Presidency defends Abacha’s Centenary Award honourPresidency defends Abacha’s Centenary Award honour

President Jonathan's spokesman Reuben Abati has explained why late military dictator Gen. Sani Abacha was given the controversial Centenary Award, saying that the government was in no way supporting corrupt practices...

"This (award) does not in any means translate to supporting sharp practices or corrupt practices. It is important to make the clear distinction in this regard.

I think it is important to make the necessary distinction here. The centenary award, like every award, has its own criteria. That centenary award was in relation to the amalgamation, the national unity, the history of Nigeria and the roles played by certain individuals.

The centenary award was not a test of sainthood. In giving the award to the former Head of State, Gen. Abacha, the committee in charge made it very clear that the award in the category in which the former Head of State appeared was awarded with regard to the contributions of those individuals in keeping Nigeria together." Continue...

You will find out that under that category, there were largely former Heads of State, persons who have at one time or the other presided over Nigeria and under whose watch, in spite of whatever challenges they might have faced, helped to sustain the unity of the country and helped to defend the integrity and sovereignty of the country. That was a specific criterion in this particular category. Of course, every award at all, be it for beauty or any other thing has its own criteria.” Reuben Abati tells Punch

100m Nigerian Destitute Facts: A Jet & Bulletproof Bloated Govt In Total Disconnect

The World Bank country director for Nigeria, Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, earlier this month said that 63% or 100 million Nigerians were destitute, living below the poverty line. In her words, “1.2 billion people live in destitution (around the world) out of which 100 million are Nigerians. Inequality is rising in many developing nations.”

Nigeria’s president just “debunked” this via his Chief Economic adviser, Dr Nwanze Okidigbe. Please let’s review.

Firstly, it is important to appreciate that the World Bank did not reveal any new figures. This has been the recognized poverty level in Nigeria since 2010 at least...

National Bureau of statistics (NBS), BBC, 13 February 2012: Poverty has risen in Nigeria, with almost 100 million people living on less than a $1 (£0.63) a day, despite economic growth, statistics have shown. 60.9% of Nigerians in 2010 were living in "absolute poverty" - this figure had risen from 54.7% in 2004.

February NBS report for 2011, Vanguard: 112 million Nigerians are poor going by the economic situation in the country in 2011. While 100 million are in absolute poverty, 12.6 million are moderately poor.

As can be seen, Marie-Nelly’s statement on our destitution level is not revealing anything new; this year, National Bureau of Statistics again stated that about 112million Nigerians lived below the poverty line. And “that the population of Nigerians in poverty has increased considerably (In 2011). The figure represents about 67 per cent of the entire population.”

To confirm this, we implore the President and his Chief Economic adviser to go ask Dr. Yemi Kale, Nigeria’s Statistician general who heads the National Statistics Bureau which collects these data from over 20 million Nigerian households, over the years. It is beneficial to highlight at this point, that these figures are not evenly distributed, the landlocked north has higher rates, Sokoto with a highest of 86% destitute, while Southern States have some of the better rates which reduce the national average, with states like Anambra—the lowest—with 22% destitute.

What our government representative ignorantly jumbled up, and accused the World Bank of contradiction in, was the National poverty rate. This “rate” is very different from the well established nation’s figures for people living below the global poverty line (of $1.25/day).

Quoting World Bank, “National poverty rate is the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line.” The poverty threshold, or national poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a given country. It is an insular figure which is set and varies by countries.

It was this comparative figure within Nigeria that did drop 2 points between 2004 and 2010. Once we understand that for this figure to drop, it can simply mean that Nigeria reduced the “deemed adequate” value or that overall Nigeria developed more poverty within the period, but what happened was a “curve” shift arising from more of the middle class moving to frank poverty. Such a shift will drop the national poverty rate while increasing the global poverty rank. The documented widening gap between the rich and poor substantiates such explanation. In any case, the national rate has nothing to do with the global poverty line.

It is frankly distressing to think that our Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Dr Nwanze Okidigbe and by representation, our President does not even know where we stand in the world poverty map, and discombobulated our national rates with this well recognized and tracked 60-70% poverty prevalence. So what figures have this government been using to address poverty in Nigeria? The 46%? If this is what our Chief Economic Adviser understands and utilizes, then it is clear why we are in such economic shambles! It appears this government exists in a self-blown up bubble.

Sadder yet, was the presentation Nigeria used to “counter” the figures referenced by the World Bank. Referring to loaves of bread and GSM phones serves only one purpose. Clearly, Nigerian leadership was not talking to the World Bank. They know that to talk to the World Bank, you quote standard statistical data. This presentation was a political statement to the Nigerian masses to convince or confuse us by elementary methods that the World Bank is “working for the opposition parties.”

On GSM lines, Dr Nwanze Okidigbe seemed to suggest that 112 million lines translated to 112 million people who can afford that comparatively expensive (when the Nigerian GSM extortive, oligopolistic service is compared to the world) technology. The reality we all know is that our inflated price mobile network service is so poor that most of us have 2 or 3 lines. This brings down the relevance of this 112m figure to less than 50m that own the total lines.

Secondly, owning a line costs a mere N200 and servicing it per month costs N100, N1200/year which is basically all many, especially those in the rural areas where poverty is most prevalent (with 80% living below the poverty line) do so as to manage limited use in receiving calls alone and sending occasional texts. N1200/year equals less than $7/year.

The forgotten rural population of Nigeria who suffer at the hands of government instituted taxes, subsidy-removal, planned road use taxes and other siphons are the worst hit, cheated and robbed from, by Nigeria’s successive rapacious administrations. This disenfranchised population which accounts for roughly half of the nation’s total (81 million), do not have a single benefit from our governments and are the most pitiful victims of the government and even of us proletariat and petty bourgeoisie, who do not fight to protect their right to welfare and prosperity.

And on the presidencies’ reference to loaves of bread; that’s just a big laugh. In the US, 50 million are destitute. Does this mean 50 million do not eat bread? Our deluded stupendously wealthy government is in such disconnect from the masses, it’s mortally gelastic.

Did he mention SURE-P? Funds that are milked from the poor to feed the cabal and that are largely missing, embezzled or poorly accounted for?

These days, Nigeria seems to always be highlighted in the news and for the same set of painful reasons. Last January, David Cameron mentioned Nigeria as the elucidative example, during his World economic forum speech, to highlight the problems of transparency and corruption in the world.

In the speech, Cameron said, “Last year Nigeria oil exports were worth almost a hundred billion dollars. That is more than the total net aid to the whole of sub Saharan Africa. So put simply: unleashing the natural resources in these countries dwarfs anything aid can achieve, and transparency is absolutely critical to that end. So we’re going to push for more transparency on who owns companies; on who’s buying up land and for what purpose; on how governments spend their money; on how gas, oil and mining companies operate; and on who is hiding stolen assets and how we recover and return them.”

The British Prime Minister followed up by referring to the topic today. He said, “Thirty years ago more than half of our planet lived on the equivalent of one dollar twenty five a day or less; today it’s not one half, it is one fifth.”

It is disheartening to realize that when the world is improving the living conditions of its people. When a predominance of more than half living below $1.25 has been cut around the world to one fifth, Nigeria is not one of the nations that celebrate human progress. We own almost 10% of the world’s poor. 70% of this nation lives below the poverty line, whereas the nation brags of having some of the world’s wealthiest men. Billionaires in dollars who made wealth off of the nations massive natural blessings by impoverishing the masses of the nation via government managed oligopolies and partnership with our governments, civilian and democratic to loot the wealth and resource of the people.

This is the law of compensation. It is unfortunate, but not surprising that the President and his team are oblivious to this reality. You cannot plunder the wealth and future of a people, and all drive armored cars and command private jets, and the people remain affluent. When you take, someone must give. When the government continues all types of elaborate schemes and scams, siphoning the oil wealth of the nation, enforcing exploitative monopolies for its private partner cabal friends on life’s essentials, imposing higher tariffs, levies and sanctions on the masses to squeeze out every last kobo into the paws of the cabal, the result is poverty.

At about 68% destitute level, Nigeria, a world top oil producer, and the nation with the highest paid Senators in the entire world, today has the fourth highest number of poor on the continent. Interactive map here: http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SI.POV.DDAY

Our government and their coterie of elite vampires loot not just from our land, but from our pockets. They have made the nation too poor, too poor to react and they are counting on us soon becoming too poor to even think.

‘Nigeria spends N1.6tn on wheat, sugar importation yearly’

Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr.Akinwumi Adesina

Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has said Nigeria spends over N1.6tn ($10bn) yearly on importation of wheat, rice, sugar and fish.

He spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at the 2013 Korea International Cooperation Agency Alumni Seminar Session in Nigeria.

Adesina said research had shown that 43 percent of under-five children in Nigeria suffered stunted growth, compared to 39 percent for all developing countries, 26 percent in Ghana, 25 percent in Benin, 29 percent in Botswana, Burkina Faso and Cameroon and 33 percent in Kenya.

According to him, Nigeria ranks 158th out of 182 countries in the Human Development Index, with life expectancy of 52 years; risk of maternal death of one in 18; and under-five mortality rate of 186 per 1,000 live births.

“Nigeria’s stunting prevalence puts it as the 32nd highest out of 136 countries. Nigeria has the third absolute number of stunted children, with 41 percent of children under the age of five stunted, 23 percent underweight and 14 percent wasted,” he said.

Although he acknowledged that overall prevalence of stunting and underweight had been decreasing over the past 20 years, Adesina pointed out that the progress in Nigeria might not be sufficient to meet the Millennium Development Goals of halving the problem by 2015.

But the minister, who was represented by an Assistant Director in the ministry, Mr. Femi Olaleye, maintained that the policy to replace some of the wheat flour used in bread and confectionaries with cassava would earn Nigerian farmers about N128bn ($800m).

Besides, he said, Nigeria had secured about 3.2 million metric tonne of cassava chips for export to China, which would earn farmers and processors over $800m (N128bn).

He explained that government’s efforts in agriculture had reduced food importation by $5.3bn.

Adesina said, “We must grow our own food. We must feed ourselves. We must create markets locally for our own farmers.

“Our vision is to move Nigeria to become an agriculturally industrialized economy, to create wealth, jobs and markets for farmers, and revive the rural economy. We plan to grow the size of the agricultural sector from the present level of $99bn per year today to about $300 billion per year by 2030.”

The Korean Ambassador to Nigeria, Hyung Choi, said at the event that KOICA was willing to partner with private sectors and NGO’s “by making the best use of its limited financial resources in areas where Korea had a comparative advantage.”

NDA modifies training to meet challenges –Commandant

Nigerian Soldiers

the Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Maj-Gen. Chukwuemeka Owuamaegbu, said the nation’s foremost military institution had modified its training to meet prevalent security challenges in the country.

The commandant said this at the graduation of 39 cadets of the institute from the Nigerian Army School of Infantry Basic Airborne Training Course 3/13, in Jaji, near Kaduna State, on Tuesday.

Owuamaegbu noted that as a result of the security challenges in the country, the NDA had to introduce courses like Counter Terrorism and Insurgency Training in the curriculum of the school.

“We modify our training depending on the current situation. Just a few years ago based on the insecurity challenges in the country, we introduced the Counter Terrorism and Insurgency Training and these gentlemen who have just finished their airborne training would tomorrow commence that training and by the time they pass out in September 2014, they would have been trained for the current challenges the country is facing now,” he said.

Owuamaegbu who expressed satisfaction with the performance of the graduating cadets, however, charged them (cadets) to be ready to put to test what they learnt during the six-week-training.

The training, he said, include, “field exercises, peace support operations and airborne operation.”

The Commandant of NASI, Maj-Gen.Tukur Buratai, who was represented by the Acting Deputy Commandant, Colonel Sanni Audu, said 39 cadets had successfully completed the cadet Basic Airborne Course in jump school and attained the minimum five mandatory jumps from an airborne platform and were thus qualified to be decorated with the coveted Nigerian Army Paratroopers Wing.

He said the training at the jump school was designed to achieve vigorous physical conditioning to produce physically-fit and skilled elite troops, tailored towards “mental alertness, discipline, self confidence, bravery, team spirit and high sense of loyalty.”

“This set of cadets, have had the opportunity to be trained for six weeks to cover Special Forces operations. A total of 55 volunteers of the 61st regular course NDA reported for the course on October 3, 2013, they all made the screening and commenced training on October 7, 2013,” he said.

Senate okays N572bn local borrowing for 2014 budget financing

The Senate on Wednesday endorsed the executive’s planned new domestic borrowing of N572 billion to partly finance the 2014 budget deficit with reservations that such borrowings could further over-bloat the nation’s debt profile.

In a report by the Senate joint committee on finance and appropriations on the 2014-2016 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), the lawmakers noted that the N572 billion additional borrowing proposed by the executive if approved would raise the nation’s profile to an all-time high of N8.25 trillion, excluding the contingent liability of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) which could run into trillions of naira.

The lawmakers further raised concerns that the high level of domestic borrowing was pushing up interest rates and if not checked could crowd out the private sector considering that the central bank has kept its benchmark rate at 12 percent for long now.

They noted that if this trend is not checked, the nation’s debt profile could soar as high as $15 billion by 2015.

“The current debt profile of N7.53 trillion and budget deficit of 1.9 percent proposed for 2014 which would be partly funded through borrowing is not the best approach to economic development”, their report stated.

Meanwhile, the lawmakers raised the benchmark oil price proposed in the 2014-2016 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) by the executive for the 2014 budget from the $74 per barrel $76.50 per barrel.

But they adopted the average exchange rate of N160/US$1 proposed by the executive as reasonable considering the volatility in the world economy and strong demand for dollar as they advised that efforts should be made to continue to keep the naira stable.

They also okayed proposals by the executive on daily crude oil production of 2.3883 million barrels per day, 2.5007mbpd, and 2.5497mbpd for 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively.

The executive, in its MTEF & FSP sent to the National Assembly since September had proposed prudent benchmark prices of $74, $75 and $76 per barrel for 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively, based on current global oil prices as well as the discovery of shale oil and recent discovery and supply of oil in some African countries that depended on Nigeria for crude oil supplies.

In the report, the lawmakers explained that they raised the proposed oil benchmark price by $2.50 per barrel in order to take care of some aspects of pension arrears and critical projects of economic importance.

They, however, argued that the actual benchmark proposed by the executive in the MTEF is about $80 per barrel (pb) and not $74pb when put into consideration the proposed distribution of N666.9 billion from the Excess Crude Account to the three tiers of government built into the revenue and expenditure framework within the period.

Nigeria Overtakes South-Africa As Continent's Largest Economy_naijaswap

Nigeria is expected to release revised economic numbers from 1990 to 2008. That is expected to show that the country has overtaken South Africa as Africa's largest economy

.With us to discuss all this is professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Léonce Ndikumana. He is a professor of economics at UMass Amherst, as I mentioned, and he's the director of the African Policy Program at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI).Thank you for joining us.LÉONCE NDIKUMANA, ASSOC. PROF. ECONOMICS AND LAW, UMKC: Thank you very much for the opportunity.DESVARIEUX: So, Professor, let's talk about Nigeria. It's moving to become the number-one economy on the African continent. What is the cause behind this rapid economic growth?NDIKUMANA: Thank you very much. I think this is a very important and interesting question.There are two things that we need to single out. One is that even as of today, Nigeria is the second-largest economy on the continent, with about $262 billion in 2012, compared to $384 billion GDP for South Africa.

The second one is that Nigeria had been growing quite fast. In 2011, they grew by 7.4 percent, which that went down a little bit to 26.6 percent in 2012. At the same time, South Africa's been growing a little bit slower, in the range of 2 to 3 percent, which is consistent with a more mature economy. So that by itself would mean that over time Nigeria is going to get closer and closer to South Africa. Even if you look at the last 12 years, in 2012 the economy of South Africa was about three times larger than the economy of Nigeria. Now it's about 1.5 percent.Now you bring in another factor, which is the rebasing of the national data in Nigeria, which is something that other countries are going to also have to undertake because their national accounts based on outdated--have outdated bases, in the sense that some sectors which were not there when they were doing the calculations now are more predominant in production of goods and services. 

One of the biggest new innovation is the telecom sector, which is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the service sector. So this requires countries to go back in their statistics and redo the weighting of each economic sector. And this, for many countries, is going to result in a larger major amount of national output, which is GDP. Ghana has already done it, and Nigeria is on track of releasing their new statistics. And this will result in a larger GDP for Nigeria. And, again, as you said, it may be the case that they may be either closer, even take over South Africa, assuming that South Africa doesn't do the rebasing [incompr.]DESVARIEUX: And I can imagine what's propelling this rapid growth is that three-letter word, oil, since Nigeria has a lot of it. What do you make of that?NDIKUMANA: Yes. As you indicated, the rapid growth in Nigeria over the past years is driven mainly by the oil sector. 

To give you an example, of the six point--while the country as a whole grew by 6.6 percent in 2012, the oil sector actually grew faster, by 8 percent, which means that some of the sectors were shrinking. And this poses--is a source of concern because oil, the oil sector, as we know, is a very capital-intensive sector, which means that it doesn't create lots of jobs.At the same time, since we're talking about South Africa and Nigeria, they share two important problems. One is unemployment, and the second is [incompr.] to global markets, shocks in global markets. Unemployment has been high in South Africa. It's known. And they have very good statistics. It's about 25 percent. In fact, Nigerian unemployment over the past two years has been increasing from 21 percent to 24 percent. So even as the economy's growing in Nigeria, unemployment is actually growing at the same time, which is the result of the fact that growth is taking place in sectors that are not creating employment. So this is a major, major problem for Nigeria.


At the same time, the sectors which are the life--which provide the life for the majority of the population, especially agriculture, is not growing as fast, because there has not been sufficient investment in technology so that productivity in agriculture, the mainstay of the livelihood of the population, is actually seeing a decline in productivity. And that is true for Nigeria as well for many other countries.

So the challenge for Nigeria is how to harness these oil resources so that the growth in revenue that's coming from oil can actually trigger expansion in other sectors outside of the oil sector

Conference won’t stop Nigeria’s break-up – Bishop

Rt. Rev. Peter Adebiyi (retd.)

Retired Bishop of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Lagos-West Diocese, Rt. Rev. Peter Adebiyi, has faulted those who do not want the proposed national conference to lead to Nigeria’s break-up.

He said there are several indications that the nationalities in the country are living together under duress. He said this was evident in the high level of religious intolerance being experienced, which was reflected in politics.

Adebiyi, who spoke on the state of the nation in Lagos on Saturday, said it would be suicidal for him to walk in some places in the North in his robe without being attacked for being a Christian.

He noted that such would not occur, if he goes to the North as a foreigner. He said if he was killed as a foreigner from Yorubaland, there would be diplomatic row but if he was killed as a Nigerian, only his family would bear the loss.

He identified the born-to-rule mentality of some northerners as one of the causes of the crises in the country. “An average northerner believes that he was born to rule Nigeria and that is the essence of the conference we are talking about,” he said.

Adebiyi said, “Sometime, when I see people speak about one Nigeria, I remain silent because I know that Nigeria is not one. We have an agglomeration of nations in Nigeria. I will only go to where I’ll be tolerated.

“It is only those who are after money; those who are selfish that say we are a country. How do I call where I’m not wanted my own? Everything is a deceit; Nigeria is a country of great deceit.

“It is time for every one of us, if this conference is real, to say that ‘this is what we want.’ If we cannot live together, why can’t I go home? What is wrong, if I say I’m going home?”

The retired bishop blamed the failures of the countries anti-graft agencies on lack of political will by the government. He said they were driven politically.

He stated that it would be difficult for the head of an anti-graft agency appointed by the President to investigate the President, if indicted.

The bishop said, “I was a member of the Code of Conduct Bureau at its inception in 1988; eleven of us were members. I was there for 20 years until few years ago. I cannot say what my eyes saw. At a point, the bureau became a god that cannot bite because the setup was good but the operating value was bad.”