Continued from last week
Even more remarkable was the return of Bill Gates who had departed from Lagos after attending the dinner hosted by Alhaji Aliko Dangote in Lagos to commemorate the wedding of his daughter Fatima to Jamil Abubakar, son of former Inspector General of Police, M.D. Abubakar on Friday March 23, 2018.
Gates did not retract even a single word or sentence from what he said at the Special Session of the National Economic Council heldon Thursday March 22, 2018 at the Presidential Villa.
For good measure, he added:
“Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth, with the fourth worst maternal mortality rate in the world, ahead of only Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, and Chad. One in three Nigerian children is chronically malnourished.”
The Nigerian government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan identifies “investing in our people” as one of three “strategic objectives.” But the “execution priorities” don’t fully reflect people’s needs, prioritizing physical capital over human capital.
Here you can see Nigeria’s per capita GDP growth from 2000 until today. If current education and health trends continue—if you spend the same amount in these areas and get the same results—per capita GDP flatlines, with economic growth just barely keeping up with population growth.
In 1978, Dr. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, who later became the Nigerian minister of health, helped establish primary health care as the global standard. Tragically, 40 years after Dr. Ransome-Kuti helped other countries set a course for the future, the Nigerian primary health care system is broken. The evidence for this can be found in the epidemic of chronic malnutrition, or stunting.”
I really think that of all the countries I have seen, it really hangs in the balance. If they can get health and education right, they can be an engine of growth, not just for themselves but for all of Africa.”
However, he hesitated somewhat when he came to the penultimate paragraph of his address:
These young people are entitled to not only dream, they deserve the opportunity to actualise their dream.
This was followed by the impromptu intervention of Professor Kingsley Moghalu, who declared:
“I am here in person. No “FIZZING” for me. My presence at this epochal event is by the grace of the Almighty in order to enable me to launch my presidential ambition as a contestant in the 2019 Presidential Election. My manifesto is “BIG” – (Build, Innovate and Grow).
I am fully in support of Bill Gates. Our programme of economic rebirth will decentralize the national grid and shift power generation towards renewable energy sources. We will undertake a fundamental reform of our healthcare and education systems.
The Nigerian Diaspora will play a central and institutionalised role in the building of our human capital.
Nigeria is now the poverty capital of the world. According to the World Poverty Clock, we overlook India in February 2018 as the country with the greatest number of people who live in extreme poverty.
India has a population six times the size of Nigeria’s.”
Regardless of the fact that Nigeria’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs (from 1992 to 1993) and Minister of Defence [Navy] (from 1961 to 1965) died on February 6, 2012, he turned up to declare his witness statement live on the genesis of corruption in Nigeria:
“I was shocked to the marrow to discover that the Nigerian government refurbished an old ship for £18,000,000 (eighteen million pounds). This was shortly before I left the Ministry of Defence, where I was the Minister for the Navy. The Minister of Defence, Alhaji Muhammad Ribadu (grandfather of the current First Lady, Hajia Aisha Buhari. He died in 1965) approved £6.5 million for the flagship which I purchased for the Nigerian Navy for £2.8million from the Netherlands, thereby saving the nation £3.7 million.
In addition to the ship, the then Netherlands Minister of Defence, Piet de Jong who was my friend also gifted two ships to Nigeria as his country’s contribution to the Nigerian Navy.
In essence, what I delivered was not only a befitting flagship for the Nigerian Navy for £2.8 million after a special discount of £3.7 million but the retired partners of KPMG who are still awaiting their gratuity and pension have issued an auditor’s report which confirms that the £2.8 million would be paid back over ten years, interest free.
Thereafter, kickbacks and corruption became the order of the day (and night!!). It was one of those ships that was used as a conduit pipe to siphon £18 million from the government treasury.”
When the inimitable and indefatigable Bishop Matthew Kukah, the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto took the floor, he caught us all off guard. We thought he was about to offer prayers. Instead, he proceeded to read his “Letter To President Muhammadu Buhari”:
“Mr. President, I have decided to speak to a cross section of Nigerians, beginning with you and going right down to the many nameless men and women who do not even qualify to be classified as the ordinary man in the street because they live on water and have no streets on which to walk.
I believe that this country is so split both vertically and horizontally today that all of us must honestly identify our many sins of omission and commission so that we can honestly seek a solution.
This is a time for us to genuinely face what looks to me like an impending calamity.
The gathering clouds are clear for us to see and even those who cannot see can hear the rumbling and rolling sound of thunder. We ignore them at our own risk. I therefore state as follows:
You know Sir, that you rode into town like a knight in shining armour, carrying the joys, pains, anxieties and fears of a people whose broken dreams had littered and turned the landscape into a kaleidoscopic scenery of desolation and despair.
In your campaigns, you had promised to restore a sense of national pride in us by slaying the dragon of corruption, banishing the retrogressive scourge of Boko Haram, bringing back our daughters from Chibok and making our country and citizens truly safe.
We waited in hope right to the end of the first year, but somehow, amidst some hazy weather, all we heard was the sound of screeching tyres with the plane carrying our hopes seemingly unable to take off.
It finally did but we had barely gained altitude when sickness struck and you spent the better part of a year seeking healing. The nation prayed for you and miraculously, you recovered. Evidently, you had been saved for a purpose. Our prayer is that this realization will help you understand that you have a date with history and divine judgment.
For now, before your eyes and in your hands, our country, our communities, our people are all in a state of stupor. We have never felt so alienated from one another. The bogeyman of religion, region and ethnicity, which we thought we had overcome by the sheer nature of your support base, have come back with a vengeance to haunt and threaten the very foundation of our existence.
Mr. President, you are too distant from your people. There is a sad feeling that you do not share in the pain and suffering of your people.
You must very quickly find a way of connecting with your people before the devil takes over the space. For taking on this challenge and connecting with Nigerians, happy Easter.”
Bashorun J.K. Randle
