RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Osuntokun: Views on Economic Summit

It has never been a secret that you, Oluwatoyin, is a die-hard supporter of President Jonathan who ruled Nigeria for five years when the backbone of Nigerian economy, crude oil, was sold between $146 and down to $100. How Jonathan regime with the aid of the Harvard Doctor and world bank director as the Minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the economy spent the huge incomes from the crude oil sales is what every honest Nigerian is demanding from Buhari's government.
 
Contrary to your assumption, below, Buhari is not prosecuting anyone rather, he has given the investigating authorities in Nigeria free hands to apply the laws impartially. As you will probably remember, during the time of Jonathan, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoki was in the habit of instructing the Solicitor General to go to courts to withdraw cases filed by the EFCC and ICPC to the embarrassment of the prosecuting officers.
 
It would appear as if you have unlimited capacity to tell lies with cosmetic beauty when you asserted that the EFCC "makes grand declaration of guilt against various parties but is yet to provide either evidence of that guilt or conclusive evidence to support its claims." Are you saying there is no concrete evidence of looting against Dasuki, Aba Moro, Badeh and others? After 16 years of PDP in power it is obvious that they should be made to account for why Nigeria is where today economically and the mere fact that they are now in opposition does not relieve them of that obligation. For me, I will not subscribe to that infantile prank that if all crooks are not assembled and tried the same day, no crook should be charged and prosecuted.
S.Kadiri 
 

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Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2016 15:06:39 +0000
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Osuntokun: Views on Economic Summit
From: oluwasrividya@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

We need to be careful about supporting self serving strategies of politicians that work agst our own good simply bcs we think we are committed to supporting those politicians  and the systems they sustain.

Almost all Buhari's prosecutions so far are questionable.

The EFCC makes grand declarations of guilt agst various parties but is yet to provide either evidence of that guilt or conclusive evidence to support its claims.

Within that context, the govt studiously  avoids following up clear cases of corruption amongst its loyalists, while pursuing members of the opposition.

The message being sent is that you may steal, as long as you belong to the ruling party.

People who are accused of corruption simply move to the APC, as in the recent case of Jim Nwobodo and the forgotten case agst Timpriye Sylva, who in the midst of a suspended EFCC investigation  ran for governor of Bayelsa state under APC.

In the midst of this nonsense, the national govt presented a budget of thieves, in which millions were allocated for rent for Aso Rock, the official residence of the President owned by the Nigerian govt, millions for generators, millions for refurbishing of  Aso Rock, millions for connecting the toilet of the driver's lodge to the internet- if I recall that most inane allocation clearly enough, millions for books for the Vice-President, millions for food for the national  ruler, along with other forms of nonsense, and yet the person creating  this budgeting claims he is fighting corruption.

The most pervasive form of corruption in corrupt systems is institutionalised  corruption.

It involves  use of national  resources in ways meant to empower a person or a group in a way that works agst the interests of the nation. 

You are corrupt when you prioritise appointing your cronies, like Buhari and his minister of education.

You are corrupt when you use the instruments of state to allocate the money meant for developing the nation into expenditure that will impoverish the nation but enrich you and your cronies, like Buhari.

You are corrupt when you ignore your clearly corrupt loyalists, even appointing them as ministers in your govt and supporting their governorship bids,  while you  pursue only those you see as your opponents, like Buhari.

As far as I can see, APC at the centre  has little or no vision for Nigeria.

I looks to me as  simply another party of rogues  and soldiers of fortune.

But, such creatures  are able to rule African countries bcs of the support of people  who will either downplay their evil or disnmiss it.

The metaphor of a tree of corruption demonstrates clearly the systemic character of this evil.

Corruption is a systemic rot that is grounded in particular foundations.

It has to be addressed  systemically if the war  is to be won.

By insisting on ignoring state govs who are clearly corrupt and appointing them to your  cabinet, by creating budget allocations which impoverish the nation, while pretending you are unaware of those allocations, a claim that suggests the sheer inanity of the ruler making such a claim, you water the roots of corruption.

You thereby feed the understanding of the Nigerian commonwealth as a pot made for the feeding of politicians, in which feeding one must make sure one is on the most powerful side, ensuring protection when one feeds.

The claim that others  have stolen more becomes irrelevant  bcs the central principle is sustained - 'stealing is good but do it from within our fold'.

thanks

toyin

On 6 March 2016 at 14:13, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <oluwasrividya@gmail.com> wrote:

You are not serious, Salimonu.

A person who used millions of the funds of the state in building a personal web site did not embezzle the state's funds to his personal use.

A person who spent 82 million of the state's money on a birthday for a private citizen was not being corrupt.

Please, bro, if you are serious about supporting thieves who are impoverishing your commonwealth while you, your children and most likely their children languish without electricity and drinking water, carry your efforts to where these thieves are to be found.

When you begin to present yourself as a person with something serious to say and not simply one who is overeager to be counted as a supporter of the govt then we can have a conversation.

thanks

toyin

On 6 March 2016 at 13:15, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:

Oluwatoyin Adepoju, if a tree is producing bad fruits, you don't rectify that anomaly by pruning some stems of the tree. You either nourish the roots (especially the taproot) or uproot the whole tree and plant new one. Nigeria is supposed to be a federating units but as you and me know it is a unitary government otherwise known as feeding bottle federalism because the central government is the financial feeder of states and local governments in Nigeria. While I am not disputing that states' and local governments in Nigeria are corrupt, I think their corruptions are equivalent to catapulted pebbles when compared to Federal government's atomic corruptions. I trust that you are wise enough not to equate the fatality of catapulted pebbles to the detonation of atomic weapon on a country!!
 
According to you, the former Governor of Lagos State, "Fashola has publicly admitted to using millions of Lagos state's money in building a personal website." You also stated that evidence has been tendered to the EFCC on the millions of money used in building Fashola's personal website. If there was such evidence, then the actual amount spent ought to have been specified. You claimed further that the former Governor of Rivers State, Amaechi, admitted using N82 million to host a birthday party for Wole Soyinka. In view of these two incidents you concluded, "Yet Fashola and Amaechi are ministers in a so called anti-corruption government."  The implication of your conclusion is that Fashola and Amaechi are corrupt because they, respectively, spent their State's money on personal website and hosting birthday party. At best, Fashola and Amaechi might not have been thrifty in the way they spent the alleged millions of their state's resources, but that is not the same thing as being corrupt. They did not embezzle or steal the alleged funds for their personal use or for the use of their cronies and personal friends. Oluwatoyin Adepoju, you should not leave leprosy to chase ring- worm. If you wonder what I mean by that I will give you an example of stealing with impunity which is what has brought our country to its current economic catastrophe.

 

While retiring on 30 July 2015, the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Sabundo Badeh told Nigerians that the Armed Forces he led lacked equipment to fight terrorists!! Colonel Sambo Dasuki, the National Security Adviser to President Jonathan responded in August 2015 that the military equipment ordered by Jonathan's Administration had not arrived the country. I hope you have not been insulated from the news of how Dasuki had diverted the sum of $8 billion, meant for the procurement of arms for our soldiers fighting Boko Haram, to private use for himself and his friends in the PDP. On March 3, 2016, Ex-Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Sabundo Badeh, was charged to court by EFCC for stealing the sum of Three Billion, Nine-Hundred and Seventy-Four Million, Three-Hundred and Sixty-Two Thousand, Seven-Hundred and Thirty-Two Naira, Ninety-Four Kobo (N3,974,362,732. 94) from the Nigerian Air Force between January and December 2013. EFCC claimed that Air Marshal Alex Sabundo Badeh had spent the stolen money on acquisition, construction, renovation and furnishing of various properties, including a shopping mall and a mansion in Abuja. Ignorance can be a terrible disease but it is curable if the sufferer is ready to humble self by learning. There is nothing wrong in prioritising the prosecution of thieves that stole billions of Naira from the treasury before lesser thieves. My only concern is that the judicial process of recovering stolen monies from the national looters should not take more than three months from the lowest court to the highest.

S.Kadiri
 

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Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2016 02:52:43 +0000
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Osuntokun: Views on Economic Summit
From: oluwasrividya@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Ibigbolade Aderibigbe

Not only has the evidence been tendered to the EFCC, Fashola has publicly admitted to using millions of Lagos state's money in building a personal website and justified that action.

Amaechi jas admitted to using 82 million naira in hosting a birthday party for Wole Soyinka, who acted as little more than an APC mouthpiece  during the elections, and Amaechi has justified his actions..

Yet Fashola and Amaechi are ministerrs in a so called anti-corruption govt.

Are you claiming to be unaware of these facts?

toyin

On 4 March 2016 at 18:46, Ibigbolade Aderibigbe <gbolaade.aderibigbe@gmail.com> wrote:

Again talk and talk. Let the states (Lagos and Rivers) where those Ouwatoyin  wants to "hang" send their complaints with evidence to the EFCC. When that organization refuses to prosecute them as it is doing to those  Adepju thinks are being discriminated against, then we will all cry "FOUL" or even storm the streets of Abuja or... wherever to protest.

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 6:47 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <oluwasrividya@gmail.com> wrote:

Beautiful on resource management.

But we must also remember those who used millions of the country's money in building personal websites, hosting birthdays and awarding boreholes.

When you invoke the idea of the ultimate punishment for members of the immediate past govt but conveniently  leave out the corrupt antics recorded agst those in the curent govt, such calls become another form of politiking.

toyin

On 3 March 2016 at 22:06, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

There is a cacophony of voices asking president Muhammadu Buhari to convoke a summit on the economy presumably to find a solution to the foreign exchange scarcity and the impecunious state of several of the federating states of the Nigerian Union. It seems the president is predisposed to just doing that . But exactly what will those invited be talking about that the averagely educated Nigerian cannot guess . Economics is not rocket science . We know what is wrong . Because of the collapse of the price of hydrocarbons ,the export of which our economy depends on ,our country is not earning as much as it used to earn . The fact is that our income has gone down by about 70 percent. To complicate matters our export of agricultural produce has also been affected by the fall in global price for them . China which was the driving force behind the global economy has slowed down and India another demographic and possible economic juggernaut is a story for the future . We import virtually everything including things that we do not need. Apart from spare parts ,automobiles ,medical equipment,drugs chemicals and educational materials we can shut down our ports and force ourselves to produce what we need while whatever foreign exchange we have is devoted to providing necessary infrastructure for our present and future development. Mazi Mbonu Ojike ,one of our early nationalists used to say we should boycott the boycottable and use whatever we produce. Whether we harken to this call now or in the future is a moot point . At the end we have to look inward to move our country forward . If we had saved well against a rainy day we would not have found ourselves in this pitiable situation. The mindless looting of the public treasury in recent times has made things worse.  The kind of looting we are being told ,happened is enough to depress any sane and patriotic Nigerian . The level of looting poses existential threat to this republic .  In China some of what happened in the recent past would have attracted ultimate punishment .There is no doubt about it . Some of the stories sound like stories from Arabian night and Alibaba and the forty thieves . People walk into the office of the National Security Adviser ,sign a piece of paper ,and walk out with a mandate to go to the CBN or banks where government has money to go and collect billions for some spurious work for government or the ruling party or for no work at all! Nigerian oil was sold without the treasury being credited with the proceeds. People have come out to say their accounts were credited with huge amount of money without their knowledge or without having performed any assignments for government .Billions if not trillions were shared among party bigwigs  as if people were playing the game of monopoly with the nation's money  .Government 's decision to bring the guilty parties to book had better been hastened  and speeded up before people lose their patience. Money taken from these economic saboteurs had better be deployed to pay the millions of Nigerian miserably awaiting the payment of their salaries  and pensions . The TSA must not be used to delay payment of salaries and pensions . The present situation of scarcity not only of foreign exchange but also scarcity of the Naira must not be allowed to drag on indefinitely. Instead of succumbing to the call for an economic summit government must continuously engage the public to apprise it of the situation. The president should broadcast to the nation about the dire state of the economy and what he is going to do about it . Nigerians are not fools . They know the president did not cause the present economic collapse and paralysis.People need to be told this to blunt the ridiculous allegation of the opposition that they did better while in office

What I expect government to do is to declare economic emergency and austerity by radically reducing the cost of governance. I know that there may be constitutional impediments to doing this but we just can not continue to do nothing . This will involve drastic cut in executive and legislative expenditure and even reduction of diplomatic missions abroad and merging of parastatals and universities and polytechnics at home .we may have to merge local governments and make parliament across board part time instead of the wasteful practice of the present Naira guzzling legislative houses at the Centre ,states and local governments  .If we do this ,it will send a message to all and sundry that these are unusual times requiring unusual measures and solutions. All these can be achieved through a declaration of economic emergency and economic siege.There must exist in the law books legal devices to make this happen. Some may argue that this can still be done through the economic pow-wow being suggested. Then it behooves government to put before the summit a well crafted agenda  instead of allowing the Nigerian mania of a useless talkfest to go on .This reminds me of the Bismarckian approach on national issues of not leaving the fate of the nation to verbal display and debates. What we need to do is clear . Cut down all the jargon ,cut down all frivolous importation of luxury goods , wines, champagne,rice, wheat,and All kinds of imported confectionaries . Let us eat for starters the much ballyhooed cassava bread. There is also nothing wrong in eating yams and other local staples.. While doing this we can then begin to produce all we need at home . Necessity is the mother of invention. The Chinese that we all admire today went through the same trajectory. For the sake of all black peoples  at home and in diaspora let us try and prove that the black man is not all talk and no action . Let us prove to the world that we can endure some pain in order to get the gain of sustainable development. A philosophy of providing what we need rather than what we want ought to be our new credo from this time onwards . If we do not take this route least travelled we will all end in the broad way leading to national ruin.

We must remind ourselves that our situation is not the worst of all possible worlds . We are neither Venezuela nor Libya!There is no need to panic . The problem we have is a global problem . We mustn't  lose sight of that fact . Thank God we still have a second chance to get things right . Indeed  in adversity we must have hope . This is not the hope of religious sermon but the hope that we can come out of the economic woods in which through our past action have put ourselves .if we are determined and if we are prepared to work hard , we can get out of this economic doldrums . Perhaps we can begin by looking at the 2020 economic plan put together as a blue print to make Nigeria one of the biggest twenty economies in the world . We can also look at other economic blue prints put together by previous governments instead of reinventing the wheel. If the civil servants cannot do this then government must look for willing and competent people in industry and the universities.  We must go back to agriculture as well as mechanize our mode of production . We need not put all hope on solid or hard minerals alone as some are wont to suggest . Of course we must diversify our economy to tap all sources of revenue . But our priority must be agriculture and industrialization.All this can go Pari passu  with the  current economic diplomacy embarked upon by the president, . But in all this, charity must begin at home .

Regards,

Regards,

Akinjde Osuntokun, Ph.D OON FNAL FHSN

Professor Emeritus of History and International Relations

Bapitan of Oyo

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