The obvious reason Africa is still underdeveloped is because of our education system. We waste our productive years teaching our children how to be good slaves. My son spent 3 years in Nursery school learning ABCD. He is about going through primary school learning how to read and write in line with academic curriculum designed by our Colonial Masters- consumption driven system.
My Son will spend another 6 years in secondary school learning subjects without any applications. Then minimum of 4 years in the university studying to obtain certificate! How many years? 20 years in school yet we have not been able to solve our electricity problem! A reasonable system will open up the electricity industry and encourage our children to go into the industry from nursery school level with special focus to solving electricity problem. But ,our political elites are only interested in election business!
GGM is training the minds of the masses to redirect our thinking pattern approximately.
The military authorities has on Monday said terrorists did not attack the Kaduna Airport terminal as being speculated by the media.
This was made known when the Kaduna State Commissioner of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan; Garrison Commander, 1 Division Nigerian Army, Kaduna, Brig.-Gen. Uriah Opuene; and Air Force Base Commander, Air Commodore Ademuyiwa Adedoyin, visited scene of the attack on Monday.
Brig-Gen. Opuene while briefing journalists said the incident happened six kilometers aways from the airport terminal outside the perimeter fence of the airport.
He further said that the terrorists were only passing behind the airport when the saw a security man working with NAMA and then shot at him in a bid to pass a message that they attacked the airport.
The army chief further stressed that there were different layers of security at the airport and there is no terrorists could have attacked the airport.
Opuene said, “As you can see, this place is about six kilometres away from the airport terminal. The bandits were only passing behind the airport perimeter fence when they saw the security man engaged by NAMA and they fired at him. They just took advantage of that to pass a message that they have attacked the airport.
There are several layers of security at the airport. This is the first layer and even this first layer was not breached because from the moment of hearing that shot, it took our men just about three minutes to get here from the next layer of security.
He said that about 12 bandits were killed when men of the airforce went after them.
On arrival, the bandits were already running away. So, we engaged them through the use of ground forces. Then we called for air strike and a helicopter was deployed and from the air report, about 12 of the bandits were killed.
“So, as you can see from the distance, the insinuation outside that the terrorists took over the airport is not correct. If the terrorists had entered, they would have met us there,” he added
On his part NAF Base Commander, Air Commodore Ademuyiwa Adedoyin, said security around the airport has been beefed up following the attack on the Nigeria Defence Academy, NDA, last year.
Skeletal activities have resumed on Monday in Awka, the Anambra State capital, as workers are beginning to comply with Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s directive for workers to start resuming at their duty posts every Monday, just like any other day.
The governor had through the Head of Service, Mr Theodora Igwegbe, issued a statement on Friday, directing workers to start resuming normal activities every Monday.
When our correspondent visited the secretariat complex, Awka, the workers who had resumed duty as of 9:00 am, expressed delight and urged the state government to provide adequate security and transport to enable full compliance with the directive.
However, in Onitsha, Nnewi, and environs, the level of compliance was very low as markets, motor parks, banks, offices, and schools remained shut.
Onitsha is the commercial nerve centre of the state and the governor had already directed market leaders and motor parks operators to ensure they opened for operations from April 4, 2022.
Although the Monday sit-at-home order, which was introduced by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra has been suspended by the group, the people are still complying due to fear of being attacked by hoodlums.
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has on Monday, ordered that the Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCP, Abba Kyari, and six others, facing drug trafficking charges with him, be transferred to the Kuje Correctional Center
Justice Emeka Nwite made the order shortly after he denied them bail.
The court had earlier today denied Kyari and others facing the charge with him bail stressing that the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, proved beyond doubt that the accused persons be denied bail.
Justice Nwite further fixed April 28 for the review of facts inthe case against Umeibe and Ezenwane and ordered accelerated trial of the Defendants.
The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike has joined a growing list of presidential contenders in 2023.
Wike made the declaration during a consultative meeting with stakeholders of the Benue chapter of the PDP at the Government House in Makurdi on Sunday.
The governor, who intimated the stakeholders about his intention to run for the presidency, solicited for Benue PDP votes in the coming national delegates convention of the party, even as he stressed on zoning.
To remove APC from power, I’m the person who can tell them enough is enough. We must take this power and I’m ready to take it for PDP. God is with us that’s why APC keeps failing everyday.
“I’m declaring it (presidential ambition) for the first time in Benue. I’m going to run for election,” Wike said.
He warned stakeholders not to sell their votes, but give it to him, adding that some of the PDP presidential aspirants were only after the power in order for personal gains.
Wike also accused those who once left the party and came back to seek power of being the reason the party lost election in 2015, noting that those founding fathers who ran away from the party and still wanted to be recognised have lost their shares.
He said, “By the time you ran away, you sold your share as a founding father so you can no longer retain your position of founding fathers.
“I stood for this party. I work for this party since 1998. I have nowhere to run to and that’s why anything that happens to this party I take it personally. I have never relented.
In 2015, those who ran away made us lose the election. Today, they are crying but some of us stood and said PDP will not die.
“Some people want to use Nigeria to buy back their personal business. They talk about private sector – let them mention the private business that had survived. Is it banks that your father had? Everybody is an employer of labour even in my house I have 50 people who feed from me. They should stop deceiving us.
I have performed as a governor and can carry my shoulders high anywhere. I have the capacity to face this evil government, give me the mandate. I will speak the truth to power and nothing but the truth. I have the capacity to move this country forward.”
Earlier, Governor Samuel Ortom who hosted Wike prayed that God will grant him his desire to rule the country.
Ortom recalled that his Rivers counterpart had never turned his back on Benue, especially in caring for the teeming displaced people occasioned by herders’ invasions in some parts of the state.
The sandglass is a befitting metaphor for Gov. Willie Obiano’s eight years governance of Anambra State. By depiction, the sandglass is perceptibly colourful and efficient, yet a crude, coarse and fragile time-keeping instrument. Obiano’s government mimicked those traits. Despite Obiano’s governance disambiguation, and effective masking of frivolities with social media flourish, the only variable that mattered was time. In the fullness of time and by constitutional dictate, time ran out for Obiano. His sandglass came crashing, proving the transient nature of power and Plato’s contention that “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” Predictably, some trenchant apologists for Obiano’s government, whose unbridled tongues chanted “Willie is Working,” were among the first to chant “good riddance.”
I’m averse to gloating over another’s misfortunes. But on this particular issue, I was and remain an interested party. Anambra is my home state; and I’m invested in her well-being. I served and live I Anambra by choice. Undoubtedly, Obiano misruled Anambra. Terrible decisions were made, but he did so with the help of some enablers- APGA apparatchiks, some Anambra political elite, clergy, traditional rulers, sycophants, etc. As Obiano’s governance process unfolded, there were discernible movements without telling progress, as State resources were symmetrically siphoned from one spectrum to the other; from public to private coffers. Lamentably, when Anambra was being badly misgoverned those who should have spoken up, failed to speak truth to power or tell Gov. Obiano the inconvenient truth, lest they lose access to power or their munificent largess deriving therefrom. These people obviously were not attuned to Martin Luther King’s admonishment that the, “Ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”
When I left the Obiano Government on 8 June, 2015, I knew that his 15-month old government was a derailing. The telltale signs were obvious. Impeachable acts combined freely with grand larceny. In the latter part of 2016, I made public my intentions to challenge Obiano for the governorship. On 20th December 2016, Obiano through a Catholic priest close to him offered an interlocutor a mind-boggling sum to get me to stand down. The offer was rejected. My position: Anambra was not for sale; and certainly was not Obiano’s to sell.
Since I separated from the Anambra government in 2015, even though I live in Awka, I have entered the Governor’s Lodge only once, for a one-on-one meeting with Governor Obiano, at 11am on 17 January 2017. At that meeting, I told Gov. Obiano why I was challenging him. The reasons were threefold: First, to protect the Anambra North mandate, which he held in trust. Second, to impress on him, that honest assessments of his first term rated him very poorly. And third, to forewarn him that absent immediate remedial measures, he and his spouse would likely to end up in the EFCC dragnet. Gov. Obiano did not seem to understand the import of the visit. After all, we were schoolmates and also friends. Neither did he grasp my felt obligation to rescue him and Anambra. He asked if there was still anything he could do to dissuade me from running. I said there was nothing. He then boasted that he will be re-elected, “even if it means emptying the Anambra Treasury.” I was shocked. However, I made him a promise: “I will not personally attack you during the campaign. Neither will my staff. Also, if you win re-election, I will not publicly comment on activities of your government for good or for bad.” On that note we parted company. He was re-elected. I kept my promise.
Ever since, till this day, the only other time we directly engaged each other, besides occasional perfunctory exchange of pleasantries at functions, was during the governorship debate on 17 November 2017. During that debate, when I said the Obiano government was the “most fiscally reckless” in Anambra State’s history, it was no hyperbole. Obiano inherited over N75 billion, earned N2 Trillion in revenue, but left Anambra State an estimated N400 million in cash reserve and N109 billion in debts, plus other contingent liabilities.
A leader is as good as his advisers. Simply, Obiano amassed a coterie of bad advisers – formal and informal. They had his ears; and the King’s ear is a powerful instrument. So he held incessant court and they pandered to his ego and proclivities. Several of his earliest advisers could not have passed rigorous security background checks, given their respective erstwhile roles in the financial sector. Some of his loyalists contrived paper contracts, projects and bogus certificates as conduits for fleecing Anambra State. The Local Government Joint Account was the most bastardized. Checks and balances were farfetched between and betwixt. But for an airport, conference centre and three flyovers, Obiano and his cohorts in eight years squandered Anambra State’s wealth and legacy. They sold off the state’s fiscal and real estate assets and abandoned many projects.
The unprecedented fate that has befallen the Obianos since leaving office is saddening and calls for empathy. It was all avoidable. But most of Obiano’s kinsmen and minders would not think otherwise. Most knew little or nothing about good governance, and nepotism and groupthink mentality rendered them unresponsive to good governance tutelage or due process. Those who spoke truth to power became traducers – whilst liars, cheats and scofflaws held sway over policy, programmes and project decisions and willfully hijacked the State’s internally generated revenue and fiscal instruments. Under Obiano’s watch various communities were put asunder via meddlesome executive fiats. State security was achieved at extraordinary costs.
I don’t know if history will be kind to Gov. Obiano or as unkind as it has been to Gov. Chinwoke Mbadinuju. But I’m conscious that the enormity of fate that has befallen Anambra will unfurl slowly. While the visible, broken and decrepit infrastructures are evident; the moral and fiscal rut are more insidious. A popular Anambra State Catholic priest once asked me in a closed door meeting, why I always sounded angry when I spoke about Obiano’s government failings. I told him it was nothing personal, but that if he knew what I knew about Obiano’s degenerate governance modalities, he would also be justifiably angry. That collective anger is already manifesting.
I am as guilty as every other Anambra person who helped to elect Obiano governor. I voted for him in 2014, because like him, I am from Anambra North. But those who contributed to his 2017 re-election and thus sustained his shambolic governance should admit their role. While Obiano will inevitably bear the brunt of the criticisms for his government, he is not entirely responsible for all the governance mishaps. What he cannot escape is the vicarious and command responsibility for what happened on his watch. The upshot is that Obiano was an incidental leader thrown up by the vagaries of Anambra partisan politics. He was not ready for leadership, and his official and personal demeanors were fraught with leadership hubris. During his second term, the ceremony of innocence was drowned (apologies to Yates). That is passé. But as deep as the unfolding ironies are, so too are the deeply painful lessons learned, and missed opportunities.
Anambra has a new government. A successor is in place. Now, Anambra’s arrested development needs to be fixed. Her governance tasks will be doubly difficult, considering how badly broken Anambra is. We can only offer our collective prayers that those elected and appointed to officialdom in Anambra, will henceforth put Anambra’s interests above personal, sectarian, clan and other primordial interests.
Obaze was Secretary to the Government of Anambra from 2012 to 2015; and PDP 2017 Governorship Candidate.
Gospel singer, Chinedu Nwadike, is dead. He reportedly d#ed on Sunday, March 27, 2022 at an hospital in Abuja.
According to reports, the ‘God of Vengeance’ crooner who recently recovered from kidney disease, has died of blood cancer.
It was gathered that, a few weeks ago, the father-of-three had publicly solicited for financial donations to enable him travel to India for treatment of the blood cancer.
He was said to have been on the verge of finalizing the trip when he succumbed to the disease.
The Anambra government on Wednesday says residents and business owners were owning a total of N513.9bn as taxes to the state.
Dr David Nzekwu, outgoing chairman of Anambra Internal Revenue Service (AIRS) disclosed this at a news conference on Tuesday in Awka.
Nzekwu said the figure was a total of taxes owed by more than 2.1 million potential tax payers enrolled and uploaded on its digital database.
Nzekwu, who assumed office as chairman of AIRS in March 2018, said the IGR profile of Anambra grew from N17 billion per annum in 2018 to N30.9 billion as at the end of 2021.
He said the number of taxpayers in the state increased from 11,000 to 506,000 during the same period due to structural reforms which expanded the tax base.
“One of our core beliefs is that to solve the challenges of revenue administration and we have set up an architecture for Information Technology deployment, this will enable people to do transactions with us.
“We set up a system that is able to capture every individual tax payer and receipt every taxation, that is what gave rise to Anambra Social Service Identity (ANSSID) number where each taxpayer has.
“With that, we have generated a total collectable bill of N513.9 billion as at January this year against 2.1 million taxpayers in the state.
”This means that if my successor can generate this bill and distribute to individuals and they begin to make payment, the government will have a lot of money,” he said.
Nzekwu said the AIRS had been positioned for a people bases revenue collection system with the deployment of Community Revenue Officers who related with taxable members of the society at the community levels.
He said the endemic prevalence of illegal road and parks collection was a huge source of leakage to the government while welcoming the decision of Gov. Chukwuma Soludo to abolish all such collections.
He called for strengthening of Anambra Tax Administration Law, deepening the information technology deployment and digitisation of processes as a way of ensuring that all government revenue accrued to it.
Nzekwu harped on the need for effective property tax administration in the state by dusting up the Anambra Property and Land Use Charge (APLUC) Law, 2011 and addressing the issues that led to its poor implementation including public resistance.
The out-gone chairman said he was happy to have served the state well but regretted that his vision was to see the state generate via IGR money that could fund the recurrent expenditure of the state.
GGM totally and completely aligns with Prof Chukwuma Soludo, the Governor of Anambra State, on his resoluteness to restore law and order in Anambra State, as well as deploring 21st-century technology in government revenue collection. GGM does not doubt that the Governor means business, to enforce zero tolerance to touting and any form of criminality, that seeks to maim, kill or threaten the peace and the business environment of the people of Anambra State.
In line with the public interest drive, GGM throws her weight behind the latest moves by Prof Soludo to give the State a revolutionary leadership and build a liveable environment for all. GGM has already kickstarted a public campaign enlightenment programme, via broadcast on the radio station, town hall meetings, and social media sensitization, to keep the public abreast on what to expect in the coming days.
GGM believes that Prof Soludo in his first 8 days in Office, has proven to all, that a new dawn of purposeful and visionary leadership has finally come, that every kobo that enters into the Anambra purse will be effectively deployed to build the Anambra state smart mega-city project and improve the quality of life of its citizens. GGM urges all the agitating groups, including those in sympathy with the Monday sit at home, to embrace peace and support the genuine efforts being made by Prof Soludo’s Administration for the good of all.
Good Governance Ministry, however, demands that the financial status in terms of assets and liabilities of the Obiano administration should be made public. Such public declaration will be the basis of assessing Soludo’s performance. We, in the Ministry, are still waiting for Prof Soludo’s public declaration of asset . He has to come clean before the public.
Comrade, Olisa Isama.
Public Relations Officer, Good Governance Ministry.
Ghana and Nigeria played out a 0-0 draw in the first leg of their World Cup playoff in Kumasi, leaving the tie wide open when they meet again in Abuja on Tuesday to decide a place in Qatar.
Home side Ghana had more of the possession but only twice did they test goalkeeper Francis Uzoho, who made a stop from a stinging shot by Issahaku Fatawu and then again late on from Mohammed Kudus.
Nigeria’s best chance came through Moses Simon ten minutes into the second half, but he fired straight at the goalkeeper from ten-yards out.
The Super Eagles were awarded a penalty with 15 minutes left when Idrissu Baba Mohamed handled the ball after being tripped in his own penalty area, but after a VAR check the referee overturned his decision after deciding that the Ghana man had been fouled.
Ghana were playing their first game under new coach Otto Addo, as changes were made following a dismal Africa Cup of Nationscampaign.
Leicester’s Ademola Lookman, who had previously played for England at under-21 level, made his Nigeria debut as a substitute for the last 15 minutes.
So both teams are one victory away from the Qatar World Cup.
Nigeria have missed one tournament since 1990 – they’ll have home comforts in Abuja for the second leg to ensure that they do not miss out later this year.
Elsewhere tonight, an own goal from Saliou Ciss in the fourth minute gave Egypt a 1-0 win over Senegal.
The Africa Cup of Nations champions will have home advantage in the second leg though – that tie still very much in the balance.
These final few places at the 2022 World Cup are going down to the wire!
