Friday, February 3, 2017

122 Million Nigerians Are Not With 2face Idibia and His Noisemakers



122 Million Nigerians Are Not With 2face Idibia and His Noisemakers

Popular Nigerian singer, Mr. Innocent Idibia, alias "2Face" or "2baba" has suddenly realized that Nigerians are suffering?
Which Nigerians are suffering?
A minority of poor urban dwellers who have refused to explore the numerous opportunities offered to them in the over 84 million hectares of fertile land of Nigeria where agriculture accounts for about two-thirds of Nigeria's employment (120 million people), contributing at least 22% to the country's economic growth.

These 120 million Nigerians are feeding Nigeria day and night.

Nigeria has become the largest producer of cassava in the world with an annual output of 45 million metric tons.
Now you know why Tekno can boast of his big cassava in his hit song "Pana". 

Nigeria is the 2nd largest producer of tomatoes in Africa and the 13th largest producer in the world (1.2 million tonnes).

 Popular Nigerian musician D'banj with farmers.
Happy Nigerian farmers.

The following are facts from the World Bank. Please, read.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have grown by 6.1% owing to continued strong performance mainly in services, but also industry (apart from oil mining) and agriculture. The oil sector was in decline, albeit at a slower rate than in the previous year. Oil and gas GDP was estimated to have declined by 1.3%, relative to a decline of 13.1% in 2013. The sharp decline in oil prices since the third quarter of 2014 has posed major challenges to the country’s external balance and public finances. Oil accounts for close to 90% of exports and roughly 75% of the country’s consolidated budgetary revenues. The GDP numbers indicate that telecommunications, real estate, manufacturing, construction, entertainment increased their shares of GDP.

Nevertheless, much lower oil prices will continue to pose strong challenges for public finance at all levels of government during the year, and will also represent a major constraint on the ability of the new federal government to launch some of its ambitious programs.

Political context

The fifth consecutive national elections held in March and April 2015 and won by an opposition party were considered as fair and relatively peaceful by national and international Election Monitors as compared to the post-election killings and destructions of 2011.The successful general elections in 2015 is largely credited to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the leadership of the Presidential candidates. The New Government is focusing on anti-corruption, Jobs and unemployment, the economy and Security.

Development Challenges

In the North East, Boko Haram remains a threat, and millions of displaced persons require assistance. There has been major destruction of infrastructure along with the loss of lives and impoverishment in this region. The new government will have a difficult time in the short term financing the major programs that it wants to roll out as well as reconstructing the North East devastated by the activities of insurgents

Accelerating the creation of productive jobs through private sector growth and improvements in education (skills) remains the major medium-term challenge.
~ Sep 30, 2015. End.

President Muhammadu Buhari is more innocent than Innocent Idibia who ignored the suffering Nigerians when his godfathers in the former national ruling party of Nigeria, People's Democratic Party (PDP) lavished on him millions of naira from their loot to sponsor his fairy tale wedding in Dubai and with gifts of luxury cars and SUVs. But they failed to save the billions of dollars the PDP administration made from high oil prices until their cookie crumbled as the PDP lost the presidential election in 2015.


With the current war against corruption , his godfathers have stopped patronizing 2Face and the big wigs of the new national ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC) have ignored him; and the new generation of contemporary Nigerian musicians; Whizkid, Olamide, Tekno, Flavour and others have relegated him to the background. He is now seeing the realities of those suffering in urban areas of Lagos city where the cost of living is high. And they ignorantly assume that the rest of Nigerians who are in the rural areas are in dire straits as them. But they are wrong. The majority of Nigerians are busy on their farmlands and producing more than enough food to feed us and also exporting to other countries.

We should be thanking Almighty God for blessing Nigeria with bountiful harvest without any drought and not plotting civil disobedience with agent provocateurs who want to discredit the Federal Government of Nigeria for their own sinister motives and selfish political ambitions for the 2019 general elections.

2Face should emulate his fellow patriotic Nigerian musician, D'banj who is promoting and supporting farmers.
Pessimists have never achieved greatness. But optimists have conquered and achieved great things for humanity.

I have been very critical of both the past and new administrations of the Federal Government with patriotic zeal and not being narrow minded and negative in attitude.
I suffered and survived the civil war as a refugee child when hundreds of thousands of my fellow innocent Igbo children died of kwashiorkor in Biafra when 2Face and majority of his noisemakers were not yet born.
What 2Face and the "Indomie" generation of Nigerian Millennials are calling suffering is nothing compared to what we suffered in Biafra.

The stringent requirements of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) affected me on foreign earnings and I became very broke and was actually cashless.
And our church started 40 days fasting. Who will fast when you don't even have food to break the fast? So, I wrote: " Dear Pastor, I am not fasting. I am starving. ". 

In conclusion, the "Indomie" generation should be indomitable and not behaving like cry babies crying for cookies when they have "Guguru" corn and "Epa" groundnuts they can eat.

~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, author of "The Victory of Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian Dream" distributed worldwide by Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima.



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