    By Prince Charles Dickson These are indeed sad and conflicting times for Nigeria as she approaches her fiftieth year of dependency...oops I meant independence. Though, I do not know what we are independent of? We depend on either German or Chinese built roads, the rail, space satellites, and refineries are given to the Chinese to build. For many of our utilities we go to America and Europe for the expensive and trust China, Taiwan, and Dubai for the cheap. We even import Palm Kernel oil from Malaysia, Sardine Fish Pack from Morocco, except for Nollywood and a few positives, even our corrupt leaders cannot be said to have Nigerian blood running through their veins the way they treat their fellow nationals, only God knows where they came from? If it's not some Judith of a girl and one Dr. Otubu or whatever exposing our national disgrace on various social networks and sites worldwide in the sex-for-mark soap opera. It would be a black Nigerian man and his black Nigerian wife having a white baby and like my wife opined why it was not a Ghanaian or Zimbabwean black couple...Why Nigerian? India has come up with the world's cheapest "laptop," a touch-screen computing device that costs USD 35. India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal this week unveiled the low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production. "We have reached a (developmental) stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around USD 35, including memory, display, everything," he told a news conference. He said the touch screen gadget was packed with Internet browsers, PDF reader and video conferencing facilities but its hardware was created with sufficient flexibility to incorporate new components according to user requirement. Sibal said the Linux based computing device was expected to be introduced to higher education institutions from 2011 but the aim was to drop the price further to USD 20 and ultimately to USD 10. The device was developed by research teams at India's premier technological institutes, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. What are our own institutes like Ambrose Ali University producing, what is LAUTECH producing, other than two states fighting over who owns the school. And the NUC is barking like a hungry police dog, that it would seize the school's license...as if that solves any problem. We have some 104 Universities and our Polytechnics now upgraded to degree awarding status, yet there is little to show for it. In the last few weeks, taxpayers' monies have been wasted in millions by Governors in the name of meetings and summits to discourse zoning and as usual even the character called goodluck has, as was the case in Abacha's tarzece and Obj's third term kept the usual silence. It's really sad, 18 governors sitting in Kaduna, all the convoys, aides and the monies wasted, the man hours...same for the Mungo Parks in the South-south, what a nation? CEOs' of states leave their duty post for a jamboree of non-significant value. Allowances from out station, hotel, prostitute and concubine allowances, stealing allowances are paid out for these confused meetings. Just a tip on zoning...I suggested to a friend that infact Ekiti as a state can produce a president, vice, senate president, speaker of the house, infact all the supreme court justices...after all they have the manpower abi na lie. For two days running, last week, India's parliament was paralyzed over opposition protests against inflation, with the deadlock threatening the government's reform programme. According to Agence France Presse (AFP), the lower house adjourned in uproar with opposition lawmakers shaking their fists in anger after the speaker rejected demands for a vote to censure the government over its "failure" to tame double-digit inflation. And here Sanusi speaking on electricity tariffs tells Nigerians "This N7 is a myth because nobody gets power at that price. Ghana is paying N22. If we increase it to N22 and you increase gas prices, investments will come into power". The truth is that Ghana has electricity and we do not and at even N44 Nigerians do not have assurances of electricity either. The CBN helmsman stated that the reality "is that the government is not pursuing the right economic policies and nothing in the banking reform will fix the economy unless you fix policy and I say this as an adviser to the government". Strange, because from the look of things the government does not seem to be taking his advice. Yet the man sees hope, hope in a nation that its House of Representatives sees nothing wrong in over N80M for wedding, burial and gifts for staff of NNDC...is the commission made up of only singles, or are they all going to be bereaved at the same time in a financial year. Governors from the 36 states of the federation are mounting pressure on the Federal Government to that another $3 billion be shared from the savings in Excess Crude Account (ECA). President Jonathan Goodluck had last January acceded to the governors' request that $2billion be shared, after which they supported the bid to make him Acting President in the prolonged absence of the now late Yar'Adua. With the approval of the deduction of N339.627 billion from the account to augment arrears due to the three tiers (Federal, State and Local Governments) last May, some of us are wondering how long before...d money go soon finish, yet the likes of Sanusi say there is no alarm for cause.... Some analysts are of the opinion that the latest demand by the governors may be met for political reasons, especially ahead of the 2011 elections. Not for reasons of economic benefit to the masses, not for reasons of infrastructural development, not for schools, hospitals or roads but for political reasons. One Deji beat his wife, blue black and green and the story is lost in transit...We are heading fast in the wrong direction, the Presidential jet developed fault mid air, as a result of technical one thing-one thing. Bankole and Daniel disgrace themselves like motor park touts for no good reason, even garage boys have honour than these 'ewu namas' (Goats). After all the fighting in the House of Representatives the other day...the real issues have paled into insignificance and that is not news? That is the Nigerian way, plenty noise and it all goes away. With the following words...she attended Primary school in sososo...she went to work in soosoo as senior hair dresser and she is an amazon of Nigerian politics and Patricia Etteh got her national award...next year Kidnappers would get theirs, so would militants. Where is all these headed to...? A nation with plenty hope and prospects, but very little to show in reality. May the Almighty Allah help us! Prince Charles Dickson Nigeria's 1st Online Newspaper Visit http://burningpot.com What Exactly Is The Problem With Nigeria?...Us...Lets Work At Solving It |
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