Nigeria

Why is the cost of gas soaring?

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Adeola Aderounmu

Slowly and steadily the price of gas has increased and surprisingly it is no longer part of the BIG news. I really don’t know why the price of gas has increased to a record high in Sweden. Gas is now sold for over 12 swedish crowns (12:37) the last time I checked.

Few years ago there was a lot of concern when the prices were hitting 11+ and now that it is even worse there is almost no news about it. It seems that some people are now succeeding in raking more profits for their government or petrochemical industries. Who knows, it could be one way to save the climate. But I doubt the latter since the cost of gas has never been shown to decrease its consumption.

On the contrary people cut down on other expenses and spend the same amount of money or even more on gas when the prices are high. I surely do hope to find the answer to this nagging question in the nearest days: why is the cost of gas on the rise? I hesitated 2 weeks ago before filling the tank of my car. I actually thought the price will fall during the week but I was wrong. So I was compelled to buy gas on a monday.

Still it would be nice to know the origin of this money sucker. Is it due to something happening in the ever turbulent Middle East? What role has the deadly Nigerian Delta got to do in this persistent development? Is it OPEC? Is it some gaseous organisation turning in more profit to salvage the global economic meltdown. As consumers we surely deserved to be carried along.

FIFA, Nigeria and Under-17 age cheat: Leave Amiesimaka alone

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A message to FIFA

by Adeola Aderounmu.

Amiesimaka is an ex-international for the Nigerian Green Eagles. He wrote about the Nigerian under-17 team and that there are overage players in the Nigerian team. He is right! Nigeria always field players who are older than 17 and that is why many of the boys disappear into thin air after the competitions. Only a negligible percentage of them play football for 5 or 10 years more after the age competitions.

The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) should leave Amiesimaka alone and stop deceiving the world. As Nigerians we cannot deceive ourselves, we know the truth. Of course there are several countries fielding over age players in these FIFA age group competitions. The only way out is for FIFA to disqualify teams/ countries that cheat. For example countries that cheat should face ban of up to 10 years. Without that FIFA is just wasting time with these age-group competitions, esp the under 17. It’s all rubbish!

Some people argue that Amiesimaka would have been mute if he was part of the LOC. That can be argued. If he was in the LOC, maybe he would have prevented over age players from being registered. Perhaps he could have used his experience to assist NFF in identifying over age players that are not detected or tested by the MRI used by FIFA. We will never know the role that Amiesimaka would have played if he was in the LOC. But it is stupidity to think or conclude that he would be a part to age-cheat. It is carelessness to think that he would encourage that.

The ball is always back to FIFA’s court. The players that Amiesimaka have pointed out should be tested by the MRI. If the players are found to have lied about their ages, Nigeria should be disqualified and sent packing. The country should be disqualified for a decade if possible. As mentioned earlier FIFA should intensity the MRI and try to detect if other countries have also cheated. To do nothing about this allegation is to further encourage corruption in football. It will be true to speculation that football is run like a mafia organisation-that host country/team for example can get away with football crimes.

For us as a country we need men and women of honour. We need people who can speak the truth and live by it. We live in a country in search of honour and integrity. We live in a time when corruption, lies, deceit, unfaithfulness and political madness have destroyed our sense of social responsibilities (including sports). Somewhere along the line (with revelations like this one from Amiesimaka) there are still signs of hope that Nigeria will rise again. This will only be possible with men and women of honour who have what it takes to lead by good examples.

Things are getting worse in Nigeria

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Things are getting worse

By Adeola Aderounmu

Surely there must be a turning point for Nigeria. The pump price of gas (petrol) is about to hit the N100 (one hundred naira) official mark. In the black markets and illicit gas stations, the pump price has always been arbitrary and over the N65 mark.

Until the turning point is negotiated by a conscious will, Nigerians are in for the hardest of time now and even in the future. Nigeria is one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil but some of the world’s poorest people live in Nigeria. I have written about these things several times and I have also suggested the way out of Nigeria. The only thing to do for now is to continue to remind Nigerians that unless they say no to oppression and tyranny there is still no hope.

Nigeria is battling a lingering problem of maladministration inflicted mainly by the absence of a true method of governance. Nigeria professes to be a democratic nation but democratic values or principles are missing from governance. Invariably rogues, thieves and thugs have perpetrated themselves in political offices in Nigeria.

As recent as the Ekiti re-elections and the selection of gubernatorial candidates in Anambra State we saw how democratic principles were thrown to the wind to give way to the wishes of Nigerian political gangsters. In an inexplicable manner the people turn the other way and the silly behaviours of the thugs in power continue.

Nigerians have allowed military men and the political class to ruin the country. There are almost no voices of reason in the political game in Nigeria. In Nigeria there has never been a successful mass revolt or demonstration to sack illegal or non-performing governments. Even though Nigerians are intelligent people, the politics, and our general attitudes reveal absence of sensibility.

In 2007 a new but illegal government emerged without elections and to this day the useless government has been allowed to rule. The results are obvious and have been clearly stated several times in other posts on this blog. The most useless government that I have seen in Nigeria is currently in session. Doing nothing, moving nothing but shielding corruption and protecting thieves and rogues.

Things are getting worse and Nigerians must break this silence now. Sack this useless and worthless government and make demands for positive changes. For almost 50 years we have wasted our resources and destroy the foundations of our society. It will take not less than 50 years to rebuild this country, when do we want to start?

Things are getting worse; Nigerians arise and stop this nonsense. Enough is enough.

The Bad Luck and Evil in Nigeria Today

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By Adeola Aderounmu

Nigerians are resilient, no doubt about that.

The current illegal regime in Nigeria is full of bad luck and evil. Nothing good has happened in Nigeria since May 2007 when Yar Adua was illegally installed as the ruler of Nigeria. I curse the day I will call him a president! He will never be one!

Nigerian sports has now died completely. Education is extinct. Health care is rubbish in the public health institutions. In private hospitals, health care is as expensive as gold-

Roads and other infrastructure are near collapse. The cost of living is out through the roof. Employment is record high and crime rate is extraordinary.

Purchasing power of the naira is in the ebb and the cost of transportation has skyrocketed over and over again.

Summarily, the state of security is zero as anyone can be killed or kidnapped at anytime.

Yar Adua is full of bad luck and it is surprising that the people of Nigeria cannot kick this evil man out of the way. He is illegal and non-performing. His reign has brought tears and harm to our daily lives and he is still be pampered like an egg. He is using our money to treat himself in Saudi Arabia while 5 000 children die weekly immediately after or during birth.

This is so silly, as in what is going on in Nigeria. It is worse than horror movie.

If Nigerians don’t know, they should read it from me that as long as illegality and evil government persist in Nigeria, things will get worse and worse.

Life will never get better under the reign of illegality and evil. Millions of Nigerians will not experience the good life until they make a decision to steer the course of the National democracy and the respect for the rights of all and sundry.

Until this mafiac reign of illegality, corruption and evil machinations are crushed, the bad luck, poverty and all the attributes of a failed state will persist in Nigeria.

The first thing to do is to get Yar Adua and other forms of illegality out of the way. A revolution of minds and attitudes will present the way forward for Nigeria. The status quo is the way of perdition and ruin.

I feel so sorry Nigeria, the ant of Africa

Nigeria Remains A Scalar Quantity at 49

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Nigeria Remains A Scalar Quantity at 49
By Adeola Aderounmu
There is almost nothing to celebrate nationally as Nigeria clocks 49 on 1st of October 2009. As a nation Nigeria has failed her citizenry. There was abundance when we took over the reign of governance from the British in 1960. It didn’t take long before greed, selfishness and lack of political will took the better of Nigerians. After the civil war, the politics of hate and the evil desire to acquire questionable wealth became aggravated. Gradually we led ourselves away from abundance and we chose austerity in its place.

We grounded all our agricultural exports and a few people who captured the country from time to time lavished away the gains of our oil exports. Rather than refining locally, we opted for exportation of our crude oil and importation of the finished products. That is a think-tank for the race-intelligence debate. In the process we created the “oil mafia” who alongside with the cabal continued to enslave the rest of us until this day.

In 1993 we abandoned hope and chose fear. In 1999 we opted for the evil of the past rather that sought fresh minds and new concepts. In 2007 we didn’t ask: where are our votes? In 2009 we confined ourselves to the doldrums and we confirmed our place as a laughing stock among the comity of nations. While the rest of the world is moving ahead we are content with the Pre-Industrial Age existence that has been foisted on us by a few greedy and corrupt men and women now led by a very incapable person called Yar Adua.

Since 1960 till date Nigeria continues to exist as a scalar quantity. We have size but definitely no direction. Nigerians apparently do not want to acknowledge that there has been a vacuum in governance since 2007. Even before then it was possible to see the rising similarities between Nigeria and Somalia. Somalia has not been governed for over a decade. In my personal opinion there is no president in Nigeria and that vacuum must be filled as soon as possible before we begin to address the options that could help change things for the better.

Nevertheless we must continue to remind ourselves of the appropriate things that we need to do to get this failing country back on track. The biggest stumbling block to our collective progress is the manner of our politics. Politics in Nigeria is seen as the biggest income earner and the shortest legitimate cut out of a life of poverty and despair. Invariably these mentalities have brought all kinds of people into politics and public life. Commonly, corrupt and very bad people are in charge of Nigerian politics. It is extremely hard to find a genuine public office holder in Nigeria.

It is also difficult to define a starting point for the way forward for Nigeria. This is because it has taken 49 years to destroy almost every aspects of our national life. The final onslaught is now on education and sports. Everything has fallen apart completely! Which of our problems can be the enviable starting block for the much needed national revamping?

What is going to work for Nigeria? Do we still have any hope? Is it possible for Nigerians to experience the bliss of the 1960s say 40 years from now? Let us forget about the 419 vision 2020. It is a calculated attempt by fraudulent minds to loot and steal. Nothing good can ever emerge from the present order of things in Nigeria! Not with the rogues in power.

I wrote about 2 years ago that to continue to wish that Nigeria will be a better place in the absence of conventional norms is complete fantasy. That there cannot be an escape from our entrapment if we do not have normal democracy; one in which the power rest absolutely on the people. One in which the people can decide what they want and how they want it-a democracy of participation instead of siddon-look.

Nigeria needs a democracy that will empower the people to struggle and win against oppression and dictatorship. Until such a time that real leaders will emerge in Nigeria through the ballots that have been declared free and fair, campaigns like the fight against corruption and the useless ongoing rebranding managed by corrupt people as we have it in present day Nigeria are simply hopeless adventures.

Though many of them got to the National Assembly through fraudulent means, the present crops of lawmakers in Nigeria have a chance to write their names in gold. They should ensure that they promulgate the electoral reforms that will ensure that the forthcoming elections are better than the 1993 elections. The process should start today with proper voters’ registration exercise. The goal should be a non-violent culmination where all votes are counted with minimal setbacks or hiccups in 2011 and beyond.

Nigeria needs men and women with sound minds who can institute and defend the pillars of democracy and the correct rule of law. I am sorry that Yar Adua is seriously ill and that he needs regular medical attention. But I am not sorry that he is living in denial and that he didn’t even use the 8 years he had as a governor to alleviate his medical travails. Even the 2 years he had spent as an illegal president have come to represent the worst 2 years by any Nigerian ruler. I am still very angry that he is pulling down more than 140m people. How hopeless can it get for Nigerians?

Indeed Nigeria is a very complex country in dire need of strong institutions and sound minds because the likes of Yar Adua and his present gang are enemies of progress. A mind as feeble as Umaru’s, pursuing a 7-point deadly agenda is the last thing that a failing nation like Nigeria requires at this crucial moment of our history. It is unthinkable we will endure another 2 years with a stolen cum failed presidency. It is disheartening that 2 years from now we may have reached an irredeemable status.

Nigeria is now 49 years. Where do we go from here? We want credible elections. We want accountable leaders. We want to restore our glory in education and sports. We want to bring food back to our tables. We want good roads. We want constant electric supply. We want employment opportunities to improve. We want to have petroleum products at our gas stations. We want water to drink. We want the value of our currency to rise. We want to have good health care system. We want insurance and security for our lives and property. In short we want a proper standard of living that will take us away from being the dwarf of Africa.

A new and fresh round of elections that will bring hope in place of fear and accountability in place of corruption remains the single most important step forward for Nigeria. It is arguable that if we don’t conduct a successful election in Nigeria, then we will not be able to do other things in the right way especially the true fight against corruption.

It is high time we put the right foot forward. The task of building this nation and making it ready for our children and children’s children must start now. A new national re-orientation that will bring out the best in us as individuals and as a nation is essential. Dignity in labour and the elevation of merit above nepotism will be essential ingredients.

aderounmu@gmail.com