish the works of the past and present itself as a saint.
If I were the President, with this revelation I would work to ensure that Nigerians begin to see the country above party lines. Presently, it is about we and them but not about the project Nigeria.
This is why President Buhari needs to act fast and in fact, unmask the faces of those behind this dastardly act of budget padding which sadly is tailored to further worsen the present poor economic situation faced by the country.
Nigerians need to know them. The threat to punish them is not enough.

Man utdfc XI vs Arsenal:

Devaluation not only option to resolve Nigeria’s economic woes – Expert

Managing Director of Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, has said that not only devaluation; but a cocktail of policies amongst others are some of the alternative options to solving Nigeria’s economic crises.
Chukwu says these include exchange rate adjustment, creating windows of investment for long-term funds through concessioning of commercially viable infrastructure, full deregulation of the downstream petroleum industry and stimulating investment in sectors where Nigeria has comparative advantage, as well as investing heavily in social infrastructure such as health, education and security.
According to Chukwu, a flexible exchange rate is like a silver bullet that can be effective for both demand management and supply expansion.
“When the price of a currency is adjusted to reflect the earnings capacity, the citizens’ capacity to consume imported goods is automatically reset at a lower level as they can no longer afford many of the non essential imported items. Irrespective of the so called inelastic demand of Nigerians for imported goods, once the currency is devalued and their naira income is not adjusted in the same ratio, citizens will reorder their priorities and eliminate items that they can no longer afford,” he affirmed.

Chukwu noted in many instances, citizens will look for local alternatives to the imported items and shift their patronage to such local substitutes.
“The increase in demand for the local substitute will spur increase in production and possible improvement in quality. With improved quality and lower export cost, Traders may consider exporting such improved local products to neighboring African countries and may be from there to Europe, Asia, America and other parts of the World,” he added.

He says for emphasis, we had a proof of concept of this model in the 1980s during the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) when made in Aba shoes, bags and other leather wears became export commodities to Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Gabon, Cameron Congo Democratic Republic and others.
On concessioning of infrastructure, he noted the indication of the Federal Government to borrow about $4.5 billion from the international market to fund the budget deficit, which is basically going into infrastructure development.
Nigerian authorities had said that they have already started exploratory talks with African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank for concessionary budget loans of $3.5 billion.
“While we support these efforts, we are convinced that the government does not and will not have the financial resources to fund the infrastructure gap in the country,” Chukuwu noted.

FCT isn't that glamorous. See the other side of Abuja

Breaking the Limit of Poverty - Stanley Chuck

Based on the Message of Bishop David Abioye

Stanley Chuck

Be reminded of the covenant; it is the highest level of relationship to keep. Covenant mandates you to keep to your word; promises may fail, but a covenant does not; circumstances may cause a promise to break, but God is not a covenant breaker.

            God’s prosperity is superior to man’s prosperity; God’s blessing is not limited like man’s, and it is sorrow-free. We read in the scripture that, the blessing of the Lord makes one rich, And He adds no sorrow with it – Proverbs 10:22.

            I like you to know that this is important because we have to know the source of true prosperity. Man can make you rich but not richer than himself; man’s blessing is limited but God’s is endless and sorrow-free.

            Poverty limits people, even socially. There is a class you cannot access if you are poor, no matter how anointed you are. The greatest freedom a man can attend is economic freedom; the black nations have no vote at the UN because of economic backwardness. No man ever has undivided respect in his home without first, gaining financial freedom. You need to be economically strong to determine where to live. I do not say these things to you to make you feel bad; I tell you raw facts and reality.

            Now to break the limit of poverty, you must begin with vision. God’s blessing to man is not always God-determined; it is vision-determined. It is vision that determines the measure of your prosperity; God makes provision but vision determines the allocation; God’s provision is provided for all, but a man’s vision determines his allocation; God is inexhaustible and unlimited but it is the vision of a man that limits the man.

            A few scripture reference will tell you how it is you that determines your provision. Heaven belongs to God but he has given man the heart to possess – He says to Abram, Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are – northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see, I give to you and your descendants forever. Genesis 13:14-15. Now I like you to know that you cannot go ahead until you see ahead; vision is a motivator; what you can’t see, you can’t pursue. In verse 15, God will not give you everything he has; he only gives you what you can see from all he has, so your journey into greatness begins with your vision. Not often what you studied in school that determines where you are but what you can see. Your salary is not the end of your vision; God’s blessing is on daily basis; it says: give us this day our daily bread. Though a man’s salary is the reward of his labour, but God’s blessing is a daily favour.

            God said to Jeremiah, you have seen well. Be conscious of the fact that God is always excited by your vision; your vision is your meeting point with God; His word is delayed by your vision; he starts working with your vision. There is always a better place than where you are; vision is seeing beyond the immediate. Thank God for where you are but see beyond the immediate; see beyond your salary; you are limiting yourself by settling with the status quo.

            When you lack vision, you always settle with and worry about the unimportant issues of life. Your car engine knocks down, and your heart knocks down as well because you are thinking of where to get the money to fix it. We are restless and worry about most things in life because we always do not see ahead of us. Only what you see is what God will give you.

            Vision motivates superiority mentality; begin to imagine a future in prosperity; it is a process of bringing tomorrow into reality. With vision, your actuality is born because; it is with your mentality, another word for vision that determines your actuality.

            Poverty is a spirit and what it does is to hold down the mentality of its victims; it makes one think inferior; makes you think like a beggar and borrower. This spirit has affected the black man of our time. The spirit of poverty is the spirit of inferiority; the spirit of prosperity is the spirit of superiority. That was the spirit that worked in Abraham, that when king Melchezedek offered him gifts, he refused.

            The spirit of poverty always makes you think of what to get and not what to give; whom to get from and not whom to give.