When we read the unbelievable article
in DailyTrust on February 8th this year,
which described allocations in the 2014
budget that were tantamount to
"stealing from Almajiri's;" classrooms to
be built at 20 times the cost, we
thought we had seen the worst. But
after witnessing the tragedy in Nigeria
this Saturday, we realized with this
administration there must be
"worstest."
M.U. Ndagi had described that in the
2014 budget, almost a billion naira
(N950 million) was accorded for the
construction of a single block of three
classrooms. This, compared to the 2012
budget for instance, where for 102
Almajiri boarding schools proposed, if
you divided the total budgeted N5
billion by the 102 schools, it gave you
about N49 million per school, which
was to provide fifteen blocks of
classrooms, dormitories, a clinic,
workshops, a dining hall and teachers'
quarters in each of the 102 Almajiri
boarding schools; 2014 in contrast was
a whopping at least 20 times more than
budgeted in 2012.
A shameless path to stealing huge from
the Almajiri in the so-called Almajiri
Education programme.
March 15th: Unemployment Day
On Saturday, March 15th, recklessness,
insensitivity, greed, misrule and a policy
of extortion and exploitation of the
poorest masses and nation's youth
culminated in the stampede tragedy in
which up to 23 job aspirants died and
hundreds of Nigeria's unemployed
youth were injured...
Saturday March 15th was a day of
national tragedy and a day we are
declaring the "Unemployment Day."
This was no ordinary tragedy. It was a
scam, pure and simple . One more in an
unlimited series of scams by a
government that promotes get rich by
any and all means of looting from the
nation's coffers and pockets of the
poor, across all federal departments and
in conspiracy with their billionaire
private sector "businessmen" cabal
partners.
Apart from the process of inviting all
millions of candidates on the same day,
being criminally ludicrous; according to
Leadership today, Nigeria's Immigration
department billed each candidate
N1,000 ($6) for the application. A total
of 6.5 million victims applied, which
brings the yield to N6.5 billion, about
$40 million to the immigration ministry .
The cost for the stadia used was FREE.
The stadia and fields are government
owned. Each sheet of paper given to
each candidate was without-a-doubt,
copied on tax-payers money. And for
the 4000 jobs these 6.5 million victims
applied for, it is well recognized that
the 6.5 million papers will be tossed
and never graded, and family, friends
and friends of family of immigration
workers will bag the jobs. Even if the
papers are to be graded and recorded,
all processes cannot cost more than $1/
candidate and oil rich Nigeria which fails
to provide its youth a single benefit
should have shouldered the cost of this
application process at least.
But rather the leadership steals billions
of dollars in so many exposed scams,
and then employs its various
departments to fend for themselves by
plotting ponzi scams to steal billions, as
was done with a few dollars ripped off
each head for up to 7 million heads. A
very similar scam still operational is the
NNPC –Diezani kerosene subsidy scam
where N100 is stolen from each mother
and kerosene burner, per liter for 10
million liters of kerosene sold daily to
the tune of $4.5 million/day.
We are beginning to realize that Nigeria
is under a curse. These events, these
tragedies, the spilling of blood, the pain,
the hurt, the cheating, the corruption,
the scandals, the wickedness, the
insensitivity, the freeing of convicted
criminals and appraisal of dead looters.
This is the presentation of a serious
curse. Stealing from beggars and
scamming unemployed youth; these are
abominations, these are acts of those
possessed, under evil spirits. These
things are things you see when people
inherited and advanced in leadership
positions after making ritual sacrifices;
after burying cows and even sacrificing
humans.
In addition to a youth uprising, this
nation needs urgent aggressive prayers.
May the souls of the cheated youth
including the pregnant wives/mothers,
who departed as a result of this
meaningless tragedy rest in peace; and
may God give their families the
strength to bear and the patience to
endure. A little bit, a little while, very
soon God will do something radical and
great to rescue and transform this
nation. He has promised that after
hardship and wickedness comes relief
and respite.
by Dr. Peregrino Brimah
http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do
Something]
Email: drbrimah@ends.ng Twitter:
@EveryNigerian
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Steals from Beggars and
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A Government that Steals from Beggars and Unemployed Youth
Posted by Oluseyi Olaniyi
Posted on Monday, March 17, 2014
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