Month: December 2023

Tinubu Cannot Give What He Doesn’t Have

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By Adeola Aderounmu

In some way, we are all like Tinubu, we cannot give what we don’t have.

I had described Tinubu’s government as a Jaguda government. A Jaguda government is a criminal government, simple. I have seen outcry over the 2024 Tinubu’s budget. I have not expressed any outrage because there is none. Though a lot of government in the world are criminal organizations, the pattern of it in Nigeria is disturbing.

If someone had told you that Tinubu is a hungry man or a hustle before he became the president of Nigeria, you would have dismissed the allegation just the same way his wife Remi did. She said Tinubu does not need Nigeria’s money. She is a blood liar. Everyone lies at some point, but some lies are entrenched in some people’s DNA.

Have you seen how much Tinubu is taking from the National treasury to feed his hungry family? I don’t care about the amount because he did not start the madness. Buhari and Baba kekere-Osinbajo did not start it either. Hungry families have been moving in and out of government houses since it’s creation. Nigeria fed the hungry brits. Now she will feed the hungry Tinubus. It is called heritage. If you wanted a one Nigeria, your ancestors may punish you if you complain about the 2024 budget because the 2025 will not be different.

A few people have cornered the goodness of the land. They have stopped the flow of milk and honey to more than 180 million people living in poverty,

Tinubu cannot give to Nigeria that which he does not have. Let us be clear for the umpteenth time. The problem is not Tinubu. The problem is Nigeria. The country was manufactured by the rogues of England. The profits of the “lands” or “nations” entrapped within Nigeria are shared mostly among foreign criminal governments, foreign criminal organisations and the “Nigerian” elites that have perpetuated and perfected the process of neo-colonisation.

The only thing that still speaks against the highly placed criminality of the Nigerian elites is the confession of a Nigerian politician in the late 1970s that there is enough to go round even if Nigerian politicians and the people are greedy. There is enough for everyone’s greed. That is how “rich” Nigeria is even under the biggest management. But the goodness does not go round because for example we are being told that a man like Emefiele has 4 banks. We also know that Tinubu stole money and gave his son to buy an expensive house in UK. I mean there are uncountable reasons why there is not enough today for everyone’s greed. A few people have cornered the goodness of the land and have stopped the flow of milk and honey to more than 180 million people living in poverty.

In the 1990s, I read a story that I believed so much. That if the resources of the Niger Delta were properly managed, they are enough to sustain the entire Africa continent. I believed the narrative because in Europe, there are countries that have inadequate resources, but the people are living good, most of them.

Therefore, the problem is not Tinubu. The problem is the existence of Nigeria. The problem is the extinction of the nations that competed during the early years of Nigeria. The problem is the extinction of the Western Region, the Eastern Region and the Northern Region. The problem is the lack of determination of the people entrapped in Nigeria to seek freedom and pursuit of happiness in independent nations. The people chose slavery – they chose Nigeria – the modern slave ship.

Tinubu cannot give you what he does not have. The 2024 budget is what he has. A criminal will always make criminal documents to keep himself in business. A criminal will surround himself with loyal criminals. That is what government in Nigeria has always been, that is what it will always be. Again, I must remind you that most governments in the world are criminal organisations. The most distinguishing element of the criminality of the Nigeria government is not giving a damn about consequences.

What Tinubu can give you is a cosmetic fight against corruption. He will choose his fight carefully because if a criminal steps on the wrong toes, he would be burnt, brutally. Tinubu can drag Emefiele. The former central bank rogue is an easy target. The man who employed him or the government he served can breathe. They have a scape goat. Everything about Tinubu is fake. You know the stories. You want a good life from a man who made fortunes through a fake life? You are the biggest joker.

The redemption of the people trapped in Nigeria can never come from a man whose hands are soiled in blood. The redemption will not come from a bloody liar who made a living and a curious life out of lies and deceits. Tinubu will almost pursue a unilateral line of anticorruption: Emeliefiasis. Emeliefe served in a corrupt regime. Corruption has been the national anthem since 1960 and the amplification of corruption between 1999 (when Tinubu himself became a rogue governor) and today is unprecedented in the history of mankind.

Every now and then, one way or the other, there will be cheering news. Something like the railway line evolving. Remember that these rail lines are very old inventions and that the side cuts in terms of corruption are massive and unspoken. Every now and then, there will always be a silver lining somewhere. That is how Nigeria was built to function.

The playground for success will never be level. The opportunity to succeed will never reach every corner of Maiduguri or Badagry. A unilateral system of government is not for the benefit of everyone. It is for the selected few, their families-when they find harmony within, and their business friends-locally and internationally. What about the lobbyists and the PR machines always making sure that the public spaces and the media you consumed fill you with hope that Nigeria will be better in your lifetime? My grandparents were fed with the same message of hope. My parents died hoping for a return to the lives they had in Western Nigeria.

At some points, I thought it would come. But now, having been fortunate to cross middle age, I am sure the hope of unborn generations of Yoruba cannot be in the hands of criminals like Tinubu (or Obasanjo before him). No man can ever give you what he does not have. But gangsters and impostors will pretend to do so. I love the word “inexplicable”. It has helped me to describe the average mentality of the Nigerian hoping that things will get better and life will be good for more than 200 million people entrapped in colonial-made NIGGER AREA.

In all honesty, all a typical Nigeria seek is better life for himself/herself. That hope is a selfish hope and has nothing to do with the rest of us. If we care for one another, our thoughts of freedom should be unanimous, our quests to live happy and to find peace with man and nature will be unquestionable. We would be in our nations building, inventing, investing, and making a better world ready for our children and the generations unborn.

But we can’t give what we don’t have, can we?

Sweden’s Failure At Transportation

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Sweden’s Failure At Transportation

By Adeola Aderounmu

Sweden is always trying to save the rest of the world from all unpleasant situations.  There are so many adventures that Sweden have undertaken since time immemorial. I remember a damaged pipeline off the American coast or where was again, Gulf of Mexico? Sweden was the country that succeeded in stopping the leakage and ending a potential environmental disaster.   

Sweden is everywhere. She goes to Africa doing all kinds of missions. She invades the Middle East and scoop souls to save or revive. Sweden builds abroad, with very fine architectures. She exports music, Spotify, Abba, Aviciii (RIP) and so many good things of life. No doubt she brings home the rewards of plundering.

But if you live in Stockholm especially along what we call the surface train lines (pendeltåget), Sweden would have at some point made your life hell on earth. There is a dilemma on this surface train line that I have witnessed for almost 2 decades. If a problem can persist for that long, and of there is no solution in sight, the most appropriate explanation is corruption. There must be some form of massive corruption that has made it impossible for Sweden and Stockholm to end “a simple” problem she would have solved if the problem was in another country.

In the winter every year and sometimes with temperatures as low as minus 21, the Stockholm surface train could suddenly be out of service throwing many passengers into confusion.  The pain is indescribable. The frustration, the anxiety and the uncertainties that occur every winter in Stockholm with respect to the failed surface train schedules should be studied. It may be a life shortener.

Let us be clear about a great nation that Sweden is. She has the longest underground tunnel network in the world. It has been described as the longest work of art made by man. That is very commendable. The fact is the network continues to grow because more interconnections have been proposed and some are near completions. The underground blue line has been extended and will reach a new length in the nearest future. The problems with the Swedish underground trains are not severe. They are no unusual and do not take time to clear.

It is even slightly mysterious that the underground network (that is under the earth) works better and more effective the surface network that is over the earth. Could it be that more focus is placed on something that is under the earth than something that is above it? Are they trying to tell us that the surface train is more exposed to drastic changes in weather? You must wonder why Sweden can take care of the underground train network better than the surface train network.

Nevertheless, with all the knowledge, experience and technical abilities in Sweden, the surface train network remains a disturbing shame to the country. This winter 2023 December, a lot of train travel times have been cancelled. Some trains have run on shorter wagons. There have been complains about the maintenance of the tracks. That really is shocking: that the tracks are not well maintained. What is serious accidents occur? The blaming game would start. Who does not know that prevention is better than cure?

The consequences of these annual anomalies may in fact constitute serious aspects of mental health imbalance for affected people. We must see beyond the frustrations on their faces. Failed train networks do more than causing lateness to work. People also often get late to getting their wards from schools. They miss other friends and family engagements or activities. What about the financial or economic loss to the county? Individuals lose time and money. The country loses time and money. When shorter wagons run, the crowd at the stations build up. In this cold weather, that is a means to increase the spread of communicable diseases.  A substantial part of the residents fear for terror attacks too. The crowd that builds up when trains stop working or are delayed are potential spots for attacks.

My suggestion to the Swedish Transport Corporation (Stockholm Local Traffic) is that they need to sit down and look at themselves in the faces and in the mirror. They need to get this system working by taking a holistic approach to problem solving in this sector. 

The tracks must be fixed and maintained as scheduled. Ten years over the schedule time is a clear indication of being irresponsible and taking our lives for granted. There will be winter every year. So why is every winter characterized by the same problems with the trains? I do not think there are newer problems with the trains than they were 10 years ago. Winter will come, there will be snow, it will be cold. Is there anything that the Stockholm Local Traffic does not know about winter? Winter should no longer be an excuse for poor train services. This is Sweden!

What is this thing about shortage of employees? Take measures to make the job of a train driver attractive and get more people employed. There are so many unemployed people in Stockholm, so we should not be having shortage of employees at all. No, we should not.

There is the story of failure of signal. I don’t think anybody knows what that means. It has become an acronym for “out of service” if you ask me. Can you please explain “signal fel” to us so we can proffer a solution?

The bottom line is that the Stockholm Local traffic lacks pre-emptiveness and the corporation is behaving like it is doing us a favour. We are paying for this extremely poor delivery of services which is why I maintain that the underlying cause of these problems is massive corruption within the Stockholm Local Traffic.

The corruption must be addressed in order to improve services. In my end of the train line, we have a 30-minute interval to deal with. If a train is cancelled, that is minimum of one hour waiting time. The interval must be improved going forward.

I understand that politics too have a role to play in all these poor service deliveries. Talk to the concerned politicians about your needs and bring the citizens on your side to improve train services. Stop further increase in the prices of train tickets because the quality of service delivery have declined in the last 2 decades.

Don’t forget: update your tracks to prevent accidents or derailing.

One can be proud of Sweden in many ways, but in the Stockholm transport system, shame is what I feel. Fear is what I breathe when expecting visitors and never knowing if they will arrive or travel back in peace.

Sweden is everywhere. But I don’t see Sweden in the Stockholm Local Traffic.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Economic Hardship-A 21st Century Survival Of the Fittest

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Finding a balance between our aspirations, our quests for economic independence and the unpredictable twists of life, in my opinion, have reignited the old theory of survival of the fittest in our modern history and existence.

A 21st Century Survival Of the Fittest

Adeola Aderounmu, Sweden.

The cascades of events since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have not been palatable, globally. The astronomical increase in the prices of food, the astronomical increase in the interest rates charged on mortgage, the increase in the cost of all forms of transportation and the overall rise in the cost of living have very devastating consequences on human mental health, and in fact on our existentiality. The unbelievable and unbearable increase in the cost of living definitely have effects on our social interactions. Indeed, it redefines our thoughts about the essence of life/living.

The balance between our aspirations, our quests for economic independence and the unpredictable twists of life, in my opinion, have reignited the old theory of survival of the fittest in our modern history and existence. Nowadays, if you cannot survive, you are doomed. You are on your own. Now we know how it was when Darwin proposed survival of the fittest. We now understand how environmental factors selected the organisms that were on the right side of the survival curve.

It would be too abstract to write about this essay without using some personal reflections and experiences. When you hear for the first time how the rate of suicide in Europe is high, you would find it absurd as a typical African. But after accumulating experiences and participating in the European (western) life, it would no longer shock you to even see African settlers in Europe adding to the suicide pool in Europe. I could also do this essay from the living in Africa perspective. Even if not well documented, I known that suicide rate in Nigeria has also escalated. It is harder to live during this Era, or maybe this is what all adults above the middle age realize when they get there.

I read about a couple here in Sweden who seek divorce and they must sell their house. But under the present economic hardship in Europe, they will be unable to pay off the loan on the house after selling it. Neither of them has the economic capability to keep the house. This is how the life in Europe have destroyed the well-being of people. No matter how hard you work, you always feel like you are inadequate financially, the fear of your economic instability can drive you insane. You may even question your existence because of your inadequacies.

Among other consequences is high rate of death from high blood pressure/hypertension. It is very hard to cross the middle age in Europe without suffering from high blood pressure. The credit system, the loan system and the mortgage system give you a false array of economic stability, until something very serious goes wrong or you get to a moment that you realized that you didn’t really get it all figured out before you went for it. A war is something seriously gone wrong. Economic downturn is something very serious. High interest rate is something very serious. Sudden unemployment, incapacitation and other things that can turn our lives upside down are serious occurrences.

Who profits from our miseries? Where do all the sudden increase in rents and interest rates end up?  We work the same hours, we put in the same efforts as when the economy was good as when it turned bad. From a lame man point of view, my take is that the global work force if feeding the greed of the insatiable. The global work force must pay the price for the capitalism-based world economy.

Forgive my ignorance, I cannot understand why my bank should get richer at my expense if there was no one behind the scenes. For that is exactly what it is when the bank’s interest rates dip holes in my savings. They know they will come for our savings; so they told us to save for the rainy days. Then they make the rain fall in many ways: war, inflations, high interest rate, high cost of living and general instability in the world order.

As it is, we are fighting for our lives and no one cares if we survive or die under these strangulations. As it we have not had enough, they set Gaza on fire to distract us from our goals to survive. They make life more meaningless, so we could pity ourselves and at best compare our difficult lives with those who are massacred in Gaza and Ukraine. Head or tail, global citizens are at the receiving end. They are fighting to survive either economic hardships or a permanent state of war.

I hope what I’m trying to say here made some sense.  I’ll leave it as it is.

aderounmu@gmail.com