FG TO RECRUIT 1.3M TEACHERS IN 6 YEARS

It would seem obvious that some one million of the approximately two million teachers deficit currently recognised by the Education Minister will have to come from the north. That's what equity demands. It is cheap talk for the NECO boss Prof Charkes Uwakwe to state that, “The minister was very clear on what our tasks and mandates are." There is nothing clear about the minister's comment. What he handed down was a watery wish list. The APC administration has had at least three years to develop a blueprint (with action plans) to tackle an old problem. To ask the 17 new chief executives to COME UP with an action plan in one month shows lack of seriousness on the part of the administration. What did Buhari have in mind for his people all this while he was gunning for office?

I have written some time ago that at the end of the day the (aggrieved) South will have to provide teachers IF and WHEN the North, currently represented by this Buhari administration, decides to send it's sons and daughters to school. Obviously that's not happening now. That is one more reason why Buhari must get his act together, retreat from the ruinous path he is now treading, erase the existing faultlines and desist from deliberately creating new ones. Otherwise the entire education/teacher's project is dead on arrival. If anyone knows of any other way the north can overcome the current teacher deficit without help from (and peace with) the south, please share it with us. I would want to know.

HAJJ 2016 FX BAZAAR - IT IS THE GOVERNMENT THAT IS BEING MISCHIEVOUS

This government and it's many praise singers and apologists don't seem to get it. The ongoing outcry, which has been on for years but has become a lot more strident lately, is to the effect that our government has no business in matters of pilgrimages of any shade. The entire bureaucracy of the Christian Pilgrim Welfare Board has no place in our Civil Service. Hence the activities there, both capital and recurrent do not deserve a charge on our public revenue.

It has been the hope here that poverty, nay adversity, will make this administration take the right step of distancing itself from matters of religious pilgrimages. This is a step that CANNOT NOW be taken by the previous administration. It has long gone. The opposition by the enlightened members of the public, (not rabble rousers and religious jingoists), has never focused on the hajj. We have alway insisted that government should leave pilgrimages to the faithful to arrange as they deem fit. Apart from consular services at the other end, our busybody Federal Government has no further role. It's "mischievous" involvement and our unrelenting opposition to it clearly predates Buhari's swearing in as president. If a government sustains a silly policy (eg fuel subdidy) it behoves a new administration to throw it out, which Buhari did. Any recourse to pleading precedents indicates a sheer lack of understanding of the finer aspects of governance.

In case Buhari hasn't noticed, let me remind him that we are broke.

http://www.thescoopng.com/hajj-exchange-rate/

Feyi Fawehinmi and The Buyer's Regret

When we complain, the call us wailers.

We understand the load of responsibility and disappointment carried by the likes of Feyi Fawehinlmi. He is not alone. A good many of us agonized for a long time before we finally, despite our scepticism, voted for Buhari. Having repudiated then President Jonathan, it was not an easy decision to make. It was a most difficult leap of faith which has now proven to be without any basis whatsoever. We just couldn't fill the glaring policy blank spaces in Candidate Buhari’s mindset and vacuous statements made during the campaigns.

Having participated in canvassing for votes for Buhari makes the disappointment felt by us "supporters" all the more painful. As a matter of fact it is perhaps only the criticism of this erstwhile reluctant "Sai Buhari" subset that has any likelihood, no matter how remote, of bringing this regime to its senses. The APC is currently so dismissive of the critics from it's PDP "enemies" that there is a zero possibility that it can even reach out for a life vest thrown by that group. It is as bad as that.

Truth is that many commentators, without excusing any of Jonathan's shortcomings, pleaded caution. The expression Hobson's Choice came in handy. I hereby refer to the writings by Abimbola Adelakun in The Punch in the run up to the elections. She warned us. But we had to quickly make a decision one way or the other. We are now stuck with the consequences of our choice. . .Yes, change they call it.

Hhttp://www.thescoopng.com/feyi-fawehinmi/

DOES NIGERIA NEED A NEW NATIONAL AIR CARRIER?

I have been wondering where exactly the bug of national pride bit our compatriot Kiaffa Umaru Maina. I wonder again if the athletes from South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Burkina Faso, Lithuania, Nepal, Kosovo, Mongolia, Georgia and finally the United States of America arrived Rio de Janeiro on their national airlines. I would really like to know.

People who have spent enough time at the upper echelons of the Nigerian Civil Service can attest to how a board and management is preselected for non-existent organizations even before a structure is put down on paper. The political class then proceeds to pressure their brother or friend in government (say in this case President Buhari) to then establish the said organization or company to be handed over to them. We have been on this sad road many times before. The end result always turns out the same. The company is stripped bare with no negative consequences to the culprits.

Maina wrote: "In 1963, the Nigerian federal government bought out the other shareholders and Nigeria Airways became wholly-owned by Nigerian government. . .
And from there everything went downhill. Is that not so?

Talking about an airline flying the Nigerian flag, what exactly is Arik Airlines? Or the now moribund Air Nigeria? I don't get it.

I become scared when anyone with a cultural or political affinity with the mafia that killed off the hitherto vibrant textile and other industries in Kaduna and Kano starts offering us investment advice. This is truly "fantastic."

One philosopher, in the early years of the United States, stated that, "Patriotism is (often) the refuge of the scoundrel." I do not have anybody in mind. However whomsoever the cap fits, let him wear it.

http://www.thescoopng.com/atlanta-national-carrier/#comments

DANGOTE'S NIGERIA: WHAT IS HIS VISION?

I have in the past drawn attention to the "style" of the late Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. An apostle of homegrown solutions, he had almost limitless faith in the human potential of his people. He had no choice. Singapore had nothing else worth reckoning.

We may never fully understand the motivation of Alhaji Aliko Dangote in inviting the Tiger Brands of South Africa to invest in Dangote Flour. It is possible that because the group was overextended at that material time, Dangote decided go reduce the huge leveraging that attended the record shattering expansion of Dangote Cement on a global scale. It is not unlikely that Tiger Brands came on board with a largely short term view of it's investment and that led to the losses earlier recorded. It is not as if Nigerians stopped eating wheat bread and the other derivatives. To date we do not have any reason to turn our backs on the Dangote name.

From all indications, the fate and fortune of the Dangote Group appears to be irrevocably bound up with that of the Nigerian nation or state, no matter how configured. I just hope that the Group Head, Mr Thabo Mabo, a South African, remains loyal to the declared mission of the Dangote Group using local talent which we have in abundance. The day he renders himself redundant or easily replaceable marks his landmark success in that regard.

One final note. I have stated without ceasing that a Dangote presidency will be far, far more fruitful to us than the current exercise in ego massage. . Sai Aliko Dangote!

Again On Ndigbo In Diaspora and Titles

Ikechukwu Amaechi wrote recently on the Eze-Ndigbo phenomenon and the penchant by most for titles. He said:

"I remember telling someone who sat beside me at the gala night (of Ezuruezu Mbaise in Dallas) that there seemed to be more chiefs and lolos of Igbo extraction in the U.S. than we have in Nigeria. . .

In reference to the sprouting of Eze-Ndigbo in the American diaspora, Amaechi used the expression "the burgeoning chieftaincy industry among Ndigbo in the US." Whether we like it or not, this represents the new reality, the new normal. Of course we do not have to fall over and willy-nilly accept it.

Amaechi continued, "A few years ago when Eze Cletus Ilomuanya was the Chairman of the South East Council of Traditional Rulers, the council frowned at the idea of having Eze Ndigbo in the Diaspora.

"In fact, the council banned anyone from bearing the title of Eze Ndigbo outside Igboland. The case went to court because the association of Eze Ndigbos, particularly those in Lagos, kicked against the ban. . ."

Any keen observer would have noticed that Eze Cletus Ilomuanya and his colleagues were more than 40years late in confronting this monster. They were trying to secure the stable door long after the horse had bolted. Incidentally I was at a meeting of the Association of Anambra State Development Unions (AASDU), Lagos when the above letter/directive of South East Council of Traditional Rulers was read. The matter was not even discussed. It is possible that some of my fellow delegates at that meeting were aspiring Eze-Ndigbos. You can't use Belzeebub to chase out the devil.

IS NNAMDI KANU A HYPOCRITE, for "secretly" accepting to renounce Biafra?

There is this report that appeared recently in most online media, (here I am quoting The Daily Post) that the "defunct(?) militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, has alleged that the incarcerated leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, secretly agreed to denounce the struggle for the actualisation of Biafra despite claiming otherwise in public." . Really? Was this agreement with MEND or with Buhari's federal government?

Pray, when does a "defunct" organization become a "Reliable Source" for an important story such as this? Is MEND defunct or not? Is MEND an agent or mouthpiece of the federal government with which Kanu and IPOB are supposedly negotiating, as in talks about talks? Or is MEND collaborating with IPOB? We may never know until the actual talks commence.

It is also possible that anyone facing the same predicament as Nnamdi Kanu will say just about anything to escape from an irrational and illegal gulag imposed on him by a despot who seems unperturbed that more than fifty percent of citizens regard him as either perpetrating or condoning genocide. Any deal that he is deemed to have struck will be as useless as a confession extracted by a brutal police force at gunpoint. To expect his many followers, or more correctly co-agitators, to respect that, is quite silly. What exactly is the ideological significance of such a development? Nothing! Zilch.

The ideological foot soldiers of IPOB and MASSOB are all over the place. Meanwhile the enemies of the struggle are strenuously hoping to add Nnamdi Kanu's scalp to their mounting head count, to what end I may never know. God forbid bad thing! I can imagine the IPOB stalwarts reasoning that Kanu will readily outlive oldman Buhari, and taking note of the cool wind of change blowing over some parts of the north already tired of its own home grown violent militants. Against the grain, many people there, including Atiku Abubakar, are talking "restructuring." They are coming to terms with the fact that they have actually no axe to grind with Kanu and his ilk. What with all the corruption and poverty that they have had to contend with.

Now, let us look at this story from another angle. When it broke over a fortnight ago, there was one common thread. Almost all the reporters couldn't help but gloat. As if to say,

Re: On the matter of the dog named ‘Buhari’ - The Punch: Thursdays with Abimbola Adela

This opinion piece by Abimbola Adelakun reminds me of an earlier one titled KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT: SURVIVING NIGERIA'S NORTH written by budding author Ms Jennifer Emelife. She chronicled her experiences growing up and schooling in Sokoto, specifically Usmanu Danfodiyo University. Just reading of her experiences was very unnerving. The things that she and her fellow Christian students had to put up with just to avoid "trouble." And her father for years kept up appearances with his Muslim friends by not engaging in certain "sensitive" topics. What a life! Ms Emelife said it as it is but didn't strain to be as judgemental as I did in my rejoinder.

This wrapup by the inimitable Abimbola Adelakun has taken the discussion to a whole new level altogether. The tragedy is that nobody seems to be paying any attention to the real issues at stake as she eloquently pointed out. On the part of the government, the same lack of moral clarity manifested serially in the Fulani herdsmen outrage, which she had earlier addressed, is also at play here. The police, after all these long years, does not seem to be in any hurry to learn what is it's constitutional role in society. It choses to pander to the whims of Any-Government-In-Power and the political and monied class who can pay for protection deserved or not. We have all decried this tendency manifested in another form during the Oga-at-the-top episode that went viral. Unfortunately it remains with us

Finally, one must mention the complicity of the not-so-elite middle class who refuse to step out of their comfort zone to challenge this march into anarchy. The nation is collapsing on their heads while they are busy clutching the fast diminishing comforts that separate them from the masses. For how long?