Nigeria Property: 05/10/15

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Interesting article by Senator-elect & Chairman of Silverbird Group, Ben Murray-Bruce.

Now that Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) has been chosen by the Nigerian people, it is my duty as a patriotic Nigerian to help him succeed even though my candidate was Pres. Jonathan, a man to whom I will always be loyal and appreciative.

General Buhari is about to mount the saddle and I for one am in a very good position to tell him some home truths because as a senator-elect, I have a very fulfilling job awaiting me and I do not need a job or favours from Buhari so I do not have to play nice.

Looking at the personalities he has appointed to his transition council, I am wont to believe that General Buhari needs to expand his circle of friends and advisers.

As a military strategist, the president-elect must be familiar with the principle that the people you use in subduing an opponent are not necessarily the same persons you will need in rebuilding the territories you took. I may be using military terms, but I am sure General Buhari is aware that politics is war by other means and therefore many of the rules of war and peace apply to politics.

The General will be best served if he thinks of what is best for Nigeria rather than what is best for his party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), and its chieftains.

He must remember that in Nigeria’s subjective politics, it was his person that the people voted for not his party and he should therefore serve the people the dish they are angling for.

And what are the expectations of Nigerians from General Buhari? Definitely not business as usual.

The president-elect ran on a promise of change and while that change was not really defined by its chanters, Nigerians defined it as a change in their situation.

To borrow from the famously potent prayers of Mountain of Fire and Miracle members, the Nigerian masses defined change as a situation where wealth and power must change hands from the elite to the masses by fire by force and they see General Buhari as the enforcer angel that will bring about this change.

With this type of expectation, Buhari’s honeymoon period with Nigerians will not last very long if he does not take drastic steps to adjust Nigeria’s economy to the realities of falling oil prices and a dearth of buyers for the Bonny Light Sweet Crude.

To put things into perspective, when the United States started buying less and less of Nigeria’s oil, we looked to China as an alternative buyer of oil but it has since come to light that whereas America spent $101 billion on clean energy between 2012-13, China spent $125 billion within the same time frame.

The above data should alert Nigeria and other nations that look to China for oil markets to the fact that China is even ahead of the West in the search for alternative to fossil fuels as a source of energy.

Buhari may wish he did not win the 2015 elections when the reality of our economic situation sets in.

In his December 2014 Channels Television interview, Buhari said he was going to “stabilise the oil market”. The General will learn soon enough that today’s oil market is a buyers’ market.

And the General’s choices are limited because he cannot (unless he is extraordinarily brave and politically callous) do the obvious and sack civil servants. Yes, he will eventually have to reduce the over bloated federal civil service, but before he can do that, he has to build up political capital by reducing the overhead of the Executive and persuade the Legislature to follow suit.

Austerity measures must start from Aso Rock. This means that luxurious multi car convoys must be reduced. The presidential air fleet has to go, by way of being auctioned off or sold to local airlines. Estacode allowances must be slashed and the president’s entourages should be lean while non-essential foreign travels should be banned.

The president-elect should not underestimate the big difference these small changes can make and their capacity to buy him enough credibility with the labour unions, the kind of credibility that will see them accepting cuts in the federal workforce and reduction in pay and entitlements.

A small change like flying commercial instead of by private jet saved Britain a whopping £200,000 when the thrifty British Prime Minister, David Cameron, flew to America to meet President Barack Obama on a regular BA flight.

Nigeria is in for very desperate times if we do not tighten our belts while our major foreign exchange earner is facing global challenges.

Russia, a nation that many will say is more prepared than Nigeria for the shocks occasioned by the drop in the price of oil devalued its currency by 11 per cent in just one day.

While Russia is taking these steps, the world is watching to see if Nigeria will continue to spend hundreds of billions annually sponsoring its elite on pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem.

I mean, no economist will get why a nation with over 60 per cent of its people living in poverty at the best of times, will spend almost 1 per cent of its annual budget sponsoring pilgrimages for its elite who can afford to go to the Holy Land on their own dime.

I for one do not get it. A pilgrimage is meant to be a sacrifice of a believer. How is a pilgrimage still a sacrifice when someone pays for you to go? The Nigerian government is sending people on holidays not pilgrimages!

I daresay that the money being spent by the Nigerian government to airlift pilgrims to both Holy Lands is enough to educate all the almajiri in Northern Nigeria. Wouldn’t God and humanity be better served if we looked after the less privileged in our midst?

General Buhari has his work cut out for him and he does not have time to be bitter about who said what, when and where. He must let go of any desire to pay any of his traducers back whether they be from the last 16 years or as far back as 1985.

Four years is only enough time to fix Nigeria. Any time spent on other ventures is time taken from this most important of assignments.

And let me say that General Buhari should not allow himself to be pigeon holed by people who dangle ideologies instead of realities. Yes, the APC may have styled itself as a progressive party, which in itself is a contradiction because Buhari is a conservative, but Buhari should not bother about that.

Whether the philosophy is progressive or conservative or liberal or free market, he should go with what works because as Deng Xiaoping once noted: “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat.”

And it is fitting for me to end with a mention of Xiaoping. No other contemporary world leader, in my opinion, closely mirrors Buhari as does Xiaoping.

In 1966, Xiaoping was dethroned from his powerful party positions by loyalists of Chairman Mao as was Buhari in 1985 by loyalists of his Chief of Army staff.

Xiaoping suffered house arrest, loss of earned privileges and was consigned to political limbo for almost a decade as was Buhari.

But then Xiaoping bounced back into favour and became China’s leader in 1976 and thereafter jettisoned his life long belief in Mao’s Cultural Revolution and introduced the “one country, two systems” policy that allowed communism and capitalism to coexist in China. This is similar to Buhari’s conversion from an anti-democrat who believed power flowed from the barrel of a gun to a democrat who accepted democracy as the best form of governance and capitalism as the natural economic policy of a democracy.

But this is where Buhari has to learn from Xiaoping. Xiaoping refused to demonise Chairman Mao, his predecessor who had purged him from power and placed him under house arrest after stripping him off his privileges. Instead of bitterness, Xiaoping believed that Mao’s “accomplishments must be considered before his mistakes”.

This is how Buhari must treat his predecessors. He must not demonise everything that was done by previous administrations and mark those who served in those government as persona non grata. He must take the bitter with the sweet and make use of the best brains Nigeria has to offer, for as he said on December 31st, 1983, “This generation of Nigerians and indeed future generations have no other country than Nigeria”.

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I Just Hope My Wife Will Not Divorce Me - President GEJ

Speaking at the thanksgiving and farewell service organized for him today, President Jonathan said he hopes his wife will not divorce him just as the former South African leader, F.W de Klerk’s wife left him when he chose to abolish minority rule in South Africa, a decision he took for the greater good of South Africa.
gej

Pres. Jonathan was speaking against the backdrop of his decision to concede defeat after the presidential elections. He said such decisions come with its consequences. He sympathized with his Minister and aides for the persecution they will face as they also leave office come May 29th.

‘I believe there are reasons for everything. Some hard decisions have their own cost. That I have ran the government this way that stabilized certain things, the electoral process and other things that brought stability into this country. They were very costly decisions which I must be ready to pay for. Some people come to me and say this or that person is he not your friend that benefited? Is it not your government that this person benefited from? But this is what the person is saying. But I used to say worse statements will come. If you take certain decisions, you should know that those close to you will even abandon you at some point. And I tell them that more of my so-called friends will disappear. When F.W de Klerk took the decision to abolish minority rule in RSA, even his wife divorced him. I hope my wife will not divorce me. But that is the only decision that has made RSA to still remain a global player time. If we still had that minority rule there, by this time, nobody will be talking about RSA. If you take certain decisions, it might be good for the generality of the people but it might affect people differently. So for ministers and aides who served with me, I sympathize with them, they will be persecuted. And they must be ready for that persecution” he said

He appreciated God for being with him and his family.

“Very few of those in my age brackets have been that lucky. All through my education were on government scholarships. I have not suffered lack not because I’m hard-working but by God’s grace. When I look at the whole picture of my life up to when I became the president of this country. And I say that if soldiers and police officers that have not received 0. 5 per cent of the benefits that I have received from the state can lay their lives for this country, I should do anything in the interest of Nigeria including paying the supreme price. As long as live, I will continue to do my best for the state because the state has helped me as a person. I have to thank Nigerians especially my state for giving me the opportunity to serve as deputy governor and the whole country gave me the opportunity to serve as Vice President and then president, first was to complete the tenure of the late president and later serve as president from which I am exiting now as a very happy and fulfilled man”.

Photos: Chinese Billionaire trips 6,400 staff on holiday to Paris; costs him about $50m

Pics from Northern Elders Forum as they pay General Buhari courtesy visit

Emmanuel Adebayor shares more story about his brother !

Emmanuel Adebayor not over with his family…shares more anecdote about his sibling he blamed for stealing Footballer Emmanuel Adebayor who made some startling disclosure about his family as of late took to his facebook page this evening to reveal more insight into his rough association with one of his siblings, Rotimi Adebayor pictured with him bellow.

Here is another part of the story I have kept inside since. Today I feel the constant need to let it out. If I share my stories, it is because I believe every story comes with a lesson. And the lesson is for anyone that is reading this. This is about a brother who keeps saying today that I am not a good support for our family. His name is Rotimi Adebayor. At the age of 13, he did something very bad. He and I know what he did. Because of that our parents had to send him to a village far from the big city. When I started to be successful in football and I went to Togo for vacation; at that time one of my mother’s friend came from the village to visit us.

As she explained how Rotimi was suffering in the village, I immediately asked them to bring him back into the city. As soon as he came back, I made sure I put him in school. For me that is normal. In 2002, I went to play the AFCON in Mali and I had the huge privilege to swap my shirt with Marc-Vivien Foé. May his soul rest in peace. When I got back to Togo, I put that shirt in a secure place. My brother found a way to steal that shirt and sold it. When I moved from Metz to Monaco, we reached an advanced stage in the Champions League and we played against Real Madrid. It was one of most beautiful day of my life because I was lucky enough to get a signed shirt from the football legend Zinedine Zidane. As I brought that shirt back to Togo, my brother still found a way to steal that shirt and sold it.

When I was in Metz, I was earning about €15,000 a month. I wanted to get something unique for my mom to thank her for all she did for me. I wanted to make her happy. So I decided to take an amount worth 3 months of my wages and I bought her a Cartier neckless for about €45,000. Rotimi and his friends Akim(@Yam Freedom) and Tao (@Sao Tao Oyawole) made a plan and stole that precious neckless. They sold it for about €800. When my mom and I found out, my mother asked me not to bother because he is the younger brother. Despite the situation, I would like to take this same occasion to wish all the mothers out there a Happy Mother’s Day! Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone. From: Oritsegbemi omonigho mowarin Sent: Sunday, 10 May 2015 6:08 PM To: linda ikeji ikeji Subject: Footballer Emmanuel Adebayor not done dissing his family…shares more story about his brother he accused of stealing Footballer Emmanuel Adebayor who made some startling revelation about his family recently took to his facebook page this afternoon to shed more light on his rocky relationship with one of his brothers, Rotimi Adebayor pictured with him above. SEA, here is another part of the story I have kept inside since.

Today I feel the constant need to let it out. If I share my stories, it is because I believe every story comes with a lesson. And the lesson is for anyone that is reading this. This is about a brother who keeps saying today that I am not a good support for our family. His name is Rotimi Adebayor. At the age of 13, he did something very bad. He and I know what he did. Because of that our parents had to send him to a village far from the big city. When I started to be successful in football and I went to Togo for vacation; at that time one of my mother’s friend came from the village to visit us. As she explained how Rotimi was suffering in the village, I immediately asked them to bring him back into the city. As soon as he came back, I made sure I put him in school. For me that is normal. In 2002, I went to play the AFCON in Mali and I had the huge privilege to swap my shirt with Marc-Vivien Foé. May his soul rest in peace.

When I got back to Togo, I put that shirt in a secure place. My brother found a way to steal that shirt and sold it. When I moved from Metz to Monaco, we reached an advanced stage in the Champions League and we played against Real Madrid. It was one of most beautiful day of my life because I was lucky enough to get a signed shirt from the football legend Zinedine Zidane. As I brought that shirt back to Togo, my brother still found a way to steal that shirt and sold it. When I was in Metz, I was earning about €15,000 a month. I wanted to get something unique for my mom to thank her for all she did for me. I wanted to make her happy. So I decided to take an amount worth 3 months of my wages and I bought her a Cartier neckless for about €45,000. Rotimi and his friends Akim(@Yam Freedom) and Tao (@Sao Tao Oyawole) made a plan and stole that precious neckless. They sold it for about €800. When my mom and I found out, my mother asked me not to bother because he is the younger brother. Despite the situation, I would like to take this same occasion to wish all the mothers out there a Happy Mother’s Day! In my house, I have a storage room where I keep some of my belongings when I travel back to Europe.

I am the only one with that key but my brother managed to get a master key that was able to open every single door in the house. He frequently stole drinks and other items from that room. After all this we kept saying “blood is thicker than water” and we moved on. Therefore, I decided to take him where I started my football in France. I brought him to a great football academy in France. You already know how this story ended. He stole cellphones from many of his teammates and they sacked him from the football academy. By the way, after I published the first story about him, he called me to say that he did not steal exactly 21 phones. He claimed that the number was lower than that. Still…Is that acceptable? He also added that I should be happy that he stole drinks and other items from my storage room. I asked him why and he replied: “Because I am your brother”. Jacques Songo’o who is now a retired Cameroonian footballer also had his son in the academy and he was a good friend of Rotimi. Let me add that he was part of my development as a footballer and he always gave me good advices. I was in Togo on my days off when Songo’ocalled me; he sounded very angry.

He explained to me how my brother stole his son’s PSP. When I asked my brother why he did that, he argued that he forgot it in his bag. How can you forget someone else’s device in your bag and travel with it from France to Togo? Since that day, my relationship with Songo’o changed and he has become pretty distant with me and my family. I was still in Monaco when I decided to collect all football boots from my teammates so I could give them to people in Africa. I had a huge bag full of shoes. I brought that bag to Togo. A few days after when I decided to give the boots out to the people in need, I noticed the bag full of boots disappeared. Later on, I found out that my brother was the one who stole the bag and went to sell the shoes in Hedzranawoé (famous public market in Togo).

One day, my mom called me early in the morning when I was still in bed. She told me that Rotimi has gotten a Visa to go to Dubai so he can play football out there. He had to leave that day with his friend Kodjovi (@Denilson de Souza) who was in the same situation. It was either they went that day or the Visa would be suspended. I asked one of my guys at the time (@Agui Mozino) to go find tickets for my brother and his friend. We could not find any economy class ticket on that day so I had to get them both first class tickets. After all, it was an opportunity for him to make his own career in Dubai. Only 4days later, Rotimi went back home. He explained how the lifestyle in Dubai was not made for him. He said he wasn’t free to do what he wanted to do because it is a strictly Muslim place. He couldn’t drink, party as much as he wanted or kiss girls in public. The part 3 is coming out soon and it will be about the man that calls himself the father of the family @Kola Adebayor A.K.A Lion of Judah.