"I have now said my last prayer and pressed send. A lot of my friends have done so too. As I sit here like a duck waiting for their last attack which will certainly be life ammunition, I steel my heart with final conviction and remember “if nigeria doesn’t change, it won’t be for my lack of effort”. The police have surrounded us and one looks at me begging us to drive off. We have been ordered to shoot if u do no leave he whispers" - OccupyNigeria Abuja protester
"Tell the world, that's alll we ask. If we die here today, tell the world, the police did it" -@ESSDonli, OccupyNigeria protester......last tweet #Occupy Nigeria
" They(Police) are trailing us to AIT. I expect them to shoot us soon.".Azeenarh Mohammed
"Azeenarh Mohammed, has been injured by men of the Nigerian Police Force. Social Network Blogger Abdul Mahmud arrested by Police!!!!! Pls share!!!!!! #OccupyNigeria #Abuja #FuelSubsidy If you are on twitter, Azeenarh's handle is @Xeenarh #OccupyNigeria "
"The UN has dissociated itself from Jeffrey Sachs's comments suggesting the UN was supportive of the #fuelsubsidy removal" #OccupyNigeria
" House of Rep members claim they heard about the subsidy removal in the pages of the newspaper. They claim they were not consulted before the action was taken by GEJ, Okonjo Iwealla and co " #occupy Nigeria
Aminu Muhammad Ofs wrote:
"A filling station (Ammasco International Ltd, No 51 Kofar Mazugal Road, Kano) yesterday sold petrol for 65 naira and the filling station was sealed and the workers and managers in a commandos style, whisked away by same people who cannot fight Boko Haram. The owner claimed he was selling his old stocks and to the government, that is a crime worse than boko haram. So the policy is that we must suffer by force #FuelSubsidy #OccupyNigeria"
"In Abuja, people are going to work. I'm going to work. Let's not exaggerate, many will be going to work" - Fianance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on BBC. Hmmn...don't worry,by the time you return from work, we would have 'occupied' your bedroom.#OccupyNigeria #EconomicHitMan
“It was never to my knowledge that the president gave such a date (April 2012). There is no particular time one could say was best suited for the withdrawal (subsidy). It is the prerogative of the president. The important thing is that we cannot carry on the way we did in the past. It would be plunging our future into crisis.” - Minister for Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
"The next time any church is bombed, we'll set this country ablaze. We are no longer going to take it. Do they think they can survive it if I set you (Christians) loose against these people? Enough is enough." - Bishop David Oyedepo via Adelakun Adunni Abimbola.
"Breaking News! NaijaCyberHacktivists Hack Cabal Member Aliko Dangote company website for violating workers' right to protest. Dangote had threaten to sack any of his workers who may join #OccupyNigeria protest. http://www.dangote-sugar.com/"
At 01:55am OccupyNigeria protesters were attacked by policemen in mufti at the Eagle Square, Abuja. They attacked peaceful protesters with sticks, cudgels and irons metals. I witnessed it. There are the injured here. I have been here for the third night to give legal protection to the #OccupyAbuja activists and it is clear the state is becoming repressive" -Abdul Mahmud
" Ours is a repressive state. Live rounds were opened this morning by armed policemen and Aso Rock security officers led by the Chief Security Officer(clearly with Bayelsa accent) and DSP Adejumoh on #OccupyAbuja activists."
More to come on this page
More important information:
When President Olusegun Obasanjo was in power, we spent 300 billion per year on the fuel subsidy. Under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, it shot up to 1.3 trillion naira in the last one year alone. Can someone please explain to me how it got so high in 4 years and what exactly they were subsidizing with the extra one trillion naira?
When the Obasanjo government left power in 2007, the country was no longer in debt and the 30 billion dollar foreign debt that Obasanjo met when he came to power in 1999 was fully paid off. Today, under the administration of Jonathan, our country is back in debt to the tune of 41 billion dollars (both foreign and domestic) and we are still borrowing. Can someone please tell me what the loans were used for and whether we will ever be able to pay them off?
When the Obasanjo administration left power in 2007, our foreign reserves were 80 billion dollars, even though when he came into office in 1999 we only had 1.5 billion dollars. Today our foreign reserves have dropped from 80 billion dollars in 2007 to 33 billion dollars. Can someone please tell me where all the money went?
When the Obasanjo administration left power in 2007, 23 billion dollars was left in the Excess Crude Account after he built it up from nothing in 1999. Today we do not have one dollar left in that
account because the money has been squandered and the account scrapped. Can someone explain to me who spent that money and precisely what it was spent on?
By the time the Obasanjo administration left power in 2007, not one bomb had gone off in Abuja throughout his 8 years in office and neither did we shy away from confronting the evil and dealing a hard blow to terrorists wherever and whenever it was necessary to do so. Today, bombs go off at will all over the north, the President hides in the Villa and churches are targeted!.
If you have a blog, PLEASE spread the word.
What You can do (Everyone has a part to play)
1. Do a similar post of your own on your blog using the title "GEJ Presidential Palace Subsidy Must End: Nigerian Bloggers' Protest"
2. Add the pic/tabled diagram in this post
3. Publish your post today or latest by tomorrow
4. Please allow for seven days on your blog or place in a prime position on your blog for seven days.
5. You can still play your part as a non-blogger: share on facebook, twitter and other relevant social media.
6. Journalists, use your media space.
Directives from blogsville protest
7 comments:
What a country!!
Those giving economic arguments for or against fuel subsidy withdrawal miss the point totally. It is not about economics. It is about TRUST!
The spending pattern&priorities of GEJ since 2010 is evidence of who he cares for and what.
Under... his watch, we increased our debt stock by about $20bn, ran down excess crude from $6bn to zero, FX reserves from $45bn to $ 30bn...
... ...
Under GEJ, Dollar exchange rate moved from>N140 to N160 today. Debt stock has doubled to higher than 2005 levels. Interest rates over 20%!
And all this is while nearly 10 trillion Naira has been spent on government officials, trips abroad&perquisites/ subsidies to politicians!
Power supply improvement? Minimal. Jobs created? Zero. Transport Infrastructure? Zero. Agricultural output? Minimal. Private jets? Yes, lots
Stationery, refreshment&snacks in the Presidency will consume about N2bn, with N1.6bn spent by GEJ&his VP in 2012. Does that make sense?
Miscellaneous spending by the Villa alone totals N1.7bn for food, honorarium&something called"welfare packages"- another security vote!
In the 2012 budget, NASS intends to spend N150bn on itself, the same amount as in 2011 to pay those huge allowances. It has NOT been reduced
So we will spend about N320m for every NASS member in 2012, as we did in 2011. Where is the shared sacrifice? Where is accountability?
We must resist the N8,000 tax being imposed on every man, woman&child to fund the fuel subsidy&insist that FG cuts its own wastefulness!
The issue with GEJ is simply that of trust. He has wasted huge financial resources&put us in debt in the last 20 months. We must be wary!
We cannot trust with more money as he will only waste more of it. That is the issue&he can only earn that trust through small steps."
- Nasir El Rufai,
I'm soo pained dat I can't join this protest cos I want to soo badly join bt network sucks here & I can only do some blogrounds & comment @midnight. Does any1 know hw to blog with a bb?
As for our government, mshew. No accountability and like I commented on Ginger & Da Injurer's blogs: Soooo many billions already gone down d drain for several power projects and we got nothing to show for it, not even 1 week uninterrupted power supply and all of a sudden, this subsidy removal shuld 'save' Nigeria from ruin cos of "developmental projects" dat we dnt knw sh*t about? & d citizens are supposed to suffer cos our freaking stupido govt is incompetent? & our dear president expects us to trust his vague promises?! R des pple kidding?!
Hi Mena,
Below is an article by Nile Bowie I stumbled upon that I find very insightful. Please kindly share with the readers of your blog if it is ok with you:
On a recent trip to West Africa, the newly appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde ordered the governments of Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and Chad to relinquish vital fuel subsidies. Much to the dismay of the population of these nations, the prices of fuel and transport have near tripled over night without notice, causing widespread violence on the streets of the Nigerian capital of Abuja and its economic center, Lagos. Much like the IMF induced riots in Indonesia during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, public discontent in Nigeria is channelled towards an incompetent and self-serving domestic elite, compliant to the interests of fraudulent foreign institutions.
Although Nigeria holds the most proven oil reserves in Africa behind Libya, it’s people are now expected to pay a fee closer to what the average American pays for the cost of fuel, an exorbitant sum in contrast to its regional neighbours. Alternatively, other oil producing nations such as Venezuela, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia offer their populations fuel for as little as $0.12 USD per gallon. While Lagos has one of Africa’s highest concentration of billionaires, the vast majority of the population struggle daily on less than $2.00 USD. Amid a staggering 47% youth unemployment rate and thousands of annual deaths related to preventable diseases, the IMF has pulled the rug out from under a nation where safe drinking water is a luxury to around 80% of it’s populace.
Although Nigeria produces 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day intended for export use, the country struggles with generating sufficient electrical power and maintaining its infrastructure. Ironically enough, less than 6% of bank depositors own 88% of all bank deposits in Nigeria. Goldman Sachs employees line its domestic government, in addition to the former Vice President of the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is widely considered by many to be the de facto Prime Minister. Even after decades of producing lucrative oil exports, Nigeria has failed to maintain it’s own refineries, forcing it to illogically purchase oil imports from other nations. Society at large has not benefited from Nigeria’s natural riches, so it comes as no surprise that a severe level of distrust is held towards the government, who claims the fuel subsidy needs to be lifted in order to divert funds towards improving the quality of life within the country.
To be continued....
Continued....
Like so many other nations, Nigerian people have suffered from a systematically reduced living standard after being subjected to the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP). Before a loan can be taken from the World Bank or IMF, a country must first follow strict economic policies, which include currency devaluation, lifting of trade tariffs, the removal of subsidies and detrimental budget cuts to critical public sector health and education services.
SAPs encourage borrower countries to focus on the production and export of domestic commodities and resources to increase foreign exchange, which can often be subject to dramatic fluctuations in value. Without the protection of price controls and an authentic currency rate, extreme inflation and poverty subsist to the point of civil unrest, as seen in a wide array of countries around the world (usually in former colonial protectorates). The people of Nigeria have been one of the world’s most vocal against IMF-induced austerity measures, student protests have been met with heavy handed repression since 1986 and several times since then, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. As a testament to the success of the loan, the average laborer in Nigeria earned 35% more in the 1970’s than he would of in 2012.
Working through the direct representation of Western Financial Institutions and the IMF in Nigeria’s Government, a new IMF conditionality calls for the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Olusegun Aganga, the former Nigerian Minister of Finance commented on how the SWF was hastily pushed through and enacted prior to the countries national elections. If huge savings are amassed from oil exports and austerity measures, one cannot realistically expect that these funds will be invested towards infrastructure development based on the current track record of the Nigerian Government. Further more, it is increasingly more likely that any proceeds from a SWF would be beneficial to Western institutions and markets, which initially demanded its creation. Nigerian philanthropist Bukar Usman prophetically writes “I have genuine fears that the SWF would serve us no better than other foreign-recommended "remedies" which we had implemented to our own detriment in the past or are being pushed to implement today.”
The abrupt simultaneous removal of fuel subsidies in several West African nations is a clear indication of who is really in charge of things in post-colonial Africa. The timing of its cushion-less implementation could not be any worse, Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency after forty people were killed in a church bombing on Christmas day, an act allegedly committed by the Islamist separatist group, Boko Haram. The group advocates dividing the predominately Muslim northern states from the Christian southern states, a similar predicament to the recent division of Sudan.
To be continued...
continued.....
As the United States African Command (AFRICOM) begins to gain a foothold into the continent with its troops officially present in Eritrea and Uganda in an effort to maintain security and remove other theocratic religious groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army, the sectarian violence in Nigeria provides a convenient pretext for military intervention in the continuing resource war. For further insight into this theory, it is interesting to note that United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania conducted a series of African war game scenarios in preparation for the Pentagon’s expansion of AFRICOM under the Obama Administration.
In the presence of US State Department Officials, employees from The Rand Corporation and Israeli military personnel, a military exercise was undertaken which tested how AFRICOM would respond to a disintegrating Nigeria on the verge of collapse amidst civil war. The scenario envisioned rebel factions vying for control of the Niger Delta oil fields (the source of one of America’s top oil imports), which would potentially be secured by some 20,000 U.S. troops if a US-friendly coup failed to take place At a press conference at the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, AFRICOM Commander, General William Ward then went on to brazenly state the priority issue of America’s growing dependence on African oil would be furthered by AFRICOM operating under the principle theatre-goal of “combating terrorism”.
At an AFRICOM Conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller openly declared the guiding principle of AFRICOM was to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”, before citing China’s increasing presence in the region as challenging to American interests. After the unwarranted snatch-and-grab regime change conducted in Libya, nurturing economic destabilization, civil unrest and sectarian conflict in Nigeria is an ultimately tangible effort to secure Africa’s second largest oil reserves. During the pillage of Libya, its SFW accounts worth over 1.2 billion USD were frozen and essentially absorbed by Franco-Anglo-American powers; it would realistic to assume that much the same would occur if Nigeria failed to comply with Western interests. While agents of foreign capital have already infiltrated its government, there is little doubt that Nigeria will become a new front in the War on Terror.
Nile Bowie is a freelance writer and photojournalist; he's regularly contributed to Tony Cartalucci's Land Destroyer Report and Alex Jones' Infowars.
Global Research Articles by Nile Bowie
NIGERIANS, WE MUST WAKE UP. OUR FUTURE AND THAT OF GENERATIONS UNBORN ARE AT STAKE. WE DON'T WANT TO WAKE UP ONE MORNING AND FIND THAT OUR LAND HAS BE PREOCCUPIED BY FOREIGNERS. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE MY PEOPLE?
Head the Cabal Wins; Tail the Cabal Wins! And the Government looks the other Way! Death to the Cabal & the Government!
Since the entire subsidy saga is based on the importation of refined petroleum products, the ultimate winner is the Cabal the government fingers as robbing the public coffers. Since the government still embarks on buying imported petrol (from the Cabal) rather than refining the product at home, the cost of importing the product will still have to be paid (to the Cabal). And all the related expenditures will still be made (to the Cabal). This means that nothing has changed as far as expenditure on the alleged subsidies is concerned. The corruption in the sector and all the players will continue to flourish. The difference is that rather than pay the Cabal from central public funds, the poor people of Nigeria are being forced to pay the Cabal. We are being forced to subsidise corruption.
So essentially, the common man/woman will have to pay N141 for a litre of petrol to subsidise the Cabal that was created by the government through its inefficiency! Death to the Cabal & the Government
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