This god must be crazy

Guru Maharaj Ji, as jaw breaking as the name sound has become a household name over the years since he claimed to be the master of the Universe. However, it is quite unfortunate that the lord of the Universe was recently chased out of his residence because he owed four years rent. Mr. Guru was owing a total of N800, 000 from September 2000 to September 2004 at the rate of N200, 000 per annum.

The police on Tuesday besiege the house of the master of Universe at number 10, Awolowo avenue, Bodija, estate, Ibadan and evicted every living and non living thing in the compound including the almighty Guru Maharaj Ji.

The property – a four bedroom duplex apartment, which actually belongs to late prof. Olawale  Awosika was said to have been occupied by Guru for many years. Evicting the almighty Maharaj Ji was not a very easy task, the counsel for the landlord Mr. Yemi Ajayi explained the challenge of his combat with the gods in the land of the spirit. “The owner of the property at 10, Awolowo way, Bodija, Ibadan with his family took action against the tenant to eject him; we got a court judgement executed against him to evacuate the premises. the religious group suddenly moved in again and his lawyer filed some papers in court that took us five years but recently we got a judgement in court that the eviction be carried out by this it means that the claimants are in lawful possession of the property, anybody who breaks in will be doing that at in contempt of the court”

Actually, the plaintiffs prayed for order directing the defendants to put back the house in a habitable condition by repainting and removing all the symbols, signs and insignia on the walls of the property. But my many questions are; how on earth was the master of the Universe owing such an embarrassing amount? Probably Nigerian don wise up and so there are no longer customers to be duped, but another question will be who on earth is ready to live in a house which once accommodates the spirit, i guess the answer is simple- it must be another spiritual man. I think this self-proclaimed god of the universe must really be crazy or what do you think?

ELECTION AFTER RESULT

Interestingly, this just concluded local government poll reminded me of the nature of the Nigerian election, coincidentally it was the same old story, an unserious fellow had earlier presented the situation in a satirical joke some few weeks back, the joke according to him goes thus;

Four men from America, Japan, Germany and Nigeria were arguing about the speed with which election results get released in their respective countries. The man from Japan started, “ in my country, we have put in place such technology that makes it possible for the masses to know the result of our election within forty-eight hours of voting” while he was confidently making his submission, the remaining three young could not help but laugh. Curiously, he demanded to know what unanimously amused them but the German man answered, “ my friend, this is 21^st century  if you have to still wait for 48 hours, to get election result then you are not of this generation, in my country, the result get released just within twenty four hours of the poll” the American man could no longer tolerate these outdated methods that are being glorified as modern technology, so he screamed, can I have your attention for a moment!,  suddenly there was silence, they all wanted to hear what he has to say,  so he began “with all due respect friends, I  have not heard real technology all along, in my country, while the vote is on, there is a computerised system that makes it possible for the people to monitor the result simultaneously via television, that my friends is what I call technology in action.

They all looked surprised save for the Nigerian man who motioned with his hand signifying that he has something to say and from all indication, it is something different from what they have all said but in amazement of the American technology, the Japanese and the German cannot help but chorused “what again do you have to say, the American has spoken, case closed” no, capital no, that is a lie from the pit of hell” he replied. For your information, he continued, in Nigeria, we don’t wait till the election before we get the result, we determine the result before election, we only vote to confirm our result and trust me, our technology has never failed. They all asked, how possible, good, thank you very much, the mathematics is simple, we determine if our answer is going to be 5.  Then we now consider our variables whether or not they are compatible with the result is nobody’s business, in fact the available variables could be 1 and 1 but remember that even if you add that 1+1 it must give you our preconceived 5, this technology device is called ‘DO OR DIE’.

If you don’t believe this sincere Nigerian boy, at least you heard about the recent INEC disclosure that 1, 338 direct data capture machine (DDCM) for the concluded election were stolen from the centre store in its Lagos office.  According to INEC, the figure was part of the total 9,450 DCMs allocated to Lagos state for the voters registration. Apart from the machines, the commission also recorded that computer hard disks were stolen along with about 664 computer batteries.

Well, some say the enemy has done this but i say those who have the capacity to determine election result before it is finally out must have done this. No wonder the result of the Local government poll in Badagry is still generating a lot of controversy, while some reports are saying that ACN has won all the seats in Lagos state, another conflicting report is saying that ACN lost Badagry and Lagos Island. Whatever is the true report, i am concern about why the state is hiding the result from the masses and the leaving the community into a prospective chaos.

You know what i think, i think some people have seen the result before the election and the election seems to be contradicting the envisaged result but you know the Nigerian system, they will stop at nothing until this 1+1=5.

Jonathan and the titanic task of development



 Breaking news; while the president and other members of his cabinet are still debating the fuel subsidy brouhaha and the hullabaloo of the possible consequences of the subsidy remains in the lips of every scary Nigerians, a breaking news flashed in making the task of our honourable president becoming more herculean. What news? I envisage you will probably be asking abi? Thank you; it is the news of the Nigeria’s performance in the latest result of the global Human Development Index report.

According to the Human development index report released by the United Nations, Nigeria is in the 156^th position out 187 countries that were surveyed. This shows a rather poor condition of development in Nigeria even after fifty-one years of nationhood. This is in the absence of the proposed removal of subsidies on petroleum products, by the time the subsidies finally manifest, the result is better imagined than experienced.

For the records, the human development index (HDI) was developed twenty-one years ago in 1990 by one Mr. Mahbub ul Haq- a Pakistani economist. It was the generally acceptable means of assessing the well-being of nations across the globe. This assessment is based on three criteria; life expectancy which is measured based on longevity of life, literacy level which is measured based on statistics of enrolment in schools and Gross domestic Income (GDI) which is measured based on the purchasing power after the price differences among countries have been removed.

For those of us that we are very conversant with the HDI statistics over the years, we will understand that the result for this year is not so different from previous years since 1990. Last year, Nigeria was 142^nd out of 169 surveyed countries making it one of the least developed nation of the world.

Perhaps, a peep through the three categories of the development index can help us to understand how pathetic our situation has become. According to the latest report, on life expectancy, an average Nigerian child is expected to live up to 51.9 years, although this is better than the initial 48 years in 2009 but it is quite disheartening compared to other African countries like Libya and Gabon where the life expectancy 74 years and 62.5 years respectively. In respect to GNI, while countries like Gabon, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea boasts of $12,249, $13,049 and $17,608 per capita income respectively, Nigeria is happily wallowing in the valley of $2,069 per capita income, what a pity! In education, according to a United Nations report, Nigeria and Tanzania currently has the lowest rate of transition from primary to lower secondary school in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, it is estimated that over 11 million Nigerian children of school age are out of school.

To add insult to the injury, away from the Human development index report, over 70 per cent of the Nigerian population still live below the poverty line due to gross joblessness arising from poor infrastructure and high level of insecurity that has discouraged the majority of foreign investors from the Nigerian soil.

To address these development deficits, there is need for the government to look into the stalled privatisation programme as major job creation policy. It is an incontrovertible truth that only a private-sector driven economy can guarantee a sustainable job creation and by extension, a swift national development.

The gigantic imbalance between the recurrent and the capital allocation in the budget should also be addressed. Nigeria should never in her wildest dream expect development with just 30 per cent of its national budget for the capital projects that will not even meet 40 per cent implementation while 70 per cent goes for recurrent expenditure.

More importantly is the need to take the achievements of Millennium development goals (MDGs) as priority at no later date than the 2015 deadline. The achievement of these MDGs is a singular womb containing all the ingredients that Nigeria need to become developed.

 Meanwhile, Nigeria should tackle the power problem among other infrastructural problem with renewed vigour and develop the agricultural sector of the economy in order to create more jobs, eradicate poverty and usher in a new wave of development.

In search of greener pasture

Going abroad or searching for ‘greener pasture’ as it is popularly called is not a new phenomenon but I think the first question to ask is how grey (sorry , I mean to say how green) is the supposed greener pasture. In all fairness of truth, there is nothing wrong with the desire to go abroad especially to study, it is the fundamental student right of anybody to desire it. In fact, if I am filled with sufficient pounded yam and egusi soup today, I can desire to study abroad tomorrow too. 

While the opportunities to study abroad are limitless the disillusion is also enormous. Although it seems the opportunities are drying up abroad and the economies of western countries are stagnating, studying abroad still undoubtedly expands the horizon of students and it could be culturally and intellectually enriching.

However, before you start expressing your fundamental student right of going to study abroad, there is need for physical, financial and psychological preparations among many things.

Physically, the student should be prepared to adapt to the physical environment, if you know what I mean; the food is always cold, bland and not fresh, the weather is always cold, dark and most times it rains. There is always the possibility of getting lost and being left alone with maps to direct you. How many average Nigerians can read a map, well, I can’t but if you can read a map good for you!

Psychologically, there is need to be at alert putting on the boy scout motto: BE PREPARED. Students should be vigilant and ready to act, there is inevitably going to be a cultural shock, a high level of circularisation or language barrier. There may also be issues of acceptable discrimination meaning that the system could allow legitimate discrimination against foreigners of certain nationalities. There are usually a set of rules that could permit certain organisations to legally discriminate. For instance, this could be in form of work restrictions, because it is strongly believed that immigration has became a social problem, which is putting a strain on the infrastructure of society and devaluing local jobs. This is common in job hunts where indigenes are given preference against foreigners, especially in Europe. This makes political sense and it is flawlessly defensive on a social level.

Above all, the journey should be made with finances put in place and secured. Finances available should be able to cover living and studying expenses during the period of stay, people over there have confirmed that it can be very frustrating to try to work your way through paying for your school fees.

So, now that you know that money doesn’t grow on trees abroad and that beyond having the funds to study abroad there are other preparations to make, what do you think about going out there for a greener pasture, well, for me I think, proper preparation will prevent poor performance!