GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.

Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.

25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!

WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?

The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.

A HERO IS BORN.

I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.

WORD!

A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.

NOW, YOU KNOW.

When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.

JUST THE FACT.

In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle

DO YOU?.

“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.

HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.

Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.

OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.

WORDS ON MARBLE.

"Birth is agony. Life is hard. Death is cruel." - Japanese pithy.

REPENT OR PERISH - POPE.

Homosexuality is a sin. It is not ordained by God, therefore same sex marriage cannot be blessed by the church - Pope Francis.

CANCEL CULTURE IS CORROSIVE.


FOR SAKE OF COUNTRY.


MAGA LIVES ON: NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

TWITTER IS BORING WITHOUT HIS TWEETS. #RestorePresidentTrump'sTwitterHandle.


WORD.

"If you cannot speak the truth when it matters, then nothing else you says matters.” - Tucker Carlson.

#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.

"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.


RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.


WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN LIFE - STEVE JOBS

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. Memories precipitated by love is the only true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. The most expensive bed in the world is the sick bed. You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.” - SJ

EVIL CANNOT BE TRULY DESTROYED.

"The threat of evil is ever present. We can contain it as long as we stay vigilant, but it can never truly be destroyed. - Lorraine Warren (Annabelle, the movie)


ONLY THE POOR WISH THEY HAD STUFF?

“I’m not that interested in material things. As long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” - Nicolas Berggruem, the homeless billionaire.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

NAIRA'S FLOP IS DOOMSDAY FORETOLD - JOSEF OMOROTIONMWAN

EVERY corruption case in Nigeria  has an expiry date. This is one clear area where we shall consistently return to His Eminence, the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who we think can author a bestseller any day on the subject, being one Nigerian who thoroughly understands the Nigerian psyche and knows exactly when to do what. Truly, from very early in life, we have been indoctrinated into thinking that it is wrong to do any deep narrative on kings and the dead. While the latter must be allowed to rest in peace, the former deserve honour as God’s representatives on earth. Were these absolutely true, those volumes on the enlightened depots of centuries past would not have appeared. The Bible, which mainly chronicles the activities of the dead would never have been written. 

For us, the King deserves deep reverence but he must be talked about. Those of them who have not respected the law must face the law. It is too soon to forget how Sanusi, as the immediate-past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, turned that body into a Republic within a Republic. Indeed, the collapse of the Naira today is doomsday foretold. We saw it coming. You can’t run the CBN with the type of impunity with which Idi-Amin ran the economy of Uganda and not expect the type of disaster we have in our hands today. Students of history will also easily remember that the Deutschemark suffered the same fate in post World-War II Germany. 

Again, Sanusi represents an archetype of the average Nigerian in authority. Space will only permit us to provide a synopsis of some of his deeds: In about 63 “intervention projects” mainly in Northern Nigeria and sparsely in the South, Sanusi turned CBN into a Father Christmas by doling out about N163 billion from the public till without any legislative approval and authorisation in utter defiance of the provisions of Sections 80(1) and 80(2) of our 1999 Constitution, which deal with issues of revenue and expenditure of the Federation. In August 2009, the CBN, under Sanusi’s watch pumped N400 billion of public fund into bailing out Afribank, Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, Oceanic Bank and Finbank. The CBN single-handedly decided which of the commercial banks manifested distress signs and how much to give to them, without recourse to any legislative approval. 

In the eye of the Financial Reporting Council, FRC, the CBN under Sanusi’s watch embarked on a most reckless spending spree, the type of squander-mania never imagined in the history of the CBN, including N38.23 billion alleged missing in 2013. This amount was alleged to have been paid to the CBN subsidiary, MINT, but it never got to its destination. In 2011, CBN was said to have paid N38 billion to the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company, NSPMC, for the printing of banknotes, when in the entire year, the total turnover of NSPMC was only N29 billion! In the same year, 2011, CBN allegedly claimed paying N511 million, N425 million and N1 billion to Emirate, Wing and Associated Airlines respectively, for currency distribution nationwide. While Emirate had no local charter service, Wing Airline was not even registered in Nigeria and Associated Airline had a total turnover of less than N1 billion in that year. The exhaustive list of rots in the CBN, which cannot be contained here is perhaps an arm-long. 

Yet, in the process, Sanusi had an avalanche of superior and subordinate officers around him.  If we say Sanusi is guilty as charged, it simply follows that those who were paid to supervise him must be ten times guilty! From a distance, we kept reminding Nigerians that Sanusi was operating a Republic within a Republic. We wrote several articles on the issue, including “Still Celebrating Profligacy” and “Who Is Now the President?” as far back as 2011 and 2013 respectively but Sanusi was evidently untouchable. If all these could happen in a small CBN, located at the city centre, you can imagine what happened in a bigger and clumsier place like NNPC, located largely in the creeks. And if Sanusi was untouchable as a public servant, who now wants to go to his new giddy heights? Long live the King! We expressed our initial concern on the Sanusi escapade when we asked in this column, “Who were Sanusi’s Supervisors?” 

It takes more than one to be corrupt. Corruption is a chain, which like any other chain, is only as strong as its weakest link. Sanusi operated under Presidents and Ministers; he operated under a full-fledged National Assembly with its numerous bogus committees; and he operated literally with thousands of Nigerians who saw crime and didn’t call police! With Sanusi out of the system, the same people who facilitated his deeds are still in the system, doing for other corrupt elements what they did for Sanusi. And so, the chain continues. In Sanusi’s years, where there was no immediate cash to carry out his escapade, he proceeded to print the banknotes. Who, then, is still wondering why the Naira today is barely worth the paper on which it is printed? For all we know, a nation’s economy is like a fowl – it comes home to roost! 

Until we evolve a system where every offender has a taste of his poison through prison experience, we are not fighting any corruption. That system stands on sinking sand, where at the end of tenure, a governor heads for jail and the legislators who consistently gave him his annual appropriations walk our streets in freedom when the approval of this year’s appropriation presupposes that legislators are satisfied with what the governor did with the previous year’s approval. What else is the essence of the legislative oversight of the administration? Yesterday, it was Sanusi; today, it is Dasuki; but between Sanusi and Dasuki, there are at least a thousand Nigerians who should not be walking our streets in freedom – if we are really serious about fighting corruption.

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