Article published in The Nation Newspaper
07/07/2010
There are 85 days left to 1-10-2010. Who banned footballs in schools? The Jonathan Presidential Ban on International Football Competition seems to throw the baby out with the bathwater, punishing footballers and not saying ‘Do your homework before the external exams’. The problems needing solution are simply ‘management’ incompetence and ‘core’ underfunding in neglected grassroots sports and neglected athletes, home sports, competition and grooming in all sports. FIFA can punish Nigeria, but can it punish us more than NFF has? FIFA itself should eb responsible and nto support bad Football Federations. FIFA should insist on certain optimum standards of football activities to qualify for FIFA entry, eg 1 youth academy per 5m population, and not just ‘no politics’. Such a ban must resurrect neglected talent, training, equipment and data bases. The world is nurturing athletes for 2016, 2020 Olympics. Not Nigeria. also, urge a ‘Jonathan Presidential Ban on Generators’ in government office and home.
Let us learn from Congo’s 50th Anniversary. Painting streets for celebrations does not feed the masses. Have we really allocated N10b to ‘celebrate’ Nigeria@50? N10,000,000,000 is N75-100/Fellow Nigerian. If allocated a year ago, it could have built 100 or more 50th Anniversary Youth Inpiration Centres/libraries/sports centres at N100,000,000 each or 1000 or more at N10,000,000 ie one per LGA or one in each of the 16,400 wards for N500,000-750,000. Allocated now it is just for ‘chopchop’ and embezzelment. What a huge ‘Nigerian Paradise Lost’. So the money really was there for the Youth Inspiration Centres and libraries that government keeps promising but never built in 50 years.
The Ore-Benin and Lagos-Ibadan roads must be made motorable by 1-10-2010. No Nigerian should die in a pothole to mark Nigeria’s 50th Anniversary in government-approved death-traps demonstrating incompetence that no N10billion celebration ‘fireworks’ party will compensate for -judicial murder in ‘unsignposted’ killer potholes.
Roads do not need to kill an ‘Honourable NASS boxer’ before they are repaired, resurfaced or re-done. Government should fix the roads urgently by day and night contracts before 1-10-2010! There is still time to prevent 1-10-2010 murder by urgent nationwide work of FRSC and Works ministries.
The truly Distinguished Mr Femi Falana’s landmark law suit against the incompetence of the federal government in road maintenance on lagos-Ibadan and Ore Benin Road is wonderful. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway would have been four lanes if the old contractor had been allowed to finish his work.
Power is improving slowly but not to 24/7 by 1-10-2010. Just watch, tomorrow people will come to Nigeria to capture, bottle and export the sun that we are wasting but which God in his abundant mercy gave us, as He did so for oil and even wind, while we siddon look and complain of ‘No NEPA/PHCN’. The ‘solar exporters’ will then re-import it to sell as solar energy. Have we no shame if we have no brain to do ‘good to Fellow Nigerians’ with railways, pothole-free roads, ferry and bus services and a reduced police checkpoint corruption. When will Lagos-Ibadan be 1 hour and Lagos Abuja 4-6 hours by train. We cannot even maintain smooth level crossings. Worldwide, governments meet targets for nation building through improvements in daily activities of the masses. Why not in Nigeria where police can checkpoint kill for N20-N50 to mark our 50th Anniversary?
This solar matter is a serious matter of energy harnessing and deserves massive university intellectual and commercial investment, like the aid package to Agriculture. We need a N50b Solar Energy Fund. Government must go solar –witness the mega-havoc caused by the Mexican Gulf oil spill. It manifests here as the Niger Delta War. An incompetent society must use energy sources with fewer moving parts–solar. Solar is in UK with just 5% of the sun God gives us Nigerians.
President Jonathan should make the solar debate a major development agenda issue with tax breaks and reductions for 2010 new solar equipment. Solar is an investment bringing immediate power today with new batteries and sun-ray concentrators producing rays that heat metal pipes and water to boiling. Solar is no joke, toy or plaything in the laboratory. See it burn paper through a lens. It powers entire towns in countries with much less sun than Africa has. Because we are so powerless it should power us also. Why is there such a loud solar silence in Nigeria? Simple. Conspiracy. Solar makes you independent. PHNC cannot bill you billions for solar consumption. The petroleum companies benefit when Nigerians are daily plunged into darkness and are forced to use 500,000 generators, a tsunami of generators, consuming millions in fuel every minute nationwide at great joy and financial benefit to the petroleum industry. Police and PHNC, Water board and Customs are most corrupt pariahs on Nigerians. Any surprise?
Witness the 15 tankers burnt in Lagos at what cost–N500m. In an expressway accident hundreds could be burnt to death –a consequence of power incompetence in Nigeria. But is Nigeria bigger than NEPA/PHCN and the petroleum lobby? Can it save the citizens from greed and monopoly on power supply? Experts have suggested that a proper solar energy plan can supply both homes and offices directly off grid and even supply the grid directly. We cannot allow yet another generation of Nigerians to grow up in darkness. Nigeria must get serious with solar and ‘Break The Solar Silence’ and power Nigeria with God’s own sun. CountdowNigeria@50-85 asks ‘Who sees a solar Nigeria?’