Thanks for engaging me in a debate. Your raised a good point about reminding ourselves of what it is we’re fighting.
GEJ has my vote not because I belief he has solved everyone of our problems but I belief he has put us on a path towards solving many of them, tomorrow we will get to decide between that and the promise of GMB. But I believe leaders have the misfortune of not being in a position to ripe the blessings of what they did and some have the luck of receiving Glory for the works of others, but leadership isn’t in a vacuum, the last four years can not be removed from the last 30 years. Series of events will always bring us to the position we are in.
For lack of sufficient time, I will quickly address some of of your concerns that stood out. But first draw your attention to the intention behind my article. This election cycle, there has been especially on social media, a determined effort to serve the agenda that GEJ has spent 5 years doing nothing; and GMB has the magic wand to in the next four years fix everyone of our problems this simply is not true. Opponents of GEJ can disagree on his achievements, you can make the argument we didn’t get value for money or even argue, his order of priority wasn’t right but you can’t deny what the man achieved. You raised two points on why he used $60 million to build a steal mill and why he built universities instead of attending to the present ones, but went ahead to make the point that Buhari didn’t build a railway because he prioritised other sectors above the railway, I’m left confused here, so GEJ can’t make the choice to prioritise other needs above others but GMB can. Might I point out that in the case of GMB not building the lagos Metroline, it was not as if he refused to approve the contract and used the money for something else. What he did was cancel a contract which had already been paid and paid a further fine after the cancellation, making Nigeria loose money. Don’t you think a better choice would have been to restructure the project in such a way that it will be downsized to cover the amount already paid and at least allow certain areas have the metro line instead of simply loosing money.
Every leader will encounter the situation of diverse problems, limited funds and running time; and in a a winner takes all democracy an opposition more worried about the next election than governance; How leaders elect to spend their time and funds are priorities and every few years we get to vote them out if we disagree with the priorities they set for themselves.
I think institutions need to fight corruption, scaring away people from the country and indiscriminately sentencing people to Jail doesn’t solve the problem. To address Corruption in an holistic manner you need to first identify the key areas of corruption in public service and bring lasting solutions to ensure those areas are blocked. One of which is the issue of Ghost workers through the diligent implementation IPPIS programme; 160 Billion Nigeria has been saved by this programme. Agencies enrolled into the IPPIS platform can no longer employ ghost workers nor can workers draw salary from more than one ministry or agency, who ever becomes President after GEJ will never have to worry about the issue of ghost workers again. Another is the area of government revenue; with the Single treasury account, heads of agencies can no longer touch government revenue at point of collection, reporting what they like. Again, this is one area of corruption no other President can worry about. There are other areas of corruption, through overinflated government contracts and heads of agencies misappropriating budget sub-heads, that haven’t been addressed by the GEJ administration yet but plans are under way for a central procurement platform to ensure savings. However, GMB hasn’t brought up specific solutions to them. You mentioned that giving the EFCC and ICPC power of attorney doesn’t help. If you think allowing them the independence to decide who to try in court without political interference is not a good thing, then I simply disagree with your view on that. You talked about the issue of Farouk Lawan, I hope you know his case is still in court and it was that new powers of the EFCC that you think is useless that allowed us get to this point.
On the issue of the Missing NNPC money; no money has ever been missing. I will recommend you read the Ex Gov’s letter on the issue again, you will find the issues he raised where around misappropriation and the legal authority NNPC has to spend monies at source, set up subsidiaries and some Joint Venture agreements that pegged the value of crude at certain prices resulting in a situation where the FG didn’t receive an uptick in revenue when oil prices went up. These Joint ventures dated back to the Abacha regime. The Issue was hijacked and made into another case of Jonathan stealing, disallowing us to debate and interrogate the real issues the Governor was raising; up until today the debate is still not being had.
Every year about above 1 Million Nigerians right Jamb examinations seeking admissions into University; Nigerian Higher institutions however can only admit collectively 450,000 students each year. So, Nigeria higher education institutions have both a quality and quantity issue. By establishing new Federal universities GEJ has set us on a path towards addressing the quantity issues. With regards the quality issue, this is a topic where there has been insufficient debate this election cycle. But it is worthy to note that 65B Naira has been left laying un-accessed by universities at TETFUND to fix the quality issue. This money is set aside for existing universities to rehabilitate structures. An honest debate about fixing the quality of Nigerian Higher institutions will include the fact that students pay little to no fees resulting in a massive revenue shortfall that government can not meet; this fact ASUU has refused to accept; I might point out that Fashola, an APC superstar believes in this point, reason why he increased LASU fees twice during his tenure. ASUU doesn’t want fees to be increased so more revenues will come to Universities to address the state of their infrastructure, 65B apportioned from the education tax has not been accessed by the universities to help in solving the Problem.
An argument the APC keeps making is the economy is in decline; again this is simply not true; the government only creates an enabling business environment; businesses which are the drivers of the economy and main employers of labour, judge the environment and climate created by government, they do this while projecting what the future might look like and if they feel in their opinion there is potential for growth they expand their activities and make investments; this is basic business practise and how economies work; if businesses feel there isn’t potential for growth they hold onto to their asset, downsize or move to other countries that they think will provide a greater return on investment. Giving an overview of private sector investment is simply to provide evidence for this basic business theory.
Military readiness is in question here because the Niger Delta Militancy you claim was handled was actually handled through a political solution; recall the Amnesty programme.
You speak of borrowing as if it is a bad in it’s entirety, in business we’re thought never to invest a company without a bit of debt because it shows the future is not being cared for; what you should preach instead is the best application of debt to ensure maximum return on investment for the country. Again Fashola is financing his railway project through debt, many APC states continue to access the bond market to finance projects which in their opinion are necessary and urgent.
When stella Odua started remodelling airports, the opposition asked why she is using BASA funds, then it was, the work is being done but at a substandard level and she is awarding contracts to herself. Now you question if the work is being done at all. Why evidence pf this achievement will be to simply present the first achievement of Goodluck you mentioned.
2003 or any year before and after is in question because we didn’t just wake up today and all these problems appeared, neither did Goodluck come to demolish schools, bomb away power plants, destroy tarred roads or introduce corruption into the system. All our problems are a result of collective inaction that pre-dated the Jonathan administration. Asking and identifying the people responsible will ensure we never allow them access to positions of leadership again.
The privatisation was to enable Private sector investment to lead the growth in the sector.
Since then we have gone from 2,300 Megawatts of active generation capacity to about 3,500. We have gone from an Installed generating capacity of about 4,000 to about 5,800 as of yesterday.
The difference between active capacity and installed is occasioned by pipeline vandalism, Gas Shortage and Transmission capacity. I mentioned steps Government is taking to address those issues.
The decades old problem of Gas availability is being addressed. Tariffs have been adjusted to ensure distribution companies generate enough revenue to drive the investment in the sector. The Gas prices have also been adjusted. The CBN has given out loans to power generation companies to off set their gas liabilities at 3% interest. This was done to encourage gas supplies to keep the pipes open and ensure banks continue to offer credit to the GenCO's. The GenCO's continue to receive support from the CBN through a New intervention to address critical issues in that sector. Over 100 billion has been accessed so far.
The NSA is now set to deploy Electronic surveillance systems to protect Gas and Petroleum pipelines from the daily acts of vandalism. This singular act has continued to ensure Nigeria is not generating at installed capacity.
It takes anything between 2-4 years to build a power plant; Depending on it’s size.
In the next 2-3 years many of such power plants will come on stream. One will hope by then efforts to ensure gas availability, improved evacuation rates (transmission capability) and protection of pipelines will ensure that power plants go from installed to active pretty quickly.
With regards the savings issue. We all know hoe GEJ and NOI kept calling for savings through Excess crude and Sovereign wealth fund but Governors refused (Including APC governors). They even sued the FG to court.
Economist will probably agree with me when I say the Naira weaken is a significant opportunity.
This was my reply to a frnd yesterday who said our own economy is in decline and raised the issue of Naira devaluation.
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But our growth rate is positive. There is no data i can find to support the narrative of decline.
Even the crash of the currency is a blessing in disguise.
An opportunity for the country to engage in local production for consumption and exportation.
Since imported goods will be to expensive. And when we export it will be priced cheaply abroad.
you know China continues to fight to keep her currency artificially low so she can consume her goods and her exports will remain cheap And America is angry over the growing strength of the dollar. It's killing Jobs, coz exports are too expensive for other countries”
The President admitted his failure on Boko Haram. They initially misjudged the situation but that again goes to show the root in the system, the failure of the intelligence services to properly guide government. Since when the problem was fully diagnosed the military made great efforts to meet up. Special forces were trained and new hardware purchased. These things take time. As we speak some of the trainers are working with soldiers in the field in a continued effort to end Insurgency ones and for all. The Northeast fund of 84B Naira, safe schools initiative and the Presidential Initiative for the North east will all be quickly deployed in a massive rebuilding effort once relative security has been established in the region.
I had a productive debate with two friends over my article and they made the point that for them the choice is between the lesser of two evils; this point was made by the Economist in their endorsement of Buhari, so I suppose for me GEJ is my lesser of two evils and for you it’s GMB.
As you said I’m entitled to my view and you’re also but I think in this election cycle an opportunity was lost to have a serious debate about the direction of our country by holding absolutist views. While in truth is in our best interest to push the candidates to tell us the truth and ask tough and necessary questions of them; we failed in this responsibility as citizens, holding a winner takes all mentality and becoming over protective of the candidates instead of Nigeria.
Perhaps you and I after the election can get together and start a blog and ask questions of whomever we elect tomorrow as our leader.
I enjoyed our debate, I look forward to continuing after the elections; Nigeria needs the help of active citizens.
I hope both our readers remember Nigeria in their prayers tonight for peace after the election; for tomorrow is merely a coronation, God has already anointed.
