TONY BLAIR'S ADVISE ON OIL SUBSIDY REMOVAL, A SATANIC TRAP?

Icheoku says one thing Nigeria's President-elect Muhammadu Buhari must avoid, with all seriousness and every dogged determination, is the meddlesome interloping of these white foreign "advisers" who suddenly now appear to love Nigeria more than Nigerians themselves and somehow more than even their own countries. So query, where have their love for Nigeria been all these years Nigeria needed practically every help and advise they can get on how to chart the way forward, including fighting the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists as well as the killer Ebola Virus Disease? They were a no show then and were privately praying and wishing that Nigeria should be cut down to size. Just recently, they have been emerging from their rat-holes, in all manners, shapes and forms, proffering one advise or the other on how to reposition Nigeria for its future growth. 

Icheoku asks what changed or is it their same love for Muhammadu Buhari rather than Nigerians, that found them similarly not seeing anything bad of the former despotic dictator coming back to rule Nigeria? A matter made worse because of the crime of kidnapping of Umaru DIkko on British soil by the then junta Muhammadu Buhari's government but which the British government decided to look the other way with its prosecution? Anyway Muhammadu Buhari is now the president in the waiting and all his sins are washed away; so now back to the present matter under advisement - the recent advise by former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair that the incoming government should remove oil subsidy in Nigeria. 

Icheoku says these white people and their media do not mean well for black people whether in Africa or Diaspora or any where else. A case in point is the Boko Haram scourge which they continuously blame the Nigerian government and army for being lethargic tackling them, while maintaining a conspirator's silence on their governments' refusal to help or even sell arms to Nigeria to fight Boko Haram. Icheoku berates that anyone meaning well for the Nigeria's government in the waiting or Nigeria in general should stay off this very delicate issue that is oil subsidy removal which still enables ordinary Nigerians to afford gasoline and petroleum products in their oil producing country. If the government yields to Tony Blair's advise and takes away oil subsidy, how does Tony Blair expect the associated hardship to be cushioned, except that such advise is according to Tony Blair above his pay grade or in short Tony Blair is not telling or saying? 

Icheoku is rather surprised beyond pale that anybody is still listening to whatever this very Tony Blair has to say or offer as an opinion? A Tony Blair, who failed woefully as a British Prime Minister; the same man who alongside then American President George W Bush sent the world into an unneeded war in the Middle East with their ill-motivated invasion of Iraq that has seen that region spiraling out of control ever since. A man who also failed in his post prime minister-ship assignment as special envoy to the Middle East and under whose mediocre oversight, the trouble between Israel and Palestine has gone from bad to awfully worse. Icheoku says it was under his forlorn watch and supervision of the Middle East, that the region which is formally known for its relative peace, has now become a volcanic hotbed of mass murders, kidnapping, killing, maiming, destruction of lives and properties and wherein so many failed or nearly failed and failing states are continuously springing out and with so many rogue operators holding sway. 

Icheoku says a man who could not govern his Britain, nor had a good judgment invading Iraq and similarly failed in his Middle East assignment as a peace envoy is the least qualified person to be advising a Nigeria's newly elected president. Query, as then prime minister of United Kingdom, what did his government do to help alleviate the suffering of Nigerian masses or improve their life? How many debt reliefs did his government then and the British government up till now grant to Nigeria? Instead they are providing shelter in their banks and other financial institutions for loots of the state from Nigeria and are continuously wining and dining Nigeria's former corrupt leaders who looted the state dry? Why not as a start ban these former leaders from Britain and deny them entry and exit visas from every of Her Majesty's territories as a start? Icheoku asks what has Britain done to help Nigeria, its former colony, in the fight against Boko Haram, Ebola, unemployment, power supply and even rural development since all these years, including pre-independence and post-independence Nigeria. 

As a then prime minister, did Tony Blair remove the British government's subsidy on health-care of British citizens, known as National Health Service, so that British citizens could start paying their fair share of the cost borne by their government for maintaining their health-care coverage? As a then prime minister, how much did Tony Blair's government give to help a developing Nigeria build up its capacity including refineries which would have since removed the need for the corruption-riddled fuel for crude oil buy-back program that breed all these subsidies? But now, the same failure who is masquerading as a leader, is propounding an atrocious panacea that will only consume the incoming government and you wonder if President-elect Muhammadu Buhari indeed actually has any friend in this Tony Blair. 

What the West did not succeed in achieving through an expected and engineered bloody election in Nigeria, they are now trying to funnel through an explosive issue of oil subsidy removal, which they know will convulse and possibly torpedo the new government if implemented. Icheoku alerts that the West not desiring any good for Nigeria are laying further land-mines for Nigeria that will blow it to smithereens if not rebuffed. Icheoku is emphatic that the West's pretentious  love for Nigeria is not genuine nor real but contrived, a poisoned chalice which they are hoping the incoming government will drink from and then turn around to supply the arms and ammunition that will be needed to take down Nigeria. Like Syria, like Iraq, they will like to cut down the progress a Nigeria suddenly awake to its responsibilities is trying all these sixteen years to situate. Icheoku maintains that these white people do not like black people and cannot honestly be happy to see Nigeria shake off its drag and will come in all guises to sabotage any effort in that direction. 

At least, if Tony Blair has something to say to the incoming government regarding helping them to succeed, let him help the government recover all those stolen billions of dollars of Nigeria's money stashed in banks in London and other cities in the United Kingdom including their Cayman Island territory. If Tony Blair wants to help the incoming government succeed, let him help have Nigeria's creditors cancel Nigeria's debts or at least freeze the interest payable on them. If Tony Blair wants to help the incoming government succeed, let him help Nigeria solve its power problems. If Tony Blair wants to help the incoming government keep its election campaign promises, let him facilitate the British government sending trained experts to Nigeria to help in areas of agriculture, animal husbandry, fish raising as well as technology. If Tony Blair wants to help Nigeria succeed, let his British government help Nigeria develop its infrastructures including roads, rail-lines, airports, seaports as well as a disciplined functioning law enforcement. 

Icheoku says some of these are what developed, advanced countries, which mean well for developing countries, offer in aids and assistance. But for a Tony Blair to call for the removal of the only thing which an average Joe and Jill of Nigeria still benefits from their government is sacrilege of the worst kind and should therefore be ignored as very ominous. It is a poisoned pill which if swallowed, will accelerate a cardiac arrest of the incoming government which no Nigerian wants to see happen. So much was promised by the incoming government to Nigerians, which led to their victory at the polls and such a great expectation should not be dashed by this kill-joy of an impetuous advise which will force the people of Nigeria back into despondency. Icheoku asks which country in the world does not subsidize her citizens in one way or the other, so why should Nigeria be an exception? So to hell with Tony Blair and his advise from Hades. 

President-elect Buhari must therefore tell Tony Blair thanks but no, thanks. Icheoku says taking advantage of the election goodwill to inflict further pain on Nigerian people will not only be wrong but is also wicked and cruel and a breach of the confidence that led to the election victory. Africans are not known for such forked-tongue positioning, so Tony Blair must reserve that for his people of Britain. Icheoku says it was this same people who advised then Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida to introduce SAP and Nigerians are living witnesses of how well that "immediate pain for a long term interest of the country" worked out so well. Please President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, stay away from these foreign white-vultures who are only interested in starting wars and killing people so that their countries' military-industrial complexes can find ready market for their weapons racketeering. 

As the outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan said, no Nigerian blood is worth shedding for any office in the land,  so Buhari must say to these death-merchants that no Nigerian life is worth losing now to severe hardship which the removal of subsidy will bring just because of a bogus long term gain. Icheoku maintains that their prescription never works anywhere and they even rarely gives the same  medicine to their own privileged people.  Icheoku is emphatic that even the United States of America still subsidizes gasoline and other petroleum products in America for its people. Otherwise what then is the use for governments if they cannot help their citizens, especially those bottom-feeders who at the bottom of the food chain - the poor, hungry and penniless. 

At least Tony Blair should first pledge to get his British government to help Nigeria develop its mass transit system and then Nigerians will have little need to travel in gasoline-combustible engines; thereafter,  Nigerians can start listening to his advise to take away their oil subsidy.  Just like in Britain where trains are everything and the people have little to no need for gasoline in order to get around. But Tony Blair will not go there; instead Tony Blair is trying to set a trap of a ball of fire that will lead to the implosion of the new government. Icheoku agrees with CNPP's Osita Okechukwu that "those who propounded the nebulous economic policies of the past which created huge inequality and pauperized Nigerians are at it again. Nigerians have suffered enough and do not need more impoverishment" But should they be allowed to succeed this time? Icheoku says an emphatic NO and this should be Buhari's approach to all these pretentious demagogues and vultures laying in wait to plunder and devour his government and by extension take Nigeria down with it. What a pin-head mongrel with his unsolicited evil advise of doom.