Nigeria: Oil Rich, Energy Poor

 By Jerry Uwah

A CNN report last week derisively tagged Nigeria as a country that is oil rich but energy poor. The global television news network was referring to Nigeria’s abysmal electric power supply situation. It lamented that even the oil wealth might be hampered by a recent decision of the leading world powers which rose from a gathering on climate change in Glasgow, Scotland in the United Kingdom of Great Britain with a firm resolve to drastically curtail investment in fossil fuel exploration and exploitation in a desperate bid to halt the millions of tons of carbon dioxide spewed into the air from the burning of fossil fuel.

Nigeria has a notoriety for abysmal electricity supply in the whole world. The World Bank recently celebrated Nigeria’s deplorable electricity supply situation by declaring it the country with the highest number of people without access to electricity.

Nigeria: Population Boom In Economic Doom

By Jerry Uwah

Nigeria is sitting on a ticking population time-bomb. President Muhammadu Buhari passively acknowledged the danger ahead in his incoherent and inchoate broadcast on Democracy Day when he listed “galloping population growth rate” as one of the reasons why government could not provide jobs for Nigeria’s army of restless youth now being recruited into armed robberies, kidnappings, banditries and bare-faced terrorism. 

Ironically, the president was curiously silent on how to tackle the dangerous population growth that is now partially responsible for the breakdown of law and order in the land. The population time-bomb has started exploding. It is partially responsible for the obdurate security crisis that has placed Nigeria on civil war footing. 

Nigeria probably has the highest number of children of school age out of classrooms because of the population boom in economic doom that makes it impossible for government to provide enough classrooms for the millions of children qualifying for seats in primary and secondary schools. 

Nigeria’s Invincible Gunmen

 

By Jerry Uwah

Nigeria’s security crisis has taken a precarious nose-dive. Inveterate gangsters derisively tagged gunmen by the Nigerian media have practically turned the country into one huge killing field. 

Last Tuesday the gunmen killed 21 innocent people in different parts of the country. The previous day they killed 18 in one community in Anambra state. The situation in Rivers state is so deplorable that the governor had to declare a curfew. 

The strange development in the escapades of the gunmen is that they are now bold enough to take on those paid and armed to protect the society. In the last two weeks, dozens of policemen have been mowed down by the gunmen who take on police stations as cheap targets. 

Nigeria: Budgeting For Abject Poverty

 By Jerry Uwah 

Nigeria’s unemployment and poverty problem has assumed catastrophic proportions. In a country with a workforce of less than 100 million people, more than 22 million are jobless. In the two years since Nigeria replaced India as the world’s headquarters of abject poverty, 15 million more have been pushed below poverty line. In fact, Nigeria manufactures six extreme poor people every minute. 

           Senate President Lawan, President Buhari, 

                            House Speaker Gbajabiamila

The result is frustration and hopelessness. The story of Solomon Okon, a porter with Havana Hospital in Lagos, who lost his job during a rationalisation exercise is a sad reminder of a nation that has lost all sense of care and protection for its citizens. 

P&ID, Christopher Butcher’s Long, Cruel Knife

By Jerry Uwah

Justice Christopher Butcher is a merciless and ruthless butcher. The British judge, who awarded a landmark sum of $9.6 billion as damages to an obscure Irish firm known as Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), is more ruthless than the butchers in Lagos abattoir.

*President Buhari 

The racist judgment Butcher handed down on Nigeria on August 16, 2019 in favour of his kinsmen would lead many of the 154 million Nigerians already living below poverty line to the slaughter slab. It would push millions more below poverty line and start them on the road to the slaughter slab.