Singapore News Channel, Singapore News Network

President Muhammadu Buhari has followed up his telephone call to Anambra State Governor Willie Obiano with a condolence letter following what he described as “shocking and cowardly attack on worshippers” in St. Philips Catholic Church, Ozubulu, in Ekwusigo Local Government Area of the state on Sunday.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity Garba Shehu disclosed this in a statement yesterday.

“In the letter he signed and sent on Tuesday, the President said that “to attack and kill defenseless people while worshipping is the most heinous of all crimes. The nation is one at deploring this monstrous crime.

“Please convey to the families and friends of those killed, my condolences for this utterly dastardly crime. Please also convey my considerations and sympathies to the people of Ekwusigo local government area for this tragic attack,” the statement said.

In a similar letter of condolence to Alhaji Sule Lamido, the former Governor of Jigawa State, President Buhari said he was shocked to learn about the death of Hajiya Hadiza Sule Lamido, his daughter.

In the letter bearing his signature, the President requested the former Governor to “please convey to your family members, friends, friends and associates of the deceased my sympathies. May Almighty Allah forgive her and may He forgive us when our time comes.”

The Minister of A nformation, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has insisted that there can be no substitute for President Buhari.

Speaking to journalists in Abuja, the minister said though the president is being missed, he said the country has remained in steady hands.

Mohammed said: “There is no doubt that we miss the president but I think the government has been functioning very well.

“There can’t be a substitute for the president, no doubt but I don’t think it has gotten to any stage whereby we find the kind of acrimony, agitations that are coming up.”

“It is normal for anybody to be ill. When somebody is ill, there are certain things he cannot do, but we thank God that Mr. President is improving and he will come back very soon.

“The important thing is that government has been working. We have not missed one single federal executive council meeting since he left.

“Also, we have not missed one single national economic council meeting. Whatever needs to be done is being done because there are serious consultations between the Acting president and Mr. President and as such, I don’t see the hoopla about Mr. President being away.

Build A Maximum Security Prison In Sambisa Forest for Corrupt People, Magu tells FG

Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Mr Ibrahim Magu, has appealed to the Federal Government to build a maximum-security prison in Sambisa Forest specifically for Corrupt People. He said the reason for this action by the FG would be to express clearly that corrupt practices would not be tolerated in the land.

Speaking when he received the media team of the National Committee of Buhari Support Groups (NCBSG) on Monday in his office in Abuja, Mr Magu said further that if granted, it will serve as a special prison unit for corrupt people, which will totally isolate them and cut them off from their comfort zones.

He lamented that when kept in Kirikiri maximum prison in Lagos, corrupt people still go about their businesses as if nothing is amiss and continue to use their communication gadgets even when their actions are responsible for Nigeria’s current economic difficulties and battered global image. Nigerians, he said, are poorer than citizens of many nations of the world despite her enormous resources.

“The EFCC is leaving nothing to chance and we will make sure we continue to maintain a zero tolerance posture in relation to reducing and eliminating economic and financial crimes” Mr Magu added. He further stated, “even though I am aware of countless conspiracies against my person, I remain undeterred and committed to executing the mandate the President has given me”.

The team had gone to interview him for a documentary being packaged to celebrate the mid-term achievements of the Buhari-led administration. In his contribution to the subject, Mr Magu gave an insight into the beautiful work of his Commission with respect to ridding the nation completely of corruption and reported that the EFCC recorded 100 convictions between the beginning of the year and the first week of June 2017 in various courts across the country.

Speaking earlier on the subject of challenges being faced by the EFCC in the pursuit of its mandate, Mr Magu ascribed successes netted so far to the unmistaken political will and support of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, both of whom have never interfered with the work of the Commission. Nigeria, he opined, is lucky to have such committed leadership and he urged all Nigerians to give their maximum support to the administration in its quest to reposition Nigeria on the path of growth that benefits all and sundry including generations yet unborn.

A constitutional lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN),Mr. Femi Falana, has faulted the report that emanated from the Senate that 83 per cent of oil bocks are owned by the northerners, describing it as outdated and misleading.

It had been reported last week that the oil concessions referred to by the Senate belonged to indigenous operators, not foreign oil firms and was therefore not truly representative of the award of oil licences in the Niger Delta.

Falana said in a statement last night that 80 per cent of the oil blocks are owned by foreigners and not northerners, as the list published in the Senate contained only the names of those who were allocated oil blocks during the military era.

“In other words, the list did not contain the names of the other traders who have been allocated oil blocks by the ruling party since 1999. Equally missing from the list are the names of multinational companies, otherwise called “oil majors” which control and manage the lion share of the oil and gas industry,” he said.

Falana, who said he had never supported the policy of allocating the oil blocks owned exclusively by the Federal Government to selected individuals and foreign oil companies, however, noted that it was pertinent to point out that the list published was grossly misleading.

He said apart from Mobil there were about 17 other foreign oil companies, which are the major key players in the oil industry, while Nigerians were forced to operate in the marginal fields.

Falana said foreign companies own 80 per cent of the oil blocks, adding that they are completely in charge of the oil and gas industry.

“They produce the oil and gas, and declare the figures they like. They smile to the banks daily while Nigerians fight over the crumbs from the Master’s Table. In spite of the indictment by the National Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), some of the companies have continued to withhold billions of dollars from the Federation Account.

“The joint venture agreements between some oil producing countries and oil companies are in the ratio of  80/20 percent in favour of the owners of the oil. But in Nigeria it is 60/40 per cent in favour of the Federal Government of whatever is declared by the oil companies,” he explained.

He also noted that the disclosure in the Senate  coincided with the death of President Hugo Rafael Chavez of Venezuela who nationalised the oil industry which enabled his government to generate enough revenue to fund a comprehensive welfare programme for the  hitherto impoverished people of the Latin American country.

“But the enormous commonwealth of the Nigerian people have been cornered by a few rent collectors and other members of the parasitic ruling class.

A few of them who raked billions of dollars from the illegal sale of the oil blocks have openly confessed that they do not know what to do with the huge fund! Because such wealth has been privatised. Nigeria cannot, like Venezuela, meet the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015,” he added.

…..nigerianmonitor.com. …..

Without the North, Nigeria and Nigerians would be reduced to nonentities.

In 2005, Goldman Sachs Investment Bank forecast that Nigeria will be the 20th largest economy in the world by 2025 and the 12th largest by 2050; ahead of Italy, Canada and South Korea. Having identified Brazil, Russia, India and China as four emergent powerhouses of the world economy referred to as the BRICS; it included Nigeria among “the Next Eleven” countries of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam.

At the U.S.-Nigeria Trade and Investment Forum organised by the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation of the Americas (NIDOA) in Washington D.C. in 2012, President Barack Obama of the United States acknowledged Nigeria not only as a strategic centre of gravity in Africa; he went further to proclaim the country “the world’s next economic giant.” Early this year, with the rebasing of the country’s GDP, Nigeria emerged as the biggest economy in Africa, surpassing South Africa.

Manifest destiny

It is no secret that Nigeria is a country of great potentials, even if that potential is yet to be appreciably realised. One of the strengths of the country is its large population. Currently estimated at 170 million, Nigeria is the seventh largest country in the world. By 2050, Nigeria’s population is projected by the United Nations to reach 389 million, rivaling that of the United States at 403 million. By the end of the century, the U.N. projects that Nigeria’s population would be between 900 million and 1 billion, nearing that of China which would then be the second most populous country in the world after India.

Nigeria’s economic size is a blessing in disguise. It means the country will have a ready domestic market for its eventual industrial growth. It means it can envisage economies of scale not possible in smaller countries. Even now, Nigeria offers alluring returns for investors. Says Charles Robertson, Global Chief Economist at Renaissance Capital: “We know it’s not risk free, but look around the world and find another economy with 160 million people growing at 7 percent with such potential. It’s a struggle to find them.”

Countries go to war to acquire the kind of real estate that is Nigeria. This makes it all the more ludicrous that there are noises coming out of Southern Nigeria demanding that the country should be divided. The most ethnically jingoistic of these is the insistence that Nigeria would be better off without the North. It would appear that some Southern Nigerians have been intoxicated by oil. Since there is no oil in the North, they conclude that the North is no more than an albatross on the neck of the South and castigate it as a region defined by dependency.

This view is nothing short of idiotic. No serious-minded country relinquishes a region as rich and as resourceful as Northern Nigeria. Without the North, Nigeria’s much-vaunted potentials would vanish. Without the North, Nigeria would be nothing more than yet another balkanized and insignificant African country, or group of countries. Take the North out of the Nigerian equation and there can no longer be any black country in the world that can possibly attain the status of a major power in the world. Without the North, Nigeria and Nigerians would be reduced to nonentities.

Northern imperative

Nigerians have been blinded by oil. Because of oil, we have become unproductively mono-cultural in our economy. However, oil is hardly the only major resource we have. Although oil revenues have brought us a great deal of financial prosperity, at the same time it stunted the inexorable emergence of agro-based industries in Nigeria. The backbone of such promissory local industries is in Northern Nigeria.

The North is the breadbasket of Nigeria. A significant proportion of the food we eat down South comes from the North. The North occupies 70% of Nigeria’s land mass, giving it comparative advantage vis-à-vis the South in terms of agriculture, raw materials and livestock. A large chunk of the North is arable and supportive of year-round food production. Thanks largely to the North, there is no tropical agricultural crop known to man that cannot be grown in Nigeria. With a transition from subsistence to mechanized agriculture, Northern Nigeria alone can produce enough food to feed the whole of Africa.

Northern Nigeria is bigger than most African countries. Currently, Nigeria wastes a staggering 1.3 trillion naira on food imports; virtually one-third of the annual budget. But the North can produce all the food we need, thereby liberating valuable resources. Already, it is the North that feeds the South in Nigeria. Virtually all Southern food crops and livestock come from the North. Much of Nigeria’s water resources are also in the North. With the right policy mixes, the North will earn for Nigeria billions of dollars annually from agriculture.

Our Niger-Delta brothers should not get too carried away by their oil. If their oil is a national resource today, so will Northern agriculture and agro-allied industries be national resources tomorrow. Oil is a wasting asset. Short of new discoveries, Nigeria’s oil will expire within the next 50 years. However, Northern agriculture will never expire.

Northern resources

There is something else besides. There can be no doubt that there is oil in the North. It is only a matter of time before it is discovered. The geography and topography of the North and the discovery of oil in surrounding areas is a testament to this eventuality. Since there is oil in Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic, the chances are pretty good that Northern states like Bauchi, Borno, Sokoto and Niger will one day become oil-producing states.

Moreover, the North is rich in mineral resources; far richer than the South. There is gold in Zamfara; uranium in Taraba; tin-ore in Plateau; columbite in Nassarawa; iron ore in Kogi; gysium in Gombe and limestone in Sokoto among others. Hydroelectricity for the country is provided from Kainji Dam and Shiroro Gorge. There are game reserves in the North including Argungu, which make it a potential money-spinner for tourism, a possible Kenya in the making if we can get rid of the scourge of Boko Haram.

Southern Nigerians should stop underestimating Northern industry. Northerners created the ground-nut pyramids, cotton farms and tanneries of old. With visionary national and regional leadership, these will surely make a comeback. So also will the textile factories of Gusau, Kaduna and Kano. All the Southern bigotry about the North being predominantly Moslem is just nonsense. When you see what economic wonders Moslems are doing in places like Dubai, Oman, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, you will realise that Nigeria has a lot to learn from Moslems.

It should not be forgotten that by far the most enterprising Nigerian today is a Northerner from Kano. According to the most recent Forbes Billionaires list of March 2014, Aliko Dangote is now the 23rd richest man in the world with a net worth of $25 billion dollars. This is an amazing feat for an African and a Nigerian. Dangote is now richer than Alisher Usmanov; the richest man in Russia. He is also richer than Mukesh Ambani; India’s richest man. Dangote is all the more remarkable because he achieved this feat primarily through a route far less travelled by Nigerians: the hard, difficult grind of manufacturing.

The Northern problem is the Nigerian problem. It is the problem of bad leadership. Northern politicians and military leaders have been the bane of the North and of Nigeria. They have grown fat at the expense of the poor. They have deliberately kept the poor uneducated, preferring to feed them from the crumbs falling from their table. But as Boko Haram bites deeper, this too shall pass. A new generation of Northern leadership is emerging. An example of this is Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano who is, by all accounts, redeeming his first-term as Governor with the second-term.

Uneducated hogwash

All things considered, the boast of a Nigeria divorced from the North is balderdash. Nigeria cannot do without the North. We cannot divide Nigeria into 350 ethnic nation-states. Let Southerners stop fooling ourselves. Any attempt to abridge Nigeria because some Southern areas want to go it alone will be disastrous. Ethnic homogeneity is no panacea against internal conflict. Somalia is ethnically homogeneous. Nevertheless, it is a failed state. Southern Sudan only recently obtained independence from Sudan. Nevertheless, it is already embroiled in inter-ethnic conflict.

There can be no romantic Oduduwa Republic, unless we foolishly ignore the long history of Yoruba wars. Try to turn back the clock, and the Egba, the Ekiti, the Ijebu, the Ijesha and the Ilorin will start locking horns yet again. Even now, there are daggers drawn between the Ife and Modakeke in Osun. There can be no return to Biafra, unless we pretend that the differences between the Aguleri and the Umuleri in Anambra or that between the Ezza and the Ezillo in Ebonyi are fiction. The Igbo have never been united. Historically, they were organized into separate and autonomous republics. Biafra itself had problems with its ethnic minorities.

There can be no Republics of the Niger Delta. Are we then to divide the Efik from the Ibibio, the Ijaw from the Itsekiri; the Kalabari from the Ogoja; and the Ogoni from the Urhobos? What then would happen after the oil runs dry?

There can only be the Federal Republic of Nigeria. No matter what anyone says, Nigeria is a country and a country it should remain. You don’t live together for 50 to 100 years and not become a country. It does not matter if some of us are Muslims and some are Christians: we are all Nigerians. It does not matter if some of us speak Hausa and some speak Yoruba: we are all Nigerians. Our diversity is our strength. That is the beauty of Nigeria. It cannot be re-engineered.

Nigeria is a blessed country, carefully-crafted by divine ordinance. This is not time to start hankering after some midget states when the herculean Europeans are busy crafting a super-state. This is no time to think small. It is time for Nigerians to start thinking big and bigger.

(First published in March 2014.)

The National President of Buhari Youth Organisation (BYO), Comrade Yusuf Nalado called on Nigerian youths to promote unity and peaceful co-existence.

Comrade Nalado made the call on Thursday  when the executive members of Buhari Youth Organisation , a Non Governmental Organisation, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

He said that the call was necessary because youths were the future leaders of the country and have significant role to play to ensure the sustenance of peace and unity.

” I call on the Nigerian youths all across the six geo political zone to imbibe the culture  and spirits of patriotism  that would enable us have a united  one Nigeria”.

” it is important for all Nigerian youths to construe and understand that President Muhammadu Buhari  is a true nationalist  and will not accede or assent to any attempt by any groups or assemblage from which ever part of this country to undermine  the existing peace and unity in our cultural diversities”. He Said

Comrade Nalado condemn any attempt of any sort of unguided utterances by any group or assemblage that can bring set back or contretemps to our dear country Nigeria.

The comrade further urge all BYO members all around Nigeria to desist and surcease from any unpatriotic utterances that will break the long existing peace in our country.

Former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, has claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari will return to the country before June 11.

Kalu said Buhari’s health had improved when he visited him in the UK last week and urged Nigerians to stop spreading messages of hate and division about the President’s health.

Speaking in an interview with reporters at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, he said: “I went to Washington to visit some business partners and from there stopped at London to see Mr President, who is recovering very fast.

“I am excited over the state of health of President Buhari despite the hate messages people were spreading about him. I am disappointed with the statement coming from some Nigerians about the health of Mr President.

“The messages some Nigerians have been spreading in the social media is unhealthy. I am calling on Nigerians to have a change of heart. Being a President, does not mean, you cannot be sick, the hate messages are becoming too much. There must be good sense of tolerance among the ethic groups, we are all one.”

Buhari left Nigeria for London May 7 for further medical check-ups.

President Muhammadu Buhari will win the 2019 election if he seeks re-election, the presidency has said.

Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant on media and publicity to the president, said this on Tuesday while addressing journalists at the presidential villa, Abuja.

Mr. Shehu, who was joined by Femi Adesina, special adviser on media and publicity to the president, and Laolu Akande, spokesperson to acting President Yemi Osinbajo, said Nigerians were happy with Mr. Buhari and would still vote for him.

“The confidence reposed in Buhari by ordinary Nigerians had remained unshaken because the president, according to him, is doing what they want,” he said

President Muhammadu Buhari’s Personal Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, said that some members of the political elite in Nigeria travelled to Niger Republic and India among other countries to hire marabouts to ensure the President dies.

She claimed that the same set of people also engaged pastors and bishops to pray for the President’s death and that the religious leaders resorted to attacking Buhari when he did not die despite their prayers.

Onochie disclosed this on her Facebook page just as the President’s latest medical vacation entered its second week.

She however did not disclose the identities of the politicians and the pastors she claimed were hired.

The presidential aide said there must be a reason why the politicians did not want to see Buhari in power.

She said that was why they rigged him out in his first three shots at the Presidency and now they wanted him dead after he got his victory at the 2015 presidential election with the support of the card readers introduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Onochie alleged that before the election, when it was obvious that Buhari would win, the politicians “scammed” former President Goodluck Jonathan to postpone the election so that they could further empty the treasury.

She wrote, “There must be a reason why some members of the political elite in Nigeria do not want to see President Muhammadu Buhari in power. They rigged him out of elections in the past and now that Nigerians overpowered them with the support of the card reader, they want him dead.

“In 2015, when it was obvious the electorates had their eyes set on him, they scammed  President Jonathan to postpone the election and to further empty the Nigerian treasury so they could ‘buy’ more electorates.

“But they knew Nigerians were not ready to be bought so they pocketed the campaign loot. Those who took part in the scamming of ex-President Jonathan, are being asked to cough up and the junkiest of them all, is cursing and swearing because he is being held accountable.

“Transition was a scam. Financial books were cooked. They tried to cover up their financial wickedness and recklessness against this nation. They hired some school dropouts, products of their 16 years of mis-governance across the nation, to try to disrupt the nation.

“And then they hired red, green, blue, and all shades of media outfits to unleash a coordinated attack on his government. Bravely, he soldiers on.

“They travelled as far as Niger Republic, India, etc. and in vain, they engaged the services of marabouts and soothsayers (mere men), to their own disappointments.

“Pastors and bishops (mere men), whose unholy services were engaged to pray for his death, resorted to attacking him once they have prayed and he did not die.”

Onochie further alleged that the unnamed politicians had been announcing the President’s death on cloned websites, therefore raising exaggerated concerns about his health.

The Federal Government led by President Muhammadu Buhari had created about 750, 000 jobs to teeming redundant citizens within the last year 2016.

A consultant with the National Committee of Buhari Support Groups [NCBSG] Professor Mohammed  Usman who asserted this yesterday during the north east zonal meeting of the committee held in Bauchi explained that the jobs were created after the disbursement of over N1.2 trillion by the government from its 2016 budget for the execution of capital projects across the country.

He noted that in the power, works and housing sector alone, a whooping sum of N350 billion was invested by the government ‘that helped in revamping the nation’s moribund companies as well as generating over 200, 000 jobs to Nigerians’.

According to him, the National Bureau of Statistics [NBS] had conducted a survey which showed that aside from the 200, 000 jobs created by the power and housing projects, another 550, 000 people were provided with employments as a result of the government’s investment in infrastructural projects.

” These jobs would have been unavailable if not for the government’s investment. Before the advent of this administration, many construction companies were idle, equipment were rotten and their workers became dormant. With funds made available for these companies, they re-engaged their workers and employed new engineers, labourers and different kind of individuals to get the job done.

These individuals now earn incomes to take care of their families. In that way, the investment is going back into the economy to boost economic activities of Nigeria”. He pointed out.

Earlier, the chairman Board of Trustees of the committee, Senator Abu Ibrahim represented by Zakari Jiya Aliyu explained that NCBSG was formed with the mandate to coordinate the affairs of various Buhari support groups in the nation and assist the administration in enlightening the compatriots on its policies and programs.

” It is our collective duty to restore this nation’s pride because we have no choice. This land belongs to all of us and we must be proud to work tirelessly to make it better for our children and our children’s children. Let the naysayers know that we shall never give up this God-given right”. He said.

The meeting was attended by over 500 delegates from the states of the NorthEast of Taraba,  Adamawa,  Borno, Yola,  Gombe and Bauchi,   reactions from a participant slduring the meeting , Mohammodu lawal,   said “the people of the North east are very happy with the president and are ery proud of him particularly now at his 2 years anniversary for the quantum of peace he has brought to the people of the north east ,  especially the states of yobe ,  adamawa and Borno”. He further said ,  the people shall support him again in 2019