Nigeria

The worst democracies in the world

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By Adeola Aderounmu

Some of the worst examples of democratic government are found in Africa. It is remarkable to note that even the country regarded as the cradle of humanity-Kenya that is, is among the most useless places on earth where crude democracy is established. If Africans cannot practice true democracy, they should denounce it and look for something that will work for the populace especially the poor people who are worst hit by the crimes of the gangster leaders. It is an anomaly to say for example that Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe have democratic governments. In reality, what you see in these 3 countries are autocratic government imposed on the people in a “whether you like it or not manner”.

Kenya Example
Kenya’s Kibaki and Odinga are two selfish leaders who threw the country into turmoil. Together they are responsible for the death of more than 1 000 people and the displacement of nearly half a million others. Today they are both president and prime minister respectively in a power sharing deal that completely negate the significance of the votes casted in Kenya in 2007. Power sharing by these demonic leaders is not democracy. Power sharing is not a reflection of the votes that were discarded and disregarded.

Odinga is now trying to export Kenya’s democracy to Nigeria. Someone should tell him to shut up! Nigeria already has a disastrous form of “home-grown” democracy and the last thing we need in Nigeria is a further dilution of that calamity. So Odinga, Shut up! The only reason you accepted the Prime Minister’s position was for your own selfish reason and that is not related to anything “peace” or “prosperity”.

Zimbabwe’s Example
After Kenya came power sharing also in Zimbabwe. Mugabe is 84 and he is still the autocratic leader in Zimbabwe. He refused to vacate the office of the president even when it was clear that he lost the elections. He said he doesn’t want the opposition in power because the opposition received the backing of the West. But the issue is: who voted for the opposition? Is it the West or the people of Zimbabwe who voted in March 2008?

Anyway, the opposition leader just like in the case of Kenya also accepted to be prime minister. They call it “in the interest of peace”. Good point! But who created the absence of peace in the first place? Of course it is the murderous leaders. It is the likes of Mugabe and Tsvangirai (aided by the West?) who instigated chaos and turmoil and the end result is that the votes became useless!

Truth is no decent man should accept to share power with people like Mugabe and Kibaki who have lost both the plan and ideas regarding modern world. It would have been better to let them persist as sole leaders rather than serve with them. To serve along with them is not the solution especially as the principles of democratic governance are compromised. Why should the people come back another day to vote if the outcomes of the previous voting resulted to power sharing? What then is the meaning of democracy? Nonsense!

Complicated? Yea! When you don’t have a sound principle, you’ll always accept to serve with wicked leaders like Mugabe and Kibaki and you’ll pretend it is for the people. It also shows that the likes of Odinga and Tsvangirai are selfish and very desperate. They are sharing power with friends and co-looters. The people are suffering!

Nigeria
My last example of some of the worst democracies in the world comes from Nigeria. Does anyone know that 20% of black people worldwide are Nigerians? If you break this down it means that for every 5 blackman /woman that you see, 1 is Nigerian!

Yet in this great country, the sleeping giant of AFRICA, democracy remains elusive! Nigeria is not yet a democratic country because since 1959 when the first elections were held, votes have never been counted. It is a tradition that Obaanjo passed on to his puppet called Yar Adua. Nigeria has also suffered tremendously as a result of the incursion of the military into partisan politics. People like Babangida and the Abacha family stole billions of naira and destroyed all the institutions of governance to ground zero.

Nigeria is very corrupt and the corrupt leaders and politicians continue to use stolen wealth to oppress the other people who are more than 90m and living on less than 2 dollars a day. In a country of 140m it is very shameful that those who could save the country are voiceless and powerless.

I am still amazed why Nigerians troop out on every Election Day to cast votes that will never be counted. That phenomenon should be listed as the eighth wonder of the world. In Nigeria, the situation is worse than in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Why? Because the results of elections are already determined before the Election Day. The godfathers who are mostly illiterates and idiots have their ways of sharing and dividing the political office in caucus meetings. It is a shame and today (october 13 2008) as I write there are violent incidents going on in Lagos Nigeria because of some silly re-election. There is no election in Nigeria without violence, arson, murder, molestation and assassination.

The political situation in Nigeria defiles all logic and human reasoning. This is a country that continues to produce some of the most intelligent people in the world. Nigerians are probably the most intelligent people in Africa, US and UK (and Europe generally) and even in the Middle East and Australia. It is therefore amazing how the idiots in politics have destroyed the institutions of governance and made it a cabal affair. It is amazing how Nigerians continue to develop other countries of the world while their homeland is almost uninhabitable.

Conclusively, there are some democracies in the world marred by stupidity, selfishness, looting, corruption and massive maladministration but the examples of Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria readily comes to mind because of the attendant effects of these anomalous democracies on the lives of the people. For example, there is no reason why every individual in Nigeria should not be a millionaire theoretically. That the monies for 140m continue to end up in private accounts and private pockets remain one of the unsolved mysteries of the 21st century, the 9th wonder maybe!

The Killing of another Nigeria (in China)

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Adeola Aderounmu.

These are worrying times not only for Nigerians but Africans as a whole. Racism is mounting now worldwide than any other time in human history. The problem now is that it is more of a mind game than physical manifestations. But the killings accompanying the escalated mind games in countries like Italy, Spain, Russia and now in China are indicators that racism is one of the greatest crimes in the world today.

It has not become an international norm to sentence a man to death in the absence of judicial proceedings still in these notorious countries where blacks are killed by security men or touts, nothing concretes are done by the respective governments.

Osamuyia was killed in Spain in the summer of 2007 and his body is still lying in the morgue in Spain. I can’t stop to imagine how very useless the government of Spain is. Extremely useless! It also amazes me the kind of zombies that called themselves leaders in Nigeria. I don’t see any reasonable government in the world abandoning her citizen in the mortuary of another country. It can only be Nigeria!

A Nigerian businessman has been reported killed in China recently. His death was described as brutal!
There has been a discussion on this at this forum on NAIRALAND.COM

This is a wake-up time for Africans and the black race worldwide. Something is going on and unless the black people unite among themselves they are now face with the threats of extinction and extermination. It is real and the earlier we take the bulls by the horns the better for our preservation and perpetuation globally.

We welcome people to our lands and our homes in Africa but we have been paid with negative coins on other continents. We must find out what is wrong and take urgent steps to address the anomaly.

If the world doesn’t listen to us, we MUST make them listen. Let’s put our houses in order and prepare safe havens for our children and children’s children. The ball is now in our court, let’s show how diligent we are!

Purchasing Power Parity or Corruption?

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By Adeola Aderounmu

Olu Falae took Yar Adua to the washerman describing him as unfit and unprepared to rule Nigeria. Of course we all know that. I told a friend recently that something remarkable will happen in Nigeria soon. The fact is that Yar Adua is buying time and playing smart. His game will be up soon. But what will happen after Yar Adua is what I cannot fathom. Nigeria is too complicated to predict accurately. It is sad because in the end it is the ordinary people like you and I that always suffer.

Anyway moving on, Olu Falae who was the Finance Minsiter when Babangida milked Nigeria to dryness by stealing more than 12 billion dollars of oil money is talking again. He is now 70 and wisdom may finally have caught up with him. Here is one of those men who presided over Nigeria in a very evil way. I have no respect for any man who participated in truncating my dreams and aspirations.

To this day I continue to see almost every politician in Nigeria as evil or devilish and every ex-military ruler as satanic. They cannot be normal people because of the effects of their conspiracy theories, looting and negligence of duty/ obligation. It is not normal to steal more than 12 billion dollars and it is not normal to be a finance Minister when such a evil is perpetrated. A normal Minister will resign to save his good name and to protect the future of the unborn. Nigerian politicians are senseless with their looting and selfish mentalities and Yar Adua is just one of them-take it or leave it! Truth will always be bitter!

So what is Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)? It is Falae’s formula to bring the value of the Naira to 1 dollar= 50 Naira.

Here is the excerpt from the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper of October 4 2008.

He described the prevailing exchange rate in the country and urged the government to consider Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) option.

According to him: “We talked about it at the time and I said in 1990 that the naira was grossly undervalued and I gave an example. I said ‘Look, let’s take the PPP, what we called Purchasing Power Parity. What it means in simple language is that a loaf of bread is a loaf of bread and a bottle of Coke is a bottle of Coke, whether it is in Lagos or New York. In economics, it is expected that a bottle of Coke would give the same satisfaction in Lagos as it would in New York. In essence, what you pay for a good is the satisfaction you get from it. So, the price is an equivalent of the satisfaction you get out of that good or service anywhere in the world.

“Now, a bottle of Coke today in Lagos is N50, while it costs probably one dollar in New York. If Coke were the only commodity used and traded, then one bottle of Coke is one bottle of Coke and N50 should be the same as one dollar. That should be the exchange rate. Because the purchasing power and the equality of purchasing power over the added value at the same point in time showed that N50 should be the same as one dollar. If you did it for a basket of goods, not just a loaf of bread, you will find out that there is no reason the dollar should be more than N40 or N50.”
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That is Falae’s approach. I am not an economist so I doubt if I have any comment on that. But remember that Babangida with his empty skull said that Nigeria’s economic problems couldn’t be solved after he and Falae applied all the methods at their disposals.

What the fool didn’t say was that he was institutionalising corruption and kickbacks. He didn’t tell Nigerians that he was saving the gulf oil wind-fall in a private account for himself and his family. He didn’t say that he was going to use this money to win friends and enemies in the dirty politics arena in Nigeria.

AND the useless government in Nigeria is still bragging about fighting corruption. How can you fight corruption when a person like Babangida is not arrested and tried for looting and for destroying democracy in Nigeria. Sometimes when I read about the EFCC, I just laugh. There first job is to take IBB in and investigate the money from the gulf war. As far as I am concern, until you touch people who think they are untochables, you cannot fight corruption anywhere in the world. Every other thing that you do is artificial and make-believe.

If you set a good example with well known thieves and looters, then you can be taken seriously and other politicians planning to loot will think twice. What we have today is paying purely lip service to fight corruption while massive looting and enrichment continues in the public service and political establishment. This is why more than 90m Nigerians remain very poor and insecure. CORRUPTION AND NEGLIGENCE OF PUBLIC SERVICE DUTIES.

Purchasing power indeed! Take corruption away and everything will fall in place….

October 1st: Take a message to Nigeria..!

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Adeola Aderounmu

They called it Independence day-Oct 1 1960-which makes the country Nigeria a fool at 48. When I wrote a fool soon 47, I thought I would never have to do that again or that 365 days later I would eat my words. Today I can repeat myself loud and clear that Nigeria is a fool at 48.

Nigeria is 48 years old on October 1 2008. The government wants us to believe that it is working hard to make life better for Nigerians. How the government would do this without asking thieves and looters like Babangida, Ibori, Atiku, Anenih, Kalu, Obasanjo and the other thieves to give us back our monies is something I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you want to improve the economy and the standard of living when corruption is Nigeria’s middle name.

Nigerians in power or in position of authority are not only corrupt, they are also suffering from tribalistic inclinations and a profound form of madness characterized by self-preservation and wild accumulation of extreme wealth.

There are probably more than 150m people in Nigeria and more than 70% of these people live from hand to mouth-in absolute penury and poverty. Several Millions of Nigerians cannot spend 1 dollar in a day. They live under a government that pride itself as the giant of Africa. The statement is both an anomaly and an expression of insanity by whoever lives by that acronym. What giant? Even Ghana is doing better than Nigeria and little wonder many Nigerians are relocating to Ghana for the purpose of business, education and work.

Nigeria and Nigerians are bound to be in perpetual custody until one day when all the evil people will be wiped away. Imagine just how much all the politicians, state governors and House of Assembly members are carting away every month while the ordinary people are on the streets suffering and living hopelessly.

I will not agree yet with anyone who says things are getting better in Nigeria. A daily walk or even work on the street indicates otherwise. It is true that some people struggle and managed to escape the poverty line but this category of people are few, countable and most often opportunistic. A person getting rich in Nigeria in several cases is at an opportunity cost to the masses.

The government has failed to provide a level field that would enable equal realization of individual dreams and aspirations. The education sector has been reduced to absolute nonsense and the results from the recent WAEC indicate that education is no longer a key issue in Nigeria. The health sector does not need to be described! If the (illegal) president of a country has to go abroad to treat stomach ache, headache and other ailment, what else does one have to say about the health system? It means that there are no provision of health services in Nigeria.

The transport system does not exist. Almost every aspect of it is unregulated and in private hands. It seems that the government does not know what public transportation means. The roads are terrible and getting worse. It needs to be restated again that probably the worst road in the world is in Nigeria. It is in this same Nigeria that the government is building an ultra modern city called Abuja for the pleasure of those in governments and for the deliverance of wrong impressions to visitors to the capital of (Northern) Nigeria.

On one side, there is a war going on in the Niger Delta where the protection of life and the security of ordinary people cannot be guaranteed. The regional leaders have sown seeds of discord and the government at the center over the years has allowed foreign oil companies to continue to colonize the region as the people suffered, died or survive in poverty and impoverishment. On another side, there is another war purely for survival. It is rugged down there in Nigeria and the rat race situation is unprecedented.

Power supply is improving at some places but you cannot be sure that that change is permanent because of the corrupt system. In most of the places anyway, power availability or a steady supply of it remains a permanent mirage. The men who stole over 15 million dollars in 8 years while pretending to be working on the power sector are all free men. That is Nigeria-steal and walk free. Slap the people as many times as you can-and walk free. Loot, loot, loot, until you can loot no more! Loot, loot and loot because the treasury never seems to be empty. Loot and loot for your children and your unborn generations! Let those who are not in power suffer and struggle to eke a living! Isn’t it amazing that the richest country in the world has the poorest people living in it?

Nigeria is 48 but she is sick. Someone has to remind Nigeria that agriculture is supposed to be her number one foreign exchange earner and not oil. Some people have alleged that Nigeria gave Malaysia her first oil palm seed, today Malaysia produces more oil palm than Nigeria! Someone who is normal should tell Nigeria that she has the best human resources pool in the world and tapping 70-80% efficiency of that pool would transform Nigeria to the best economy in the world provided corruption, favouritism and tribalism are relegated.

Someone should take a message to Nigeria that education is still the key to the future. The role of medicine, technology and information technology should be emphasized to those fools in power and their useless spokesmen and women. The message should include the importance of the provisions of permanent and constant power supply. The importance of good road networks and extremely functional public transport system in the sustenance of economic growth should be pointed out. Someone should tell those thieves and rogues in power that there is difference between knowledge on paper or textbooks and actual implementation.

The rescue of Nigerians actually (in the end) lies in the hands of the ordinary man and woman on the streets. They must rise up and claim what is theirs-their country. They must stand up and let their voices be heard, their votes to be counted. They should put up strong opposition and resistance the next time their votes are annulled or when their votes are not counted. It’s easier said than done because we are always afraid to die. We are afraid of the people we thought are our fellow Nigerians-those who will not hesitate to pump the barrel in our skull to ensure that the barbarism and looting in governance continue forever and ever.

But the implication of not standing up against all odds is the reason more than 50 000 women will die in 2009 due to pregnancy related problem. It is the reason that up to 12 children may have died due to preventable diseases since you started reading this article. Not rising up for what we believe in is the reason that some of us were unemployed for several years allowing frustrations, hopelessness and anger to take over our lives. Not living in decent homes and never getting water from the taps are all outcomes of our “sit-down-and look- (siddonlook) approach”.

Nigerians are a lovely people and it is very easy to associate the vices in our lives with the failure of governance. It’s up to us if we want to live with these ills and vices for the rest of our lives or if we want to change things and prepare a better place for our children and children’s children.

Nigeria we hail thee, our motherland! A fool at 48!

A Funny Ladder of Corruption

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Adeola Aderounmu

I have my reservations about International Organisations like Transparency International AND Amnestry International and their mode of operations, still I think they are trying a little bit reminding us of the some of the things that have made this world a devil’s hive: Corruption by government and lack of respect for the rights of all.

So here we are again in Nigeria! I have written somewhere that Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world. I have not changed my mind on that position. The reasons were also mentioned in that article which has been published on this blog and on the Nigeria Village Square. I stand by what I wrote then and when I’m affirming now that Nigeria is (probably) the most corrupt country in the world.

If a man like Obasanjo and another one like Babangida can be freemen in Nigeria where more than 90m people are suffereing as a result of looting and stealing under these two men, then it is not true that Nigeria has made any progress in combating corruption. All the looters under the last dispensation are walking free. There is yet no proper dispensation of justice in the criminal investigation of politicians.One by one, they all bought they were out or they were never prosecuted at all. The Iboris, the Kalus, The Obasanjos, The Atikus and all the other thieves in Nigeria.

Look at the excitment on the face of Farida Waziri, EFCC Boss, when meeting with Doris Basle the Transparency International representative in Africa and Mid-East. Nigeris is happy to be ranked 121st which is a climb-up from the previous 148th position. What difference does this make? More people have probably suffered in Nigeria under the period in review than in the year before. So what is the need to move up a silly ladder just to inflict more suffering on a growing number of people?

The situation is probably not going to change in Nigeria until democracy or another form of workable government takes root in Nigeria. So far, what we have is gangsters taking hold of power at all cost. The present governmenr headed by Yar Adua is a reaffirmation of the gangsterism in government. This man will not have the guts or liver to fight corruption because he was not elected, like the others before him anyway. He was made president by Obasanjo, how then can he or his government give a fair investigation into the government of Obasanjo.

Even his own 8 years in Katsina, Yar Adua could not turn around the health department and that is why he is running to Germany and Saudi Arabia to seek solutions to his health problems.

Corruption beget corruption, that should be the motto on Nigeria’s coat of arm.

Soon, Nigerians are going to be presented with another opportunity to steer the course of the country. They must know that a free and fair election is the first cure for corruption. In it lies the ability of the system to rid away with corrupt persons and institutions. In it lies the voices of the weak, the poor and the masses whose contributions will come to represent the only way forward. Not succumbing or giving in to the threats of the wicked and the rogues in power will be the only way to the emancipation of the people and the realisations of their aspirations to build a sane society where the rights of all will be recognised. A sane society where one can live without fear or panic and with the confidence that the future can deliver what today promises.