Figuring out Figures

In mid July, the International Monetary Fund headquartered some blocks away from my D.C. office, predicted that the Nigerian economy would expand by 1.9% in 2018. Similarly, it projected that Nigeria will exit the current economic recession with a narrow margin of 0.8% economic growth. Figures,like hips, don't lie. But predictions? There is always room for reservations.

Not too many Nigerians-even with their reputation as die hard optimists at home and in diaspora are willing to share in this pie chart of a news, knowing that what is left of the national cake is crumbs that will not get to the floor where the majority of Nigerians are. And, the reason for this is not far fetched.

Petroleum remains the highest source of our revenue, and we are already ensuring that if it doesn't dry up naturally, we will unnaturally speed up the process by the acts of pipeline vandalism, bunkering,underfunding,over inflated contracts,inadequate local contents, outright corruption,gas flaring,environmental degradation and so much more. And if that does not help, international conspiracy against conventional energy in favour of greener energy is likely to reduce the prospect of crude oil being a catalyst for economic growth. Soon, the rest of the world will stop buying.

Naturally, non oil exports present another area of opportunity for diversification. Agriculture remains the largest employer of labour in Nigeria, contributing about 24.2% of our GDP. The last and present administration are on the same page on the need for this sector to be revived in a more significant way. Sadly, the various initiatives like Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme and Nigerian Incentive-based  Risk- sharing system for Agricultural Lending are proving to be a major success only in Kebbi State, where 78,000 small holders farmers are cultivating about 100,000 hectares of rice farm, with the prospect of over one million metric tons of rice this year. While other states are either erecting statues or having their farmland destroyed by grazing animals.

Again, the International conspiracy shows up. We have major challenges facing major investment opportunities like these, and that have been identified as human capacity development and infrastructural deficiencies. The African Development Bank estimates that Nigeria has an infrastructure-funding gap of US$300 billion that stands in the way of realizing our potentials in this sector.

The figure looks good from afar, but the realities are grim. The reason for systemic failure in the country however is not as much as the above but our negative attitudinal tendencies and subdued mindset.

Policies can be crafted by the best brains and figures prepared to support imminent predictions, all this will amount to just figures that will make sense on the pages of newspapers and no sense to the livelihood of the people. And, if we don't stop praying and start farming, we may end up fasting.

Weaponized Democracy

South Africa remains the only country in the world to ever give up her nuclear program in pursuit of world peace; we, sorry,I meant Nigeria did not have to make such sacrifice because she does not even have the capabilities in the first place.

Since the end of the 2nd world war industrialized countries around the world have had a paradigm shift from the conventional warfare to more sophisticated nuclear armament. The lesser successful countries did not fold their arms in pitiful surrender but have also made progress in the cheaper and equally devastating chemical weapons.

This page does not in any way endorses warfare of any  proportion-this planet, irrespective of the abuse we have subjected it to, is too beautiful to be destroyed by the over 3 billion tenants. That responsibility should honestly be at the discretion of the Creator. Having made that notation, we can now progress avoiding the political and religious landmines towards the subject matter of this treatise.

And the world should not lose any sleep over the cry of war between the USA and North Korea, it is similarly needless for the CIA to embark on any expensive assassination plot. Diabetes should take care of him. 

Fifty years after the bloody civil war and 57 years after the contraption called Nigerian was selfishly put together, the agitation for Biafra 2.0 has reared it's head again. And rather than opening a line of communication for discussion the Nigerian  government has officially declared the agitation a terrorist process and have belatedly been treating them as such.

The President’s belligerent attitude towards the agitators may not be unconnected to his diagnosed  impaired hearing in recent past, a man who cannot hear well may have to rely totally on body language as means of  non verbal communication. The consensus is that restructuring is long overdue and if we cannot live together, then we shouldn't.

As we sleep, the world go round but that shouldn't change our target when we want to test our armoury. Our agitated citizens are already on edge and if we do not stop pointing our outdated weapons at them and voluntarily disarm like South Africa, the consequences of self implosion of nuclear proportions may seek us out like guided missiles.

Burden of Decision

Close to a year after USA has approved vehicles to drive itself, Saudi Arabia is just legislating that women should be driving vehicles, come June 2018. For some ridiculous religious reasons, the Saudi women have been in this bondage of not being allowed to either express themselves or live life to the fullest despite their level of literacy for decade. Though, the Kingdom in lifting the ban did not concede it was a bad decision. Very few people ever admit to mistake anyway.

While this was happening in Asia, down in the continent of Europe, Professor Richard Thaler was being awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on behavioral economics. A section of economics that tries to understand how humans make decisions,especially the bad ones.

Professor Thaler is one of the leading experts in the relatively new field that combines psychology with economics. For almost 50 years, he has made a career of studying people's poor choices. How could such a seemingly innocuous human endeavour attract such a high level of elitist attraction? From major governmental decisions that have impacted humanity down to trivial home decisions of what Tv channel to watch have all in different ways takes it's toll on us all.

Here is the thing: For the second consecutive year, there were no women among the 2017 Nobel Prize laureates. The head of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the committees that choose Nobel Prize winners will meet this winter to discuss gender and ethnic diversity issues in the awards. Meanwhile, each of the six prizes is chosen by a different committee, three of which are currently headed by women.

Back home, The decision to appoint Aisha Ahmad as the new CBN deputy governor is generating controversy not award. And fingers are pointing, once again to Mr President for his tribalistic choice of decision. This position is by law subject to the ratification of the senate,but most people are of the opinion that a lot of our senators are not even qualified. The logic is that since they too did not get there on merit,but on other consideration, they cannot be relied upon to take a good decision. Is there a quandary here? Let's ask Prof Thaler, the latest Nobel Laureate!

Asked by phone what he planned to do with his $1.1 million prize, Thaler joked that he intended to spend it “as irrationally as possible”.  

Amended Amendments

United States of America was discovered by Christopher Columbus today in history but the Nation is founded on similar or amended rules like the Israelites in their early constitution as enshrined in the book of Leviticus. The famed constitution of America is framed by ten amendments like the ten commandments!

The first two of these amendments are arguably the most important as their provisions are germane to the very existence of the country. The first and second amendments respectively provided thus; guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition.  It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices and protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791, as part of the first ten amendments contained in the Bill of Rights.

In a land where there are more guns than people and where it is far easier to buy a gun than antibiotics, the carnage in Las Vegas witnessed around the world, to me, was more horrific than surprising. Within ten minutes of sporadic shooting from semi automatic rifles that were able to operate like automatic rifles, 50 lives laid wasted and many more lost limbs. The killer was found dead with 47 legally acquired guns. Ordinarily, nobody should be allowed to own 47 of anything.

Preliminary investigations have only managed to reveal the obvious- gun controls. Blacks are reputed to be the most violent race in the United States because of the drug war statistics but that quickly pale into insignificance at the incomprehensible mass killing by whites. The consequences of both acts are always the same. The blacks get sent to jail sagging with their tattoed covered behind in view, while the white mass murderer get sent to homes on an insanity plea for care and cure.

Rather than seize the urgency of the moment to discuss and legislate on gun control, the administration is busy sending proposals to Congress on how to finally solve illegal immigration, the White House submitted a 70-point enforcement plan to Congress Sunday proposing the stiffest reforms ever offered by an administration — including a massive rewrite of the law in order to eliminate loopholes illegal immigrants have exploited to gain a foothold in the U.S.

Well, the New York City Marathon holds in November and I think all undocumented immigrants should use it as a dress rehearsal for the journey back to their individual countries. This administration is unrelenting in ridding the country of illegal immigrants. The guns are however legal and they have come to stay.

Out-Priced

Until last week, Mr. Tom Edmund Price was the secretary of Health and Human services in the Trump administration. An American physician and politician, with a penchant for luxury as evident in his choice of transportation,was forced out of office on account of his almost a million dollars of our taxpayers money expended on chartered private jet flights in the course of executing both official and unofficial duties.

Mr Price was eventually out-priced and summarily jet-tisoned on his last ludicrous flight from D.C. to Pennsylvania. Prior to his inauguration, Mr President has boasted of draining the Washington swamps on arrival. That is a promise he has managed to keep, the flip however is that the swamp is on his own side of the coin.

When the cost of maintaining Mr Price seat in the cabinet first broke out by the “fake” media, it was  deemed to be a narrative designed by the alt left to hurt the confused present cabinet. Few weeks and some subtle investigative journalism later, Mr Price started feeling the heat as he quickly announced that as a matter of retribution, he will pay back the amount of taxpayers fund he has used in privacy for private jets. And I felt that was fair enough and on that basis both liberals and conservatives should be square.

But, no. The peasants (yes they are here too,and they form the majority)however has other ideas. So, just dropping what he misappropriated after their shouting was not enough. Hence, they went for the kill. Mr Price handed over his letter of resignation, and again I thought that would naturally end the matter. It would certainly not have gone this far in Nigeria.

As at the time of writing this piece, Mr Price awaits prosecution without negotiation. And if you think that is a heavy price to pay for would have qualified as perk of office back home, wait till we hear the end and ripples of this priceless condition of democracy called accountability and probity.

To ensure accountability and transparency, public servants back home are made to swear using their faith in which they do not believe in as a symbol. And the rest of us go to sleep with same symbols of faith tucked under our pillows, leaving our collective treasury in the hands of these former nobles at the helm of our affairs to loot.

To stroke the fire of revolution, discontent is usually the catalyst and this can be traced in history from the downfall of the Han empire in 200 A.D to recent 1917 Bolsheviks revolution in Russia. Our contentment with everything unjust, unfair and unequal distribution of power and wealth has however left us paying a heavier price than the cost of average revolution in history.

We shall not hold anyone except ourselves responsible for our woes because we did not pay any price for our freedom.