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.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

FIRM UP THE NAIRA, TAX DOMICILIARY ACCOUNTS AT 50%.

Icheoku says the problem of Nigeria is not necessarily corruption because the c-word is a universally general application word and a phenomenon not peculiar to Nigeria. The problem of Nigeria is lack of love for country and country men and women; and as rightly articulated by President Muhammadu Buhari just recently, the country is everyone for him or herself and God for all. A kind of wild wild West of yore one would argue. Icheoku says that some level of corruption and even criminality are unavoidably tolerable in so many countries and would have similarly been okay in Nigeria. But the problem is that these Nigerian culprits, particularly those who are looting the country dry,  instead of investing their loot back in the country's economy towards creating jobs for the teeming jobless youths of Nigeria, take their loot and stash them overseas. 

They put their loot in foreign bank accounts where such provide cheap money for those host countries' economies; while their country of origin wallows in abject need and want. Icheoku recalls that back in historical times, Britain used to confer knighthood on their countrymen pirates who hijacked and brought home ships laden with goods and merchandise from the high seas. Ditto was America's wild wild West forged with sheer banditry and common valor. But with Nigerians, they think less about what they can do for their country or its men and women; hence all that they steal from the country, they embark on capital flight to nest for themselves and their families and generations yet unborn. Then their next move becomes to oppress their country men and women who fail to yield to their excesses or bow and tremble before them. Imagine a scenario where the over $150billion traceable deposits of Nigerians in foreign banks are reinvested in Nigeria, there could easily have been hundreds of Dangotes employing hundreds of thousands of Nigerians and who will still be calculating unemployment rate in Nigeria at over 57 percentile?

Now the trend of domiciliary accounts has caught fire in the country and with it a drain on scarce foreign currencies, leaving people who actually need these foreign currencies stranded with nothing or very little and definitely less than would satisfy their immediate needs. Foreign currencies stashed up in private domiciliary accounts with merchants needing them to pay for their imports and other foreign business transactions left holding the plate in their quest to meet their obligations to pay for their merchandise. Icheoku says how could a people hoard currencies they don't need to use immediately when the United States mint as well as other foreign countries' mints have not gone out of business of printing their currencies nor are they planning to shut down their operations? Why would a people just keep things for keeping sake and not realize that such primitive thinking is hurting the overall economy of their country; except that they do not of course see Nigeria as their country but merely the cash-cow that provides perpetual milk for them to milk till death, without any remorse or contrition whatsoever. 

The bad news is that regardless of the amount one has in his or her domiciliary account, a country like the United States of America lets you into their country with just up to $10,000 and nothing more. So why then will these hoarders not allow those who really need these foreign currencies to share in their pile by lifting their hold on them? Imagine a situation where over $1billion is currently held in private domiciliary accounts in Nigeria while the exchange rate of the dollar for example is going up through the roof with many merchants unable to fund or finance their overseas businesses. Pilgrimage-makers, students, holiday-makers as well as tourists are finding it difficult to source reasonably priced funds to pay their passage, while this amount of dollars (one billion) are stashed up in bank vaults and held over as domiciliary deposits. 

Icheoku says there is really no need for any individual hoarding foreign currencies in domiciliary accounts when they are needed to pay for imports and other foreign currency based transactions. There is no country in the world where such is tolerated except in Nigeria where people with primitive mentality like to hoard everything, including what they do not immediately need. Nigeria's currency is the Naira and all monetary deposits in Nigeria should therefore be in Naira. Anyone needing to travel or transact any foreign business requiring foreign currency should be able to just walk into a bank and purchase what he or she needs but never be allowed to hoard any excesses whatsoever. Icheoku says that hoarding foreign currencies in domiciliary accounts is not the way to go and should therefore be discouraged forthwith and seriously frowned at with drastic deterrents put in place.  

Icheoku says the solution is for the government to dis-incentivize this hoarding by making it unprofitable to hold dollars or any other foreign currency when one doesn't really need them. The government should henceforth tax such deposits at 50% to discourage people who just like to hold unto stuff just because they can and wants to; and not necessarily because they have a need for their immediate use. That way, anyone needing foreign currency can simply walk into the bank and purchase what he needs while the excess is left for those other Nigerians who need some too. Alternatively, the government should establish a maximum deposit ceiling of $20,000 for each individual, regardless of means and anything else above that should be taxed at 75% or declared illegal. 

Icheoku says it is only in Nigeria that such dual currency accounts deposits are largely tolerated even to the detriment of the overall economy of the country. Icheoku therefore calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to tear down those domiciliary accounts and flush out funds held therein into the open market to help boost foreign exchange supply needs of the country and peradventure, also help firm up the Naira. Such a move will generally be in the overall interest of the economic well-being of the country. It will also greatly help in bringing down the ever skyrocketing value of the dollar to a more tolerable rate against the Naira and thus make the Naira more valuable once again. Icheoku says to Nigerians to say no to foreign currency hoarding, say no to domiciliary accounts.

1 comment:

  1. CBN bans cash deposits into domiciliary accounts
    AUGUST 6, 2015 : AGENCY REPORT 10 COMMENTS
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    Naira and dollar notes
    Naira and dollar notes
    | credits: www.osundefender.org
    The Central Bank of Nigeria has banned the payment of cash into domiciliary accounts in the country, TheCable reports.

    In a circular released on Wednesday and signed by the Director of Trade and Exchange, CBN, Olakanmi Gbadamosi, the central bank said its action followed recent statements by individual banks suspending the payment of foreign currencies into domiciliary accounts.

    Gbadamosi wrote, “The Central Bank of Nigeria has considered the recent statements by Deposit Money Banks concerning the large volume of foreign currencies in their vaults and the decision to stop accepting foreign currency cash deposits into customers’ domiciliary accounts as a welcome development.

    “Therefore, in its continued efforts to stop illicit financial flows in the Nigerian banking system which aligns with the anti-money Laundering stance of the Federal Government, the CBN hereby prohibits from the date of this circular the acceptance of foreign currency cash deposits by DMBs.

    “For foreign currency cash lodgements made prior to the date of this circular, the account holder has the option to either withdraw his or her foreign currency cash or the Naira equivalent. For the avoidance of doubt, only wire transfers to and from Domiciliary Accounts are henceforth permissible.

    “The CBN advises individuals that wish to source foreign currency for eligible and legitimate purposes such as BTA, PTA medical, mortgage, school fees, goods etc. to do so through recognised channels with the use of Form ‘A’ for “invisible” and Form ‘M’ for ‘visible’ transactions. By this circular, those who deposited foreign currencies into their accounts before the directive will now have to withdraw the cash as they are not going to be allowed to transfer the funds.”

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