With Rulers This Greedy,Nigeria Doesn't Have to Have Enemies!

What can one say? Another year has rolled by for Nigeria and the pastors and priests of all religious sects in Nigeria are still praying God to touch the hearts of rulers of Nigeria.
If the known men and women of God would but speak with one voice against the lies and deception and corruption and the greed seen in this day's politicians, they would at least become uncomfortable.
How can we live in an age when we have such men of God as Adeboye, Olukoya, Kumuyi etc and this gross mis-rule is going on?
Bakare is a lone voice. Oyedepo is more engaged in building an empire that one wonders if he wouldn't be praying that Jesus shouldn't come again. Young Okotie wanted to wield a sword like Peter did for Christ, and it's looking like he got himself wounded!
Hark! Can't they learn of Desmond Tutu!
Instead, Adeboye is telling us to pay taxes that he knows is being embezzled. I suppose he is mimicking Jesus who said to give Ceasar what was his. Valiant Akunyili has been turned to 'chukwumerije'. She should have just retired and gone back to her profession. I suppose her daughter bringing home an American man is a big deal! That points to where their hearts ly.
The church is serving her members the opium of escapism by telling them that no matter how bad the rulers get, their situation would not be adversely affected. And so they console themselves, sleeping in the light, while the nation lies in darkness. 
How without brains these rulers are! The Niger Delta agitation has been silenced yet again, for now, until the next generation of teenagers grow up and begin to ask for their rights! Will nothing good ever happen here?
They make believe they are being diplomats, optimists or nationals, but all they are doing is avoiding telling the truth and taking the needed steps to correcting wrongs. Priests and politicians have all turned liars. They don't want to rock the boat, yet the boat is not getting anywhere!

Babatunde Raji Fashola, can You Honestly Say....

These days one should be careful about easily giving praises to men. For more often than not, we've had to eat our words! Particularly, when a man begins to receive accolades from all sorts of people, especially in Nigeria where mob psychology seem to have taken hold, a lot of people say things just because others are saying so. They are so mentally lazy as to reason out things themselves. Only God is good in totality. No man should be trusted hands down!
Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, the rave of the moment governor of Lagos State of Nigeria was on TV some days back. He was appreciating and commending individuals and firms for now voluntarily paying their taxes. A good civic development no doubt. But Mr Fashola should not be too quick to feel good about himself. Can he honestly say that he is not aware that the Personal Allowances, Children Allowances and Dependent relatives relief are not reflective of today's prices. While government over the years have made sure to upgrade the tax rate to favour the state, the components of the non-taxable income have remained as it was over 30 years ago :
1. Personal Allowance of 20% of income + N5000
2. Children Allowance of N2500 per child, maximum of 4 children
3. Dependent Relatives relief of N2000 per dependant relative, maximum of 2 dependants.
Now how could a sensitive government expect me to spend N2500 on each of my children per year. What can that amount cover of all expenses associated with raising children these days? Is it school fees which even Fashola's model nursery and primary school requires up to N40,000 per term ( not to talk of the private schools which ask of me up to N130,000 per term for a toddler in kindergarten class). Or is it going to be sufficient for health care needs of a child? Government, again of course having no reliable service of health care. Why would government have me keep less of my money when they give me no service in lieu?
Then the government expects me to spend N2000 per year on each of my aged parents - and you know, they usually are not our only dependants. Government has no program even for its retiring and retired staff, they often die while waiting hopelessly to be paid their retirement dues. So, how would they know one needs to provide for one's aged parents! And Fashola tells me he is a lawyer, that his regime has a human face. He is just like all the rest of them. His government officials are misappropriating money all around him e.g via the grass-root fund allocation, and he pretends he does not know.
Well, Fashola, it does not matter what the mouths of praise-singers say you are; if you are not, you are not!
Not that we advocate non-payment of tax, but how can members of your state assembly, for instance, get away with paying taxes less than N20,000 p.a while from some like us our employers extort over N35,000 per month in the name of tax. No one knows whether actually these monies really are sent to the government as deducted.
Bottom line is this , Mr Fashola, if I earn N5,000,000 in a year of diligent and honest sweating you'd be nuts to ask me to spend only N1,005,000 on myself, N10,000 on my 4 children; N4,000 on my aged parents and none on my wife, just so that you would have about N4,000,000 of it available to your cohorts to be taxed.
Government would seem to me to be wanting to reap where it has not sown.
The matter I have spoken of above is not only in Lagos State, it is nationwide since we all use the same tax law. Let those who make laws review this aspect of the tax law or do they want us to carry placards before they realize it is archaic. Still, why would they show concern - they do not really pay tax, and even the money realized into government coffers anyhow gets embezzled, anyway you look at it.

Central Bank of Nigeria, Give Us Our Money Back.

Since Mid-2007 the Central Bank of Nigeria together with the Securities and Exchange Commission ganged-up to forcibly close down a number of Fund Managing firms they had personal vendetta against. Appeal after appeal followed but the Government agencies always bullied and beat down the under-dog firms.
This July makes it exactly two years since the Central Bank Confiscated the investors' monies with these 'renegade' branded firms. However, no attempt has been made by the apex financial institution in Nigeria to return the money to the owners to this day. Sources even have it that the top officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission have greedily converted these 'un-tagged' monies to their personal use.
How so like them!! Who would be the wiser? Officials daily steal government monies allocated for projects, and no one asks questions here. Who then would ask them about our monies, seeing they have already branded the Fund managers as ' wonder-banks'. Even the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is dead. Or was it ever really alive?!
But as God lives, those monies will be a curse unto them and all their own to a thousand generation unless they pay the monies back to every subscriber of the fund managing firms.

How Our world is Changing

Happenings in our days are taking new turning. People are being replaced. People leaving the world. People passing away.
It's fast becoming another world, with a different set of people coming up. The people who defined the world of an era are fast dieing out and soon it would seem that one does not belong to the time anymore. And this is because all the people by whom we have identified and described our world have all gone!
It's another world with a different story, with it's own troubles and struggles to face.
Another time is setting in. Oh! how our world is changing.
What a life, life we have seen. Pain unrevealed feeling like water slipping through our fingers. Oh! my life. Oh! my life!

Is Michael really Dead?

How can it be? Has Michael been that sick? But he recently went about planning a show in the UK for 13th July. Isn't that queer? Most people would avoid fixing a show on the 13th, but not Michael. I read that a certain doctor resigned from his practice to give Michael full time care eleven days to 25th June. Michael was really ill then. It could not have just started. The ailment. Had he known he was going to die? If Michael was so sick, how did he imagine he could do the planned show? Typically Michael, was he hoping to die on stage, like Jimi or Elvis. Or has it happened exactly the way he wanted it to? To sell out tickets for a 'good-bye' show with the whole world expectant and focusing attention on him, and then 'poof' he goes and dies.
It's like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing... as Shakespeare would say. Suddenly, Michael is gone and it's as if he never was. Matter-of-factly, I would say Michael stopped living when his music stopped occupying centre spot in the industry. And I think that happened a long while ago!
Well, Michael, angel, do rest in peace. Oh, may it please God to welcome you home.