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Showing posts from December, 2016

OYEGUN'S DOCTRINE: IF THEY PUSH YOU,PUSH THEM AND IF THEY SLAP YOU,SLAP THEM BACK

There is an Igbo proverb that says: "Onye nnaya duru ohi, na eji ukwu agbawa uzo",translated to mean that a son whom the father sends to go and steal, uses his legs to break down the door. He goes in full confidence, without a care trusting that if anybody challenges him, his father will be handy to extricate him. This is exactly what played out in Rivers State at the recent  second rerun of legislative elections. The first rerun ended in-conclusive because of alleged violence inspired by desperate politicians who insisted that they must win Rivers State.    Largely because of fear of violence or so as they claimed, INEC delayed the second rerun and perhaps was considering leaving it completely till 2019 until the Senate issued an ultimatum forcing them to announce a date for the second re-run. In the view of some political grandmasters of Rivers State, they would feel better and much more relevant, if Rivers State had no representatives in the National Assembly than ha
OPPOSITION PARTIES LEAD WEST AFRICA'S NEW POLITICAL EVOLUTION   It was the President of Sierraleone who said a few years ago that" if Nigeria sneezes, the rest of West Africa catches cold". That statement only confirmed what has long been known that it is Nigeria that is keeping West Africa down. Any day Nigeria decides to rise, West Africa will automatically rise with it. Indeed it is Nigeria that is delaying the rise of Africa itself. South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria determine the fate of Africa. South Africa is doing ok, Kenya is doing great, Egypt is flagging and Nigeria is gasping. While this may be disputed by some, everyone agrees that the fate of West Africa is in Nigeria's hand- for good and for bad.   So during the 2015 elections an opposition party-an alliance between Tinubu's ACN and Buhari's CPC glued together by the new PDP swept the Nigerian elections to cruise to victory, beating an incumbent President and displacing a ruling party,

CONFRONTING NIGERIA'S CRITICAL ECONOMIC CHALLENGE

  Very often, we say that the way to solve our economic problem is to diversify our economy. But the truth is that Nigeria's economy is fairly diversified right now. Current GDP figures give credence. As at half year for example, non-oil was contributing about 90% of our GDP, leaving the 'almighty Oil & Gas' with only a paltry 10%.    The key contributors to our GDP were Agriculture( 19.7%), Trade-wholesale & Retail ( 21.55%), Manufacturing(9.93%)-close to oil & Gas;Construction( 3.99%),Real Estate( 6.46%); other services including Telecommunications and financial services( 4.08%)   Today, the structure of our economy gives an impression of a sophisticated economy where Services contribute more to the Economy than Industry  (  50%vs 21%)   The tragedy of our economy today is that oil & Gas which contributes only 10% to GDP is the one we depend upon for about 90% of our Foreign exchange. Which is to say that the non- oil sector which contribut