WELCOME TO NEW NIGERIA

Community of nations, it’s a great honor to stand before you to talk about the most populous black nation on earth. At this junction of our statehood, I’m proud to be the Chief Presiding Officer of Nigeria.

Welcome to the new Nigeria, where election to our various offices is by the universally accepted norm of one-man-one-vote. Our electoral process now breeds sound minds of selfless servants. We’re happy that corruption has been reduced to a bearable minimum. And few among us who dare to put ill knives in our cake are summarily judged and adequately punished by an upright justice system.

Fuel scarcity has now been put to eternal sleep of no glory by the grace of our locally engineered refinery, to the degree that we’re now able to produce our need for gas, and sell well over 70% of refined fuel to the international market. Thereby ensuring double gain from than 50million barrels of national high of 150million barrels of crude oil produced per day.

The best news of the growth of the oil and gas sector is that the gas that we have consistently wasted through gas flaring for over five decades is now yielding to the nation's foreign reserve in millions of hard dollars.

Our masses right as we speak have zero need for imported schooling nor private institutions of learning, as our public schools are adjudged to be among the fifty best in the world-UNESCO. And the schooling costs are completely borne by the government to the high school level and are compulsory for all of school age.

At the tertiary level, excellence in academic works, research, and development is the cornerstone of all institutions. To the extent that our corporation and industry do not have any need to consult outside expertise to get their formulas to produce globally competitive goods and services.

A feast made possible by resources provided by the government that made available up-to-date libraries and scientific research centers in all of our over 500 higher institutions of learning.

The workforce smiles home with a minimum wage of 300,000 naira per month. Like eternity were the days of fighting for 18,000 naira per month.

Our road networks speak for themselves. There is no corner of Nigeria without good roads and commensurate drainage systems of a life span of more than 100 years.

Air Nigeria, after the misadventure with Virgin Nigeria, can now boast of over 2000 aircraft of all sizes and shapes, with services and safety record comparable to any carrier in the world.

Modern track rail routes now move goods and persons to the nooks and crannies of our vast borders.

Marine transportation has also taken its pride place in our hitherto non-existent transportation systems.

Gone were the days when our big men, in and out of government, traveled over the seas for their health needs, because our hospital facilities are current and adjudged, according to WHO data, as some of the best in the world.

All this unparalleled advancement has given birth to a new Nigeria where the cry of marginalization, ethnic strife, and disunity are things of distant memory.

We’re the investor’s heaven here on earth. No corporation of note in the world is without a foothold in Nigeria, the land where green is evergreen. A real brand that doesn’t require Prof. Dora’s lip service rebranding to sell itself.

All I can say is join us if profit and growth are your mission in business.

Now we’ve proved to the likes of Fela Anikulapo Kuti wrong, when he said, “my people self dem fear too much, dem fear to fight for freedom”. We’re free at last through one of the fiercest fights of civil rights ever fought on earth.

We fought tooth and nail to become the third-best economy (IMF’s voice) in the world, and the second least corrupt nation (Transparency International’s verdict) in the world.

Once again, of distant memory, I’m proud to tell that we have removed epileptic power supply from the remotest hamlet in our land. In fact, six sister countries are today paying heavily for our supply of power to their national grid.

 In conclusion, our magical transformation now makes millions of citizens of dozens of close to one hundred countries across the globe queue day and night for a choice visa to either visit or stay in Nigeria.

The skeptics of gone by years now sing a different soul song, “me, I love Nigeria, I love the land and people, everything is in Nigeria, let’s join hands to make Nigeria the greatest. Thank you.

INEFFECTIVE HEADS

INEFFECTIVE HEADS

Something is wrong, where a man supposedly elected, paid to steer the affairs of the state, yet cannot create employment for the people who employed him as promised, when seeking the job with a purported blueprint to solve the unemployment problem, in hand. Housed in a massive mansion by the state, but cannot initiate a workable housing program to house the people who gave him a comfortable home.

Round the clock, national resource fuels his abode and mobility, even as imported fuel he fails to make available for the people to buy at fuel lines.

Then one wonders, why steal the stool if performance is not part of the steering lexicon, yet he knows enough to place hurdles in the way of audit of his stewardship.

Surely and steadily, this ineffectiveness is making it strenuous for the sleeping masses to slumber in peace. Believe he does his predecessors that, “that the people are toothless”.

Watch the weather, a wise counsel, the storm on the face of the wall is unlike the former time. Right now, frustration lives on the skin of the restive people. Fifty flirty rooms’ mansion, one of your forerunners got away with. However, the bird that read this storm says, you would be lucky to live in a hamlet, within this shore, should the gathered break gauge in your term of office.

Be wise, make jobs, make durable roads, build enlightenment schools, build functional hospitals, refine the bestowed crude oil within our borders, and provide healthy portable water. Right the wrongs, as the patience of the people is drying up.

IN DARK SHADES

Something is wrong when third-world nations' rulers and ministers travel to working countries in dark shades, so that they do not see the good roads, twenty-four-hour electricity, pipe-borne waters that are taken for granted, functional hospitals that they run to, at the slightest itching on their dry, unfeeling skins. 

Otherwise, tell me, what sane mind goes out to spend converted weak currency into a strong economy? To access the kind of facility they are being paid to provide for themselves and the people. 

They proudly come back home to the woes, with their dark shades left behind at the desk of a functional airport. At least nature is good at dishing the right meal, as power failure, a popular slogan in our enviable environment, often welcomes them at the port of return.

Anyway, they expect the darkness, hence the reason they possess a pair of electrical generating engines. So that on alternate nights and days, they would have power in their mansions.

NATIONAL HONORS

Something is wrong in a situation where more than fifty-five of our political office holder and their collaborator in both the private and public offices are holders of national honor, and yet not one of our critical national sectors is out of comatose. The situation makes mind wonder, where is the location of the performances that yield the merit, which are widely publicized, in announcement and congratulatory messages, in the national dailies.

World bodies and organizations should put their head together and give my nation an international award for a meritorious dysfunctional state. Otherwise, we should recall all the awards, from the member of the Order of the Niger to the Grand Commander of the Niger, from the inception of the awards to the most recent.

Because we all agree that this nation is a failed state.

ENDEMIC CORRUPTION

Something is wrong with a nation in which no stratum of its fabric is free of corruption. A state in which corrupt characteristics have become a way of life. Let us take the petrol chain as an example, where the owners of tankers would have to pay a bribe before receiving an allocation of fuel. Yet they will still have to part with another set of bribes to get to and pass the loading queue. At the point of sale, the pump gets adjusted by the proprietor to make excess profit; still, the pump point attendant will collect a percentage of the content to serve the motorist, and if you are not diligent enough, the attendant will still short-change you by delivering less than your money paid for into the vehicle.

In a government hospital, one has to pay to get attention and a bed space. In the establishments and ministries, one must part with hard-earned currency to avoid a case of missing file or unwarranted delay. One of the reasons the online, say registration, activities of governmental bodies do not function as designed is that some of the operators of the system put in the way various hindrances so that the processes would have to pass through them physically, and deliver some currency into their mucky pockets.

Every stratum stink of it, even the well-paid worker in the oil sector manipulate and pads contractual figures to amass unmerited returns.  

Something is certainly wrong in a state where the populace, from the Commander-In-Chief to the Messenger-In-Service, is not content with their take-home pay, even when the package ought to get them home and beyond.

A nation where no one seeks the answer of a man who became a governor with no personal building of his in town but left office with purported one hundred and seventy-nine choice houses in his name after four four-year terms in office deserves a surgical operation. 

An urgent ponder on what went amiss with the principle of a ‘good name is better than gold’ of the recent past must be undertaken. Before this pandemic, it became the official color of our nation's state flag.

CONSUMING THE RESERVE

Something is wrong with a policymaker who extracts black gold, sells it out to a foreign country, only to turn around and buy the refined product of the same crude oil hitherto sold out.

If elementary arithmetic were right, the initiator returns the buyer’s money plus profit, as well as empowers its workforce, while at home, unemployment bites the populace to high heaven. 

This same prudent policy miller, flare gas, a byproduct of crude oil exploration, for upward of forty-five years, continually intentionally shifted the goal post of ending the flaring.

It took a foreign dignitary, on a courtesy visit, a minute to point this out as a colossal national waste of acquirable reserve.

These self-proclaimed wise men and women who make policy on our behalf would rather leave a huge reserve of bitumen beneath our soil, and spend billions in hard currency to do roads that fail annually.

The functionaries, who make these policies, know the trap they set, the population calls it, re-budgeting to launder more funds.

Consequently, consuming the reserve, which ought to safeguard the future of future generations, even as there is nothing of meaning on the ground, neither the purported roads nor other infrastructure to gladden the eyes and mind of the living generation.

This brings to mind the drainpipes called steel rolling mills, railroad networking, power holding company, Nigeria telecommunications PLC, aluminum smelting, a national fertilizer company, etc., to mention but a few.

Specialists in the art of policymaking that drag the nation backward, while other nations with comparative natural resources/manpower or less are leaping beyond bounds.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN DEVELOPING SOCIETY

 

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN DEVELOPING SOCIETY
o      Developing society
A developing country society consists of economically and technologically developing nations. They are about two-thirds of the world population, and are mainly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
 
Political instability occasioned by a precarious economic situation is widespread in the third world, as they are often designated. The third world has little homogeneity; it is divided by race, religion, culture, and geography, as well as by frequently conflicting interests.
 
The conflicting interest is a major factor for men being accorded more roles in society than women.
 
o      Roles of women in a developing society
 
Women in developing societies still play a subordinate role in comparison to their men counterparts. They are expected to be more active in the lives and care of their children and home, while the men are expected to essentially dominate all levels of society. However, gradually and increasingly, the number of women in leadership positions in local communities, government employment, and professional work is gaining ground.
 
To a degree, women have penetrated various professions and also serve in the armed forces, which hitherto was the exclusive preserve of men, although the ratio when compared to men in such roles remains a far cry from what it ought to be in comparative sharing.
 
Women are also beginning to play an increased role in governance across developing societies, thanks to the dogged fight put forth by various women's societies and the efforts of various United Nations organs across the developing nations.
 
Women suffrage, the right of women to share on equal basis with men the political privileges afforded by representative governance and more particularly to vote and be voted for in elections and referendums and to hold public office is as good as settled, as most government across the developing society now makes a concerted effort to increase the participation of women in electioneering processes, thanks largely to vigilance and effort of women as assisted by women suffrage movement dotted across the developing world.
 
One role that women have consistently played in the developing society is their influence in life of their husbands, by constantly adding the feminine touch to the various decisions taken by men, a point in instance is the role of the first ladies of most of the developing countries. To such an extent that the role goes with the office and all that pertains to it, and running it effectively. And these offices are complementary in providing for the deficiencies in the main activity in the day-to-day running of the state by their husbands.
 
Women's roles in politics are also on the rise, through the efforts of various pressure groups as lobbying forces for various social issues and against deficiencies in the policy framework responsible for the allocation of offices for elective positions, both in the administrative and legislative organs of governance. And increasing numbers of women are meriting various government appointments, such as ministerial offices of minister and diplomatic postings.
 
Another estate in the developing world in which the women have a lasting impact is the teaching profession, especially the primary school, where they capture more jobs than the men; they also have a competitive share of the jobs of secondary education, and they also hold positions in the tertiary institutions, though much less than those held by men.
 
The women in a developing society play a significant role in the informer sector of the economy. Since the developing economies are mainly fueled by the traditional rural sector, which features subsistence production of farm produce and simple manufactured products.
The women are in the main responsible for making sure that most of these goods reach the market and get to the consumers. They are also responsible for the vitality recorded in the textile industry in a developing society, being almost the sole agent between the manufacturer and users of the textile products.
 
The banking sector provides considerable engagement to the women, both in terms of employment and provision of soft loans for small businesses-such as farming, fishing, and petty trading.
 
The contribution of women is noticeable in the sporting arena, where many have distinguished themselves both at home and across the globe.
 
Though the truth persists that women are less powerful than men in the developing nation. Traditional partitions, which still play a major role in the developing society, still restrict the role women may play and limit their economic opportunities, and deny society the contribution women can add to the growth of the nation.
 
o      Limiting factors
 
The women in a developing society are largely undermined by conventionally accepted male attributes, such as physical strength or aggressive behavior, to gain and keep their positions in society. The thinking within a developing society is still largely that male dominance was the natural or God given order of the society.
 
Another factor militating against strong strides by women in developing countries is poverty, which in some of these countries exceeds 90 percent. This results in high unemployment, situation arises whereby men are allowed to fill available slots before allowing women to compete.
Also, in many developing nations, women have low social status and are restricted in their access to both education and income-generating work. Without adequate income, they commonly depend on men for support, but often get little.
 
Despite rapid modernization across the globe, the way of life in the developing society still remains largely traditional and in accordance with conservative values. And they will remain underrepresented in such an atmosphere.
 
o      Conclusion
 
The role of women in the present-day developing society is a great improvement compared to some decades prior, though the number is a far cry when juxtaposed with their counterparts in the developed world.
 
To cheer is the number of women who have excelled in cooperate conglomerates, in government services, etc. With women like Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, as the first female president of Liberia, and Portia Simpson Miller, the first female prime minister of Jamaica, and a lot more in the legislature across the developing society, there indeed is reason to believe that with commitment and dedication tomorrow of the women of the developing society will meet better days.
 
A good number of women in developing societies are rural dwellers and work in the fields and marketplaces. With concerted effort, the status of women can be improved through an increase in functional literacy among women, training in relevant vocational skills, knowledge for civil participation, and skills to assist in nation-building. These will enable the women to consolidate on the progress already made in their contribution to the development of their society.
 
The women interest groups already on ground in most of the developing societies should redouble their efforts in fighting to overcome most of the limitations that are presently militating against their effective competition in all strata of the state, to take equal position with the men in every aspect of national life in the nearest possible future, by taking advantage of the numerous international organization in place with the advancement of women in the third as cardinal in their policy.

 

UNFORGETTABLE!

I'll keep writing you on paper as I still write in my mind. Even though, as dust in the wind, you now stay.

Change is me, to cherish the woman of you.

Forget the things that shut say,

Forgo the things that mill mute,

Returning is a renewed day

To brighten your life,

As the sun is on the stars of heaven

Forsake, keep the hurt

Foreclose, the vibe, ‘not anymore

As for you and you only, this flight, fly

To soak the spaces of your heart,

With unforgettable passion,

As denied at unvalued appreciation

Evacuate the things that vacate me,

Relive the things that endeared adore,

Have the memos of the storm thin to dust

Power of sweethearts, be, the flicker

Accept the song of my soul as solder,

As glue us inseparable

Stay by the side of you,

To clear the tears cried

And make the skin of your heart

Radiant than apple pelt

My world is all yours,

As you have repeatedly tried to turn its knob

Access denied, killed, and buried

Changed is me, to cherish the woman of you.

 

THE IKOYI COLLAPSE IN FOCUS

AN AVOIDABLE MISFORTUNE, THE IKOYI BUILDING COLLAPSE.

PREAMBLE: The Structural foundation design sets the tone for the strength of high-rise buildings. Ensure your foundation follows the designed specifications, and the rest will follow.

The engineer’s first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem is.

My take: the above is an inadequate foundation or a case of overloading.

The failure occurred, if all things said are done, over 40meters below the ground. That collapse is a complete failure arising from either incompetency or profiteering(occasioned by the use of substandard or uncertified materials.

INTRODUCTION: I'm an engineer myself who deals with deep foundations.

PREMISE: A whole bucket of questions needs to be answered.

1) The geotechnical detailed results used in drawing the plan should be investigated

2) The structural analysis that advised the depth of the foundation should be investigated

3) The records kept of adhering to the design depth should be investigated

4) The certification (at that level, all materials used must be accompanied by certificates) of the materials used should be investigated

5)etc.

As alluded to by the Association of Nigerian Chartered Architects.

IMMINENT FAILURE:  The concern of structural engineers in charge of the building before abandoning the project will shed much light on the immediate causes of the building collapse.

LOCAL AUTHORITY: Our local authority on building matters doesn't have enough expertise to delve into high-rise building certification. Learned that the authority approved six more floors for the collapsed structure

For this level of approval. A structural engineer is required. Someone with good knowledge of structural analysis. Not just any graduate civil engineer.

EMERGENCY RESPOND: The next thing, people will criticize the government. The government will set up a panel to look into the causes of the crisis. Some people will embezzle some funds. Nothing achieved. Case closed until another disaster for another opportunity to make money.

At this age? We should have well-established first responders on the ground doing their best. Dismantle the rubble first and fast. Time is of the essence to save as many lives as possible.

A direct result of the failure of the state. The first and fastest response to damage (crisis) is equal to zero.

It's unfortunate for Nigeria that it's taking days to evacuate just one building, not thousands, fallen by severe weather.

They might be trapped within an enclosure. With only oxygen as the major challenge does not weigh on their bodies.

SUSPENSION ON THE PROGRESS OF BUILDING

Our supervising authority, however, placed little or zero premium on the on-site supervision of a going project on the ground.

If at all they appear on the work site, it is to intimidate the workforce so that the owner of the building can part with some cash for them to look the other way.

PANEL OF ENQUIRY: DEAD ON ARRIVAL

In the 6-member panel, 5 of them should at least have been competent professionals in building and construction. Not 1 Structural engineer and 5 lawyers to ascertain the causes of a building's structural collapse.

In a functional sense, this should be a structural engineer's investigation. The lawyer is just to provide legal premises for litigation.