OPINION Subsidy removal: Patriotism is reciprocal Robert Kennedy: The candidacy that shakes the USA

By Tope Oke

Let’s not even delve into the humongous amount that is readily made available to the 469 ‘distinguished’ and ‘honorable’ men and women of the ‘hallowed’ chambers. This year, they increased their budget from N169b to N228b simply because they are the ‘representatives’ of the people and therefore whether Nigeria or Nigerians are broke, they must continue to get their own money regardless. First line.

I used to be amongst the crowd that thronged to the scene of the Occupy Nigeria protests in 2012 to foolishly protest the removal of fuel subsidies by the government. While it is consoling that the folly was a pandemic then, it is even more regrettable that with the benefit of hindsight, we were all tools to catalyze the piercing propaganda to oust a ‘good’ man from office.

Eleven years later, it is quite an irony that the same people who engineered and sponsored the protests are now bent on removing it, this time even more ruthlessly. Without any consultation, conversation, or communication with the relevant stakeholders, Nigerians woke up to a new dispensation and another episode of fuel scarcity after prices were jacked up by a mammoth 200%!

While there is a consensus that subsidy has to go, the conundrum is the process. Announcing it unilaterally and suddenly is definitely not the way and is a reminder of the sustained contemptuous relationship between the government and the people.

Nigerians have made so many sacrifices for Nigeria and are always willing to but one cannot be infinitely patriotic to a country that continues to degrade the life expectancy of its people. It is sheer wickedness that those who are appealing to Nigerians to make sacrifices are not leading by example. There is no attempt whatsoever at scaling down on the over-bloated cost of governance. There is no attempt whatsoever to rein in the brazen oil theft which is put at over a million barrels per day! The futile attempt to fix at least one of the four refineries (which is the genesis of the subsidy regime) has only swallowed trillions of naira with nothing to show for it.

To buttress the irresponsibility of government, Stephen Oronsaye, a full-blooded Nigerian and former Head of Service was commissioned to produce a framework to make the civil service leaner. He recommended the abolition and merger of some government agencies and parastatals. A reduction in the number of statutory agencies from 263 to 161; 38 agencies were recommended for abolition, 52 should be merged, and 14 to revert to departments in existing ministries. He also admonished the government to discontinue the funding of professional bodies and councils, and religious pilgrimages amongst other wastages.

As clear as the White Paper was, NOTHING in it has been implemented. In the usual Nigerian way, one committee is followed by another committee to review the findings of the first committee, after which another committee is set up to study the reports and draft another White Paper. At the end of the day, rather than reduce or merge some agencies as recommended in the report, even more agencies were established! That is why there is a foreign affairs ministry and also a diaspora commission as if there are different breeds of Nigerians overseas and why there is the FRSC and the VIO as if they inspect different car models!

Let’s not even delve into the humongous amount that is readily made available to the 469 ‘distinguished’ and ‘honorable’ men and women of the ‘hallowed’ chambers. This year, they increased their budget from N169b to N228b simply because they are the ‘representatives’ of the people and therefore whether Nigeria or Nigerians are broke, they must continue to get their own money regardless. First line.

What is even more puzzling is that the government hasn’t put anything in place to ameliorate the sudden spike. The comical $800m loan it took from the World Bank will only leave a huge N8,000 each in the hands of 133m Nigerians it is meant for. Added to this, there’s no electricity guarantee, and no increase in wages yet some people will sit in their solar-powered homes defending the government that has failed to provide even the most basic of amenities to survive. This has always been the problem in Nigeria anyways. I better pass my neighbour.

So imagine sitting in darkness in your home, consoling yourself with a mound of eba and okro soup with fresh fish, unable to buy fuel for your generator after buying for your car, and then you tune in to the news after power is somehow restored, to hear that the budget for the President’s food for the year is N5b or one minister bought 10 fire trucks for N30b or a tag team between snakes and rats led to the disappearance of N500m cash How will the eba digest? What is the guarantee that the supposedly saved funds will be channeled appropriately to make life better? Will the sacrifice be worth it?

These are the issues. The trust deficit is so wide and can only be bridged if government lead by example. People will buy into whatever policy they churn out.

Patriotism is reciprocal.

By Isidoros Karderinis

Iwould like to emphatically emphasize that the overwhelming majority of politicians who appeared in the past, before the elections, against the dominant system, when they gained power not only did not change a single hair from it, but instead turned into components of the system. Let’s hope that in the case of Robert Kennedy, if he wins the nomination of the Democratic Party and is elected president of the United States, the same will not happen.

Robert Kennedy, son of the assassinated in 1968 Robert Francis Kennedy, US Attorney General, New York Senator and 1968 Democratic presidential candidate, and nephew of the also assassinated in 1963 US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, will be a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the November 2024 presidential election.

But who is Robert Kennedy? He is a lawyeractivist, specializing in environmental issues, 69 years old. Raised in the political environment of the Kennedys and embracing the values and political views that have been transmitted to him, he has said: “My father told me when I was a child: ‘People in power lie. And if we want to continue living in a Democracy we must understand that the people in power are lying. The people in power are abusing the power we gave them”.

It is at the same time a leading figure of the anti-vaccination movement. Robert Kennedy’s public attack on the “philanthropist” promoter of the “vaccines” Bill Gates had caused a global sensation with his post, describing how Bill Gates is using the “vaccine” to impose a global dictatorship (Europost, 9-4 -2020): “Vaccines for Bill Gates is a strategic philanthropy that fuels his many related business activities to gain himself a dictatorial control of global health politics, the spearhead of neo-imperialism”.

Robert Kennedy, before the start of vaccinations for COVID-19, sent a message to the global community in December 2020 sounding the alarm about mRNA vaccines by saying: “Avoid vaccinations at all costs, at all costs,” For the first time in the history of vaccinations the mRNA technology used interferes directly with the genetic material of the recipient-patient and consequently this intervention involves genetic modification, which is already internationally prohibited and considered criminal”, “Dear prospective recipients you should know that after receiving the vaccine you will no longer be able to manage the symptoms of the vaccine in an effective way. You will have to live with the effects as you will not be able to remove the toxins from your body. The genetic damage caused to you by these vaccines will be irreversible and irreparable,” “In my opinion these new technology vaccines represent a crime against humanity that has never happened before and on this scale ».

On February 11, 2021, “Instagram” closed Robert Kennedy’s account for “fake news! “. “We removed this account because it repeatedly posted false claims about the coronavirus and vaccines,” Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, said in a statement. At the time, Kennedy had about 800,000 followers on his account. It is obvious that the promoters of “vaccines” did not like the public positions of Robert Kennedy, because he himself was staunchly opposed to the so-called “vaccines! “.

Then in November 2021 he visited Italy and spoke in Milan in Piazza dell’Arco della Pace in a large demonstration, where he was received as a hero by many thousands of people, against the so-called Green Pass, the COVID-19 certificate, characterizing it as” instrument of oppression”. And speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Robert Kennedy said: “The Green Pass is not a public health innovation, it is an instrument of obedience and economic control, just like the pamphlets issued by the Third Reich”.

During his speech at the Milan demonstration he encouraged protesters to go out and fight and resist, telling them: “Reclaim your government, reclaim your lives, reclaim your freedom for your children, for the your country, for future generations,” and ended saying amid cheers and prolonged applause: “I will stand by, with you, and if necessary I will die for it. I’ll die in my boots”.

In August 2022, Robert Kennedy was in Berlin and spoke about modern Orwellianism and the bioterrorism agenda of multinational pharmaceutical companies. Among other things, he said: “Governments love pandemics the same way they love wars, because it gives them power, gives them control, and gives them the ability to enforce obedience on human beings. And today we have the distortion of new technologies that give governments the ability to impose controls on populations they never imagined”.

In November 2022, Robert Kennedy made shocking statements about the side effects of mass vaccinations, saying: “We’re seeing a 40% increase in unexplained deaths, in excess deaths, and we’re seeing them especially happening to young people! The number of people dying from mass vaccination is much higher than the number of people dying from COVID-19. Some doctors will say we don’t know if it’s from the vaccine. Then why does the CDC discourage coroners and public health authorities from performing autopsies on people whose deaths are suspicious?”.

As for the war unfolding in Ukraine, his position is clear. In his statements in May 2023, he said the following: “Let’s be honest! This is a US war against Russia for geopolitical reasons! These are geopolitical machinations that have been going on since 2014 with (US) intelligence agencies and neoconservatives. They are essentially sacrificing the “flower” of Ukrainian youth in a slaughterhouse of death and destruction for the geopolitical ambition of the neoconservatives behind the scenes. To depose, change the regime of Vladimir Putin and exhaust the Russian military so that it cannot fight anywhere else in the world”.

So, we see, based on Robert Kennedy’s entire journey, that we have before us an antiestablishment candidate, a candidate who is not afraid to clash with huge financial interests, a candidate who is not afraid to go against the dominant system, defying the risks.

In closing, I would like to emphatically emphasize that the overwhelming majority of politicians who appeared in the past, before the elections, against the dominant system, when they gained power not only did not change a single hair from it, but instead turned into components of the system. Let’s hope that in the case of Robert Kennedy, if he wins the nomination of the Democratic Party and is elected president of the United States, the same will not happen.

Isidoros Karderinis an Int’l Affairs Analyst.

From Abubakar Yunusa Abuja

KPMG says Nigeria may not be able to achieve 6 percent average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in four years.

In his inaugural speech on May 29, President Bola Tinubu set a target to increase the GDP growth rate of the country by 6 percent on average in the next 4 years through budgetary reforms aimed at stimulating the real sector of the economy.

KPMG, in a flashnote titled ‘Prospect for Attaining 6% Average Growth Rate in 4 years’, and released on Friday, said the target “might be difficult to attain” within the timeframe set by the president.

“For example, the consensus analysts is a GDP growth in 2023 of between 2.7-3.2%. Thus, if we assume a GDP growth of 3% in the first year, the economy will then have to grow by an average of 7% for the subsequent 3 years and moving growth from a forecasted 3% in 2023 to at least 7% in 2024 and afterwards seems overly ambitious,” the firm said.

KPMG said attaining a 6 percent real GDP growth on average from 2023 to 2026 means growing the value of real GDP from N74.6 trillion in 2022 to N92.5tn by 2026, representing an increase of N17 trillion in 4 years.

The professional services firm explained that within 12 years (2010 and 2022), real GDP grew by about N17 trillion which will have to be replicated in just 4 years and within a much more challenging macroenvironment that cuts across the fiscal, monetary, external, and real sectors.

KPMG, however, said that while the 6 percent target is unlikely to be achieved, the best possible GDP growth rate to be achieved within the next 4 years would be between 4 to 4.5 percent.

“In conclusion, while we expect stronger year on year growth over the next few years, we are of the opinion that there is very limited space to attain a 6% average real growth rate in 4 years or an increase in real GDP by N17trillion,” KPMG in Nigeria said.

“We are of the opinion that an average GDP growth rate of between 4-4.5% at the best is more feasible in the next 4 years.

“Even this will require the country to get its policies right and keep consistent faith with macroeconomic reforms.”