Since the 1973 oil embargo imposed on United States by Arab oil producing nations, United States has not relented in pursuit of strategies to make America energy secured and sufficient. The energy security was paramount to United States because of its dependency on foreign oil especially in the troubled Middle East. American modern industrial complex is run on oil and she cannot afford to be vulnerable to the instability in Middle East, its primary source of oil. Finally, the formulated strategy is bearing fruit in a big way and United States has apparently reached the promised land of energy sufficiency and it will soon export crude oil by 2014.

Earlier, United States strategic interest was extended to Nigeria where the supply of sweet ebony crude oil was more reliable. Nigeria was a good alternative to Middle East where political insecurity and instability are threat to oil shipment to United States. The energy policy makers and business community in America does not want to rely solely on the Middle East oil. Therefore looking beyond Middle East was a smart strategic move, not that they abandon oil supply from that part of the world but they diversify their sources of oil supply to include Mexico, Canada, Nigeria, Venezuela and many other places in southern hemisphere.

But even with the myriad sources of oil supply to America, it has not abandon oil drilling and exploration within continental America. It is a goal and principal task among oil explorers in United States to make a quantifiable difference in supply of energy for internal consumption. With innovative technology, strategic planning and implementation, they are beginning to win the battle.  The technology and cost that hampered local exploration of oil deposits have been improved and scientifically uplifted. The cost of production is managed brilliantly with insight and innovations that are now bearing fruits.

With intensive research and development, United States has struck gold with discovery of fracking process for recovery of ‘lost’ oil embedded on rock formations in deep underground. Since 1951 US discovered a large oil deposit at Bakken formation which is at the landscape which encompassed Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan. But the rock formation was difficult to extract oil from but with fracking procedure US will soon become an oil exporting nation that will rival Saudi Arabia and OPEC. The 1920 Mineral Leasing Act which restricted oil export in United States may be abrogated.

Chris Swann, Reuters Breaking views columnist, writing on this subject put it this way:

“America’s energy boom is spurring a clash between the realms of politics and economics. Meaningful exports of oil have been banned for almost a century. But with output surging and crude fetching a 20 percent discount at home, producers want to ship it overseas. BP, Royal Dutch Shell and four others have applied for limited licenses to do just that. Unblocking trade could benefit everyone.

The 1920 Mineral Leasing Act allows producers to sell only tiny amounts of black gold abroad. Even shipments to Canada require a special license – BP has just secured one. At present America exports just 47,000 barrels a day, against imports of over 8 million barrels. Yet production has shot up 32 percent since 2008.

The output surge has been gradually helping to make America more energy self-sufficient. The only drawback is that there’s not as much demand at home for the light sweet crude generated by new fields – and many U.S. refineries are configured to process heavy sour crude. On top of that, the pipeline network for transporting domestic crude is inadequate.”

At the Bakken formation  there is a reliable crude oil deposit up to 4.3 billion barrels and together with other oil spots in America, there will be no need for America to import sweet light crude from  Nigeria because the land mass at Bakken Formation contain essentially sweet light crude.

At the present United States imports 15 percent of its oil from Nigeria and it was projected to import about 25 percent of its oil consumption from Nigeria by 2015. But with discovery of fracking process and with the large deposit of crude oil at Bakken, Nigeria has to look for another market for its oil export and consumption.

Energy security and sufficiency has been United States priority and it can now join the family of oil exporting nations. United States did a great job in energy conservation, together with Natural Liquefied Gas, and other energy alternatives in a mix; it propelled US to achieve energy sufficiency.

Nosedive of price and oil glut

Nigeria policy makers and National Assembly were squabbling over $75 pegging of oil benchmark for 2013 budget but they come short of realistic strategic econometric forecasting of oil price by 2014. In the next couple of years the price of oil will come down but no expert can say for sure how much it will be but there are chances that price of oil will dramatically nosedived with United States exporting oil and competing with OPEC on the world stage.

Another leverage United States will enjoy over Nigeria and OPEC nations is its ability to refine its own crude oil. Although, many of the oil refineries in United States were technologized to process high sulfur oil; but US will overcome the shortcomings by building refineries geared for sweet light crude refining, while simultaneously getting a helping hand from nearby Canada.

Nigeria will feel the heat and may lose more than other OPEC members because she failed to diversify her economy and leverage oil generated revenue for development.  The Nigeria’s economy still depended on oil for 95 percent of its foreign exchange; the economy is not diversified but rather ridden with 'chop chop' corruption. The economy lacks the incentive that it needs to attract a large and enduring capital that will make a difference in the life of an average Nigerian. The core social and physical infrastructures that enable the wealth creation to be sustainable are absent because Nigeria failed to have a clear cut priority. Buying  private jets, drinking expensive wines and siphoning  money abroad will not cut it. Nigeria cannot boast of  uninterrupted  supply of water and electricity for a full day. That is incredible!

Nigeria does not have seasoned leaders and patriots to turn the country around. As the President Jonathan said, one person cannot do it alone but at same time Nigerians must not be waiting to be invited to build their own nation.

Nigeria‘s future Market

The appropriate thing to do is to look for market in Far East especially in China, Japan and India. These nations are already doing business in Nigeria; China for one is not a stranger in Nigeria, where she is playing an important role in oil exploration. This can also be said of India; the truth is that things are going to change because United States will not abandon those markets for Nigeria and OPEC nations. With all the internal insecurity bubbling in Nigeria: the kidnappings, killings, corruption, unreliability; China and India may even prefer to buy oil from United States that is more reliable, without rancor and instability.

Therefore Nigeria must stop and look at internal market for its energy consumption especially within Nigeria and West Africa. But, first and foremost, building more refineries are quite essential to cease refining oil abroad. Nigeria has the internal market for its energy consumption. Building electricity plants that are run with its own energy which are in ample supply is the way forward. The good thing coming out of this, is that the time has come for Nigeria to look inward and appease the energy demand in the economy rather than sending those resources off shore.

Emeka Chiakwelu,  Principal Policy Strategist at Afripol. Africa Political & Economic Strategic Center (AFRIPOL) is foremost a public policy center whose fundamental objective is to broaden the parameters of public policy debates in Africa. To advocate, promote and encourage free enterprise, democracy, sustainable green environment, human rights, conflict resolutions, transparency and probity in Africa. www.afripol.org   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Nigeria's Foreign Reserve Hits U.S.$42 Billion

Nigeria's foreign external reserves last week hit $42 billion as international rating agency, Fitch put the country's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) at 'BB-' and 'BB' respectively with a Stable Outlook.

The reserves had been rising consistently over the past few months in line with the Coordinating Minister of the Economy's aims at building the reserves to $50 billion before the end of the year (2012), so as to serve as cushion for the economy in case of any global economic recess.

The presidency and the legislative arm of government are currently at odds over what the oil benchmark should be with the National Assembly settling for $78 per barrel benchmark against the finance minister's benchmark of $75.

According to Fitch, "The combination of a tighter fiscal stance, the reduced petroleum subsidy and a tightening of the subsidy payment system and other foreign exchange transactions, have resulted in a month-by-month increase in foreign exchange reserves this year of a cumulative $9.1 billion.

"This goes some way towards replenishing the buffer to withstand future oil price shocks. However, reserves still represent only 4.5 months of current external payments, compared to almost eight in 2008. The inauguration of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority could herald a stronger mechanism for saving above budget oil revenues. However, it is not clear when it will begin receiving regular inflows", the rating agency said.

Fitch further said the ratings of the country reflect progress on a number of fronts including a tighter fiscal stance, an improvement in electricity supply, increased agricultural output which has helped reduce imports, and an increase in international reserves.

However, it said the "reinvigoration of structural reforms has yet to feed through to a higher growth rate and weaknesses including a vulnerability to oil price shocks, high inflation and governance challenges weigh on the rating."

The rating agency noted that despite the various reforms of the government, "he reforms have yet to have a noticeable impact on GDP growth. Growth has slowed this year, averaging 6.2 per cent in first half of 2012, compared to an average 7.4 per cent in 2009-2011."

Fitch said it believes the slowdown is temporary, affected by security and weather problems which have particularly affected agriculture. "A recovery to 7 per cent or more should be possible next year. However, there is no sign yet that growth is moving to a higher plain, which should happen as the reforms take hold. The banking system is also still convalescing, with credit growth barely positive in real terms due to high interest rates, limited lending opportunities and improved risk management.

Nigeria's rating is constrained by long-standing structural weaknesses including a per capita income well below both 'B' and 'BB' medians. A likely substantial upward revision to GDP due to rebasing will not fundamentally change this metric. Even after this, and with nominal GDP growth of up to 20 per cent per annum for the next two years, per capita income would remain well below the 'BB' median.

Other constraints include weak governance, a poor business climate, and relatively high and volatile inflation.

Sopurce: Leadership Newspaper

The economic linkages between sub-Saharan Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, and the rest of the region, and  how developments in these countries can affect other countries in the region.

Developments in one economy can spillover to other countries through several channels, depending on the depth of the underlying economic linkages. Key channels include: (i) trade in goods and services, both formal and informal; (ii) financial sector interconnections; (iii) flows of capital, whether in the form of foreign direct investment, portfolio flows, or loans; and (iv) labor movements and (in the reverse direction) remittance flows.

Institutional factors can also play an important role: examples include the revenue-sharing arrangements in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU); the regional bond market that has been established in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU); and the exchange rate arrangements of the Common Monetary Area in southern Africa, where the three smaller member countries have long-standing exchange rate pegs to the rand. Quantifying the significance of these channels in sub-Saharan Africa is challenging given data limitations: trade statistics fail to capture what are often large volumes of unrecorded informal trade; data on capital flows and stocks are often of very poor quality; and information on labor flows and remittances typically understate the scale of activity involved by sizable margins. That said, some facts can be noted:

credit: Wikepedia Nigeria green, SA brown

• South Africa plays a significant role in the structure of intra-sub-Saharan African trade. Recorded exports to South Africa exceed  ++1 percent of domestic GDP for at least a dozen countries, with links most noticeable for countries in the SADC sub-region .

•Some clustering of trade flows can also be seen between Nigeria and its closest neighbors and within eastern Africa. The large amount of informal (unmeasured) cross-border trade in these sub-regions, particularly in agricultural goods, suggests closer ties and linkages than indicated by official trade statistics.

•Although trade within the region remains modest as a share of countries’ total trade, the ratio of intra-regional trade to national GDP has generally risen significantly in the past decade (Figure 2.1). Going forward, improved regional infrastructure and vigorous implementation of existing free trade agreements—including the use of less restrictive rules of origin and eductions in non-tariff barriers—would likely produce a further sharp increase in the scale and importance of such trade.

•The expansion of investment within the region by South African companies and institutions— both financial and nonfinancial—has brought with it a deepening of trade and other linkages within sub-Saharan Africa, while also helping to diversify the market orientation of South African exports.

•Banking groups headquartered in South Africa and Nigeria have rapidly expanded their operations across the region in recent years— although the business models used (focusing on local funding and lending) may act to contain the scope for financial contagion within the region.

Although available data on remittances suggest quite modest financial contributions from migrant workers to their home countries, estimates of migration across African borders point to large, mostly informal flows. Adverse shocks to host countries, such as South Africa and Nigeria, would likely lead to a fall-off in transfers in cash and in kind to the migrants’ home countries and at least some return of migrants.

•Domestic policies such as highly distortive tax and subsidy regimes, and institutional arrangements such as  customs revenue-sharing arrangements, can play important roles in transmitting shocks between countries.

President Goodluck Jonathan appointed new top military bosses, but retained the incumbent Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Onyeabo Azubike Ihejirika in his possition.

The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ola Sa'ad Ibrahimn, is now the new Chief of Defence Staff, succeeding Air Chief Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin who has retired.

Air Vice Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh from Adamawa State is appointed Chief of Air Staff replacing Air Marshal Mohammed Dikko Umar who has also retired.

Chief of Administration at the Defence Headquarters Rear Admiral Dele Ezeoba from Delta State is the new Chief of Naval Staff.

Defence chief Ibrahim is expected to be promoted to the rank of admiral by the President while naval chief Ezeoba will be elevated to vice admiral and air force chief Badeh to Air Marshal.

The former service chiefs had since served out their two-year tenure and the new appointments have now ended months of media speculations about their fate- whether they should all go because of the continuing security challenges.

Military sources said the president reserves the right to reappoint them, but in the end he exercised that discretion in favour of the Army and the defence chiefs Chiefs.

Vice Admiral Ola Sa'ad Ibrahim

Vice Admiral Ola Sa'ad Ibrahim 52 from Kwara state was a graduate of the Nigerian Defence Academy Kaduna and the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, he trained with the Royal and Indian navies. He holds the Bachelor of Laws Degree from Ahmadu Bello University and a Masters Degree from the Department of War Studies and Public at the King's College University of London. In February 2009, he was appointed as the Flag Officer Commanding Western Naval Command, the appointment he held till his elevation to the position of the Chief of the Naval Staff on September 8, 2010.

Lt Gen Onyeabo Azubike

Ihejirika was born in Ovim in Isuikwato Local Government Area of Abia State on 13 February, 1956. Gen Ihejirika has held many appointments in the staff, instructor and command categories. He was a Directing Staff (DS) at both the junior and senior divisions of the Command and Staff College, Jaji where he earn the prestigious psc(+). At the staff level, he was Staff Officer Grade 1 at the Army Faculty, Command and Lt Gen Ihejirika a former General Officer Commanding (GOC) 81 Division in Lagos and later Chief of Defence Logistics before his became army chief on 8 September 2010.

Rear Admiral Dele Joseph Ezeoba

Rear Admiral Dele Joseph Ezeoba was born on 25 July 1958 in Jos, Plateau state and hails from Ibusa in Oshimili- North Local Government Area of Delta State. A graduate of the Nigerian Defence Academy Kaduna Regular Course 22 and the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, he trained at various times with the United States, Royal and Indian navies. Rear Admiral Dele Joseph is a Navigation and Direction Specialist and holds a Master of Science Degree in Strategic Studies from the University of Ibadan.

Rear Admiral DJ Ezeoba also served as the Director of Operations and later as the Chief of Training and Operations at the Naval Headquarters. It was from this appointment that he was appointed as the Deputy Commandant of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji. Thereafter, he was appointed as the Chief of Administration at the Defence Headquarters, the appointment he held till his elevation to the present appointment of the Chief of the Naval Staff on 4 October 2012.

Air Vice Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh

Air Vice Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh was born in Vimtim, Mubi North Local Government area, Adamawa State on January 10, 1957. He attended the Villanova Secondary School, Numan Adamawa State. He was admitted into the Nigerian Defence Academy as a member of the 21 Regular Course on 3 January 1977, and was commissioned pilot officer on 3 July 1979. He was promoted AVM on 3 January 2008.

He started his flying career at the 301 Flying Training School on the Bulldog primary trainer aircraft in 1979. He attended the Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base in the United States Air Force between January 1981 and September 1982. He is a Qualified Flying Instructor and has accumulated over 6000 flying hours on the Bulldog 123, Do 128-6, Do 228, Hawker 125, Hawker 1000, Falcon 900 and Gulfstream 5 airplanes.

He attended the National War College Nigeria as a member of course 14 and obtained Msc in August 2006 from the University of Ibadan.

AVM Badeh was a Directing Staff and Director National Military Strategy and the National Defence College, Chief of Policy and Plans Headquarters Nigerian Air Force. He was the Air Officer Commanding Training Command Nigerian Air Force Kaduna before he was appointed as air force chief.

. Ola Ibrahim is new CDS

. Ihejirika remains COAS

. Badeh is new Chief of Air Staff

. Ezeoba is new Chief of N/Staff

Source: Daily Trust

Nigeria @ 52:  Strongholds of Nation Building - Determination and Patriotism Are Lacking in the country's polity

Here we are again, another independence anniversary and this time around Nigeria is 52 years.  What is Nigeria has to show for this middle age of 52?   Two third of Nigerians are living in abject poverty, surviving with less than one dollar a day.  This implies that many of our fellow country men and women especially children go to bed on hungry stomachs. In most cases, the food are not adequate and are lacking in nutritious value needed for maintenance of a healthy life style.

Nigeria is a nation rich in natural resources and wealth but corruption is the bane of the society.  Revenues from oil export can be best utilized for wealth creation by providing infrastructures not for readily consumption. Then stability and modern infrastructures will attract capitals and investments for further wealth creation.

Nigeria has failed to provide electricity and drinking water, the simplest things of existence to her citizens that many people in different parts of the world have taken for granted. The streets and corners of Nigeria are overflowing with refuse and debris. The ramification of environmental deterioration, degradation and negations come with a big price - a rapid decline in the health being of the nation. Malaria, water borne diseases and air borne diseases are having their ways in Nigeria.

The environmental devastation in Nigeria is overwhelming. There is desert encroachment in the North, massive flooding in the West and gully erosion in the East. Nigeria is gradually but steadily eating away by environmental challenges.

The state of health infrastructure is burdensome, HIV/AIDS are killing Nigerians in millions and many of the citizens have not grasp the danger of this devastating disease due to lack of effective communication and educational awareness.

Nigeria's educational system used to be the envy of the world, but at the moment many first degree holders in Nigeria are unemployable because they are poorly trained. Many of the advance degree holders are unemployed and to add salt to injury, many of the graduates are turning to petty jobs including truck driving, cooks and house servants for survival.

Criminality and insecurity are engulfing the young nation. The youths are turning to life of crime and criminal enterprise due to lack of jobs and break down of morality. The level of corruption in Nigeria can be successfully compared to that of the defunct Roman Empire. Nigeria has been described as the center and home of internet scammers and e-mail criminals.  There are tribal, sectarian and regional disorders and violent eruptions, things are falling apart and the center is giving up too. Life is becoming cheap and massive deaths are recorded in hands of terrorists and criminals.

What's up Nigeria?

There is so much a nation can take before it breaks down and falls apart.  But this is not time to bury our face in the sand and act indifferently and nonchalantly to these existential problems. In the words of Chinua Achebe, it is "morning yet on creation day" and Nigeria can still recover and fulfill her destiny.

Nigeria must go to the root of the problems which are principally the lack of the strongholds of nation building - determination and patriotism.

Let start with Determination. A nation building is a conscious decision and iron-will determination made by men and women of goodwill and strong will to build a new nation. Nigeria must not be exception to the rule, for she must be determined to give it her best to build a nation worthy of passing down to the posterity. There is no miracle and there is no quick path to nation building.  The path to a great nation is paved with determination, strong will and hard work.  Nigerians must not delude themselves that nation building and stable nation can come easy without commitment and industry.

Nigeria must ask herself these questions and must be willing to answer them adequately:

What is Nigeria?

How is Nigeria?

Where is Nigeria?

When is Nigeria?

Who is Nigeria?

Why is Nigeria?

These questions are the basis for nation building and failing to meet their requirements can spells an immeasurable and incalculable doom for a nation in making.

Patriotism is the most powerful tool against corruption and when citizens are without them, no progress can be made in building a new nation. This is not the time to give lip service to patriotism while at same time sabotaging the cause of building a nation. When resources and funds marked for public projects are mismanaged, siphoned and stolen, then  strongholds of nation building have been betrayed and compromised.

The greatest commitment to a country is patriotism, Nigeria need patriots whose love for the country transcend their own self interest of primitive accumulation of wealth and power at the expense of their fellow country men and women.

This article is dedicated to the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe the only detribalized national leader ever produced in Nigeria.

Emeka Chiakwelu, Analyst and Principal Policy  strategist at AFRIPOL

Okonta still remembers  that morning when a neighbour rushed to the colonial  residence of Dr. Harrison at Ikoyi, Lagos, where he worked to announce to him that his wife Mariana  had been delivered of a bouncing baby boy. Okonta was dressed in his well- starched  khaki uniform in the colonial house when the cheery news got to him.

He made merry and entertained his friends to celebrate the birth of his son and named him Harrison after the whiteman in whose household he served as a servant.

The birth of  his only son coincided  with  the celebration of Nigeria’s independence on October 1, 1960.

Today, Harrison is 52 years and lives in Lagos. He has no  regular job  after  graduating from the university several years ago.

He had tried to sustain himself as a self-employed businessman but his business at Tincan Island suffered from excess custom duties and multiple taxations. Harrison couldn’t  cope with the blows that fate had severally dealt on him. At 52, he has no house he could call his own.

He has no regular  means of livelihood despite his B.SC in Business Administration and Masters  Degrees in two other Disciplines. He has no home  and has transversed severally between being an okada rider and a tricycle driver. On many occasions , he has served as a bus conductor and the finesse he acquired through education has given way to a crude, frustrated, middle-aged man.

But Harrison Ogbonna is not the only Nigerian whom fate has dealt with badly. Across the 36 States of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, there are many Harrisons who have been battered by fate but only few  were able to make a success story from  the school of hard-knocks.

The above story sounds like the typical Nigerian story. From what they taught us in history,  the pathway to Nigeria’s 52 years of independence  was littered with broken  promises.

Nigerians are people  suffering from battered egos and damaged psyche. Ab initio, our leaders had envisaged prosperity for the country, given  the country’s enormous resources but that had been mere dreams. As a nation very rich in oil resources, we have  receded from oil boom to oil doom.  Nigeria  has become  a giant with mosquito legs.

The elders of the country left good legacies. But their successors could not match the strength of the sages.

Sir Ahmadu Bello, former Premier of Northern Nigeria at our independence in 1960 said that the freedom of Nigeria from British rule  is not the freedom of the jungle, where might is right.

“We are not free to molest others  less strong than ourselves or to trample on their rights simply because we are in a position of authority over them. Independence brings with it heavier and new responsibilities.

The eyes of the world are on Nigeria now and there are many friends who hope that we shall be the leading nation in Africa. Let us say with all emphasis at my command that we shall never attain this goal if there is suspicion and mistrust among the peoples of Nigeria.

Such an attitude cannot benefit anyone and can easily lead to strife as has been the painful experience of other independent nations in Africa and elsewhere.”

It is obvious that Nigerians of today  never heeded the wisdom of the sages . In today’s Nigeria, deceit holds sway ! Almost every year, we lament our situation , wondering if  achieving nationhood is such an unrealistic and unworkable project.

From all indications, many have come to accept the reality that ours is a society where the morons are the barons; a society where thieves are kings;  a  society  where the monkey works and the baboon chops; a society where might is right and injustice the order of the day.

Today, ours is  a kingdom against itself. Things are  falling  apart and the centre can barely hold. Anarchy appears to have let loose upon  the nation. Insecurity, corruption in high places and other vices are building strongholds. These are felt in every facet of our daily life.

For years, we keep questioning ourselves about what went wrong  with our country but each year, the questions increase but there are less answers. We are forever  preoccupied with how to redesign the Nigerian project after 52 years of self-governance because of  the folly and greed of those who took over the affairs of modern Nigeria.

Beginning from 1966,  the country recorded eight military regimes. The final military regime left power on May 29, 1999 in between interjections of civilian regimes.

The military government came to power in pretence of restoring sanity in government but today, Nigerians know better.

Celebrating Nigeria at 52 is only to fulfill all righteousness. At least,  the country has been able to sustain civilian government  without interruption of the military government since 1999.  With her avalanche of social economic cum political challenges, the country is still rated as a major key player in the global economy.

The present  Nigerian leaders should see this independence celebration as time to reflect on our  past so as focus on the political emancipation of the country; restore security and the confidence of the populace.

OPINION

In any other nation except our disjointed and hopelessly marooned federation, the fact that the central focus of discourse in the choice of our leaders at all levels anytime elections are about to hold is often reduced to the accident of their geographical origin should be a matter of serious concern to its elites. And if the matter is still the topical issue in the choice of our leadership more than fifty years after our independence it should be a deep source of worry and deep embarrassment, assuming, of course, that Nigerians as a collective, are still conscious of the meaning of shame!

To the eternal shame and embarrassment of the entire black race, fifty years after the departure of the British, Nigeria is still nothing more than a 'geographical expression', to recap the words of one of the Trojans of First Republic politics. Sadly, even today, the talk is always about the Yoruba nation, Igbo nation, the fabled Hausa-Fulani Oligarchy, an imaginary distinctive Middle-belt, and the South-South.

Whatever gains our colonial experience bequeathed on us in terms of organization and a value-adding public service system have been abused and hopelessly compromised possible beyond redemption.

We have been reduced to a nation of big dreamers and little achievers, and here, permit me to take a swipe and indeed enjoy a hearty laugh at the principal objectives of our much vaunted Vision 20:20 Plan.

From every indication, the plan was conceived without the slightest contemplation of the crucial role of those expected to faithfully implement the plan itself. And the last time I checked, those 'crucial human resource' to drive the plan called not changed their nationality. They are still Nigerians.

They are the big men and women of gargantuan egos and limited vision, especially when the issue affects Nigeria as an entity. They love big parties and big masquerades. It does not bother them in the slightest that their nation has remained stunted in growth for as long as their own statures, so obscenely Omni-present in midst of unprecedented poverty, remains undiminished.

And for that reason, they can see no hope for single, united and prosperous Nigeria. They want state police as a first step towards the unbridled cannibalization of the nation. They mock and ridicule every intelligent argument intended to pull the nation out of the quagmire into which their criminal ineptitude had condemned and constantly play the ethnic and religious card because it is the only guarantee for the perpetuation of their primitive hegemony.

And for that they are fully prepared to deploy every trick and strategy in the world to ensure that their principal victims - the long suffering masses of Nigeria - whether they lived in Yanagoa, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Ibadan or Owerri are not educated or enlightened enough to question their crass ineptitude and poverty of leadership.

Only last week, the Chairman of the Nigerian Universities Commission was credited with the report that Nigerian parents now spend an average of 160 billion Naira annually to train over sixty thousand Nigerian students in Ghana alone! By the time the statistics for the our students in tertiary institutions in Dubai, Ukraine, Turkey, Cyprus, India, Sudan, and China among others are factored in, the statistics in terms of the overall cost to our economy would, of course, be stupefying. And all that because of the embarrassing failure of our government to fix our own educational system which remains in deep chaos.

As I write this, two of my son's have just graduated from secondary school with good grades in their WAEC Examinations, thanks to the excellent work the Army is doing with the Command Secondary School in Suleja. Now it seems the bigger challenge is finding a befitting university for the two to pursue their dreams. One wants to become a doctor, and the other a lawyer. But if take the word of my good friend who is a Nigerian university don, even the thought of sending them to any of our public universities is not even an option! He knows the system inside-out and has warned me against the notion.

So it seems am also condemned to join the ranks of frustrated Nigerians who must starve so that their kids can realize their dreams abroad! It baffles and increasingly irritates me that our leaders do not even realize that risk we run by subjecting our future to such uncertainties!

For every promising Nigerian kid compelled to study abroad, there is every likelihood that he may never return to our shores again to contribute to national development. Among the few credible Nigerians conferred with national honours yesterday was a certain Jelani Aliyu who is the shining star in the renaissance of America's General Motors for his brilliance at designing cars! He had left for America for further studies after completing a diploma course in Nigeria. We are now left to contemplate what would have been if Nigeria had also kept pace with the development of nations like India and Brazil who have thriving automobile industries!

Jelani's story, like others before him, easily explains why our best brains continue to troop abroad whether they are scientists, doctors, or promising students, because our broken system and visionless leaders have contrived to make our local environment unattractive to them.

We import virtually everything we use in this country including toothpicks and used under-wear. We export every useful products and natural reserve only to import them at a premium because we lack the wherewithal and commonsense to refine the same products for effective national development. Sadly as the case of Jelani, and the endless stream of Nigerian students for better education has shown, such exports are not only restricted to prostitutes, but ultimately our most gifted brains crucial to effective national development. The other word for it of course, is brain drain!

The other worrying factor in the face of the current mess we have found ourselves in is the fact that managers of our economy can even dare to think about stabilizing the Naira in the face of such alarming capital flight. Shouldn't it be a cause for serious concern when the amount of money spent to by Nigerian parents to train their kids abroad annually is greater than our yearly vote for education? Do our leaders have blood running in their veins at all?

The way I see it, the only way the authorities along with our elites can be compelled to develop the critical patriotic zeal needed to urgently overhaul our health and educational systems for the good of the general citizenry were if there could be a form of legislation to prohibit all parents without exception from sending their kids to foreign institutions, and another for a total ban on overseas medical trips. But I doubt if that can ever happen.

Ours, like I wrote earlier, is a nation of big men in a hollow firmament called Nigeria. The nation must remain hollow so that their hegemony can endure. The big men are much more important than the nation itself. And the two are not mutually compatible. Our experience has proved that beyond all reasonable doubt.

That is why we celebrate the biggest political party in Africa when in reality it is not more than a dwarf compared to its peers in Africa and the rest of the developing world. Their greed is only matched in size by the evidence of their alarming mediocrity in all spheres of our national life. But we must not lose hope. Ghana was also like that before God used Jerry Rawlings to arrest the drift.

Before Rawling's decisive intervention, more than half of Ghanaian women had been forced into prostitution. Their graduates also served as house helps in Nigeria. But now our nation increasingly resembles a stranded whale; rich in potentials, but held down by bad leadership at all levels. We pray for God arrest the accelerated drift of our dear country towards the deep abyss.

Source: Daily Trust

China is offering Nigeria $1.1 billion in loans to help the West African nation build airport terminals, a light rail line for its capital city and communication system improvements, the country's Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

The loans reflect the deepening economic ties between oil-rich Nigeria and China, which already is involved in building major road and railway projects in the nation. However, similar deals with China have fallen apart amid corruption allegations, problems that persist today and could potentially put this new deal at risk as well.

The light rail project for Abuja, the nation's central capital, would bring commuters in from suburbs surrounding the city's distant international airport and from neighbouring Nasarawa state, the finance ministry said. That project would cost about $500 million, the ministry said.

Another project, valued at $100 million, part of a loan deal already signed involving the light rail, would go toward improving Nigeria's Internet capability, the ministry said.

The 20-year, 2.5 per cent interest loan for those two projects has a grace period of seven years before payment is required, the ministry said.

Separately, another $500 million loan will go toward building airport terminals in Abuja, Enugu, Kano and Port Harcourt, the statement read. Airports in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with more than 160 million people largely sit in disrepair as most were built in the 1960s and 1970s.

scmp.com

Chinese diplomatic officials in Nigeria could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.

The loans come as China increasingly looks across Africa for raw minerals and supplies to fuel a massive economy that has slowed in recent years during the economic downturn. Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned oil producer Sinopec Group, already pumps crude oil from Nigeria, although it is a relatively small amount compared to other Western companies operating there.

China also has been mentioned as a possible bidder for oil blocks in the country, though experts believe past Nigerian governments only have used the Chinese interest to force Western firms to increase their own bids.

Recently, Chinese workers helped reconstruct parts of Nigeria's moribund railroad system and have built roads and other projects in the country. But other projects haven't fared as well. In 2006, then-President Olusegun Obasanjo signed an $8 billion deal with the Chinese to repair his nation's railroads, with no visible effect.

Soldiers open fire to disperse Nigeria protesters

Soldiers opened fire Friday to drive away young Muslims in central Nigeria protesting a film critical of the Prophet Muhammad, witnesses and authorities said, as demonstrators elsewhere in the county’s Muslim north burned a U.S. flag.

The demonstrations in Jos, a city where hundreds have been killed in religious and ethnic violence, began after Friday prayers, witnesses said. Soldiers in the city, who have been on guard there since violence in 2010, followed after the youths, witnesses said.

The youths, some wearing white shirts that read ‘‘To Hell With America, To Hell With Israel,’’ chanted slogans and called for the arrest of the makers of the film that has sparked protests across the Middle East and North Africa.

As the youths grew angry, soldiers fired assault rifles into the air to drive them away, said Capt. Mustapha Salisu, a spokesman for the military command in Jos. The soldiers dispersed the youths as demonstrations have been largely banned in the city since the violence, said Salisu.

It was not clear whether anyone was injured in the gunfire or the melee.

AP

Jos, in Nigeria’s fertile middle belt, straddles the country’s predominantly Muslim north and Christian south. Jos and the surrounding Plateau state have been torn apart in recent years by violence pitting its different ethnic groups and major religions against each other. While divided by religion, politics and economics often fuel the fighting. In 2010, at least 1,000 people were killed in violence in Jos and surrounding regions, Human Rights Watch has said.

Meanwhile, protesters also entered the streets in Sokoto, a city in Nigeria’s northwest that is nation’s the spiritual home for Islam. Several demonstrations saw hundreds on the street, as protesters burned a U.S. flag.

‘‘Time has come when the world should respect Islam as religion, because Muslims respect other people’s religion,’’ protester Abubakar Ahmed Rijia said.

Another protester, Nai'u Muhammed, said he believed people were deliberately trying to instigate Muslims into violence through criticizing the Prophet Muhammad.

‘‘Islam is a religion of peace, but we cannot tolerate somebody abusing it,’’ Muhammed said.

The protests in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world focused on a movie, called ‘‘Innocence of Muslims,’’ which ridicules the Prophet Muhammad by portraying him as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester. Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any fashion, much less in an insulting way.

In Nigeria, where the two faiths live and work together, as well as intermarry, there wasn’t immediate, overwhelming outrage like what swept other nations. However, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and the U.S. Consulate in Lagos closed early Friday. Nigeria’s top police official also ordered increased security at foreign embassies in the country.

Nigeria also faces ever-increasing violent attacks from a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which is blamed for killing more than 670 people this year alone, according to a count by The Associated Press.

In Maiduguri, the sect’s spiritual home, the streets were quiet Friday. Abubakar Mustapha, an imam and head of the local university’s Islamic Studies department, called on Muslims to be restrained in their actions, no matter how angry they may feel over the film.

‘‘How can we earn the respect of others when we as Muslims kill ourselves, when we do things that smear the name of our religion?’’ Mustapha asked while holding prayers Friday. ‘‘We have to go back to the basic and hold firm unto our religion with love and true devotion so that others will respect our religion and our prophet.’’

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Associated Press writers Murtala Faruk in Sokoto, Nigeria; Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria; and Jon Gambrell in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

I have never seen a country run so fraudulently as Nigeria...

I have never seen a country run so fraudulently as Nigeria. The rulers have been criminal liars and there don’t seem to be any end to this. More or less, perpetual fraud and deception of the people by a few politically-connected elite ripping off the vast majority of long suffering Nigerians to no end.

The real hike of fuel price started with the dawn of ‘democracy’ in 1999. Obasanjo ‘removed the subsidy on fuel’, to ‘deregulate the downstream sector’, free government fund and waste in ‘unnecessary fuel subsidy and encourage direct foreign and local investments in downstream sectors of the very corrupt Nigerian petroleum industry more than three times during his eight years of misrule and electoral fraud. From N20 a litre, when he assumed power in 1999, he jacked it up to N30, but reduced it to N22, following public outcry in 2000; then to about N26 in 2002 and then to N40 per litre in 2003 and after the explosive protests he reduced it to N34 but later increased it to N40 in 2006, and finally to N75 just before he left power in 2007, when plotting to impose Yar’Adua on Nigerians, despite the man’s health challenges to start a fight with Nigerians and labour unions on ‘fuel subsidy withdrawals.’ Yar’Adua managed to reduce the price from N75 to N65 in 2007, which it has remained till date and from which President Goodluck Jonathan want to play the spoiler on long suffering Nigerians from 2012, if what we hear is true.

Where is the subsidy?

The truth of the matter is that there has never been any subsidy. Before the lame duck president Musa Yar Adua (Peace unto his soul) died, he confessed that a cabal has hijacked the Nigerian petroleum distribution and marketing process, and suggested he was helpless in getting unto them, probably because this cabal funded his rigging to power in 2007 or because of his health challenges then. And recently, Prof Tam David-West, a former petroleum minister (1984-1985, under the Buhari/Idiagbon regime) and one who should know better, confessed that there was no subsidy in Nigerian petroleum before 1986 and up to this day and I agree with the Prof. What has been happening is that thieves and greedy governments who want 10 presidential jets for themselves, wives and girlfriends, all out of state funds, when Nigeria can't even manufacture a propeller; those whose second homes are in French Reveries, Central London and Hampstead areas and Potomac areas of Washington or Maryland when all they do is lazily distribute oil proceeds in Abuja every month and go to sleep thereafter until the next round of monthly distributions, have caused the naira to continuously depreciate and become ‘worthless’ more or less like ‘monopoly money’, or waste paper getting closer to ‘Mugabe’s dollars!’

The naira keeps dwindling in value, while the evil politicians who do not care because they get free petrol and aviation fuel for their chains of cars and jets, come back on the hard pressed people to tell them they want to withdraw ‘fuel subsidy.’ There is no end, and there will be no end to this as long as this band of pirates continues to rule us! They know the truth and where the problem lies but they will never address it. Like I said about Prof David-West, there were no subsidy in fuel when our four refineries were functioning at full capacity and properly maintained. Since 1999 in particular, tons of cash have been allocated for TAM (Turnaround maintenance) for the four refineries which never got anywhere near engineering or equipment for maintaining refineries, but ended up in bank accounts of PDP sup- porters and election rigging facilitators, who call themselves contractors.

And so, Nigeria has been dependent largely on imported petrol and kerosene for a growing population, the exact numbers remain unknown, as we can’t even count ourselves because of ineptitude and corruption of our rulers who always manipulate these numbers to their selfish desire. And who does all the importation of petroleum products? The PDP mafia and election rigging funders at all levels of the chain. The people are swindled whichever way the pendulum swings, and no way out of this mess because the baton is being changed to the same group of oppressors; utterly clueless and corrupt and it does not matter where the baton holder comes from, they all dance to the same tune and never representatives of the people they purport to represent.

There will be no end to this cycle of increases and lies of ‘subsidy removal’, so long as the greedy elite and IMF-inspired technocrats like Okonjo-Iweala are in charge to ensure Nigeria continually depreciates the naira relative to the dollar with all the waste, mismanagement and corruption in running all arms of government in such a wasteful country. Yes, the Nigerian people must resist very vigorously, this umpteenth increase in the name of a ‘bogus fuel subsidy’ removal.

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