President Buhari

Nigeria’s President-Muhammadu Buhari has stated in his new year message to Nigerians that he will be standing down in 2023.

In a new year message posted to his Twitter page, the President said, “I will be standing down in 2023 and will not be available in any future elections. But I am determined to help strengthen the electoral process both in Nigeria and across the region, where several ECOWAS members go to the polls this year.”

Check out the full message below…

My Dear Compatriots,

NIGERIA’S DECADE: Today marks a new decade. It is a time of hope, optimism and fresh possibilities. We look forward as a nation to the 2020s as the opportunity to build on the foundations we have laid together on security, diversification of our economy and taking on the curse of corruption.

These are the pledges on which I have been twice elected President and remain the framework for a stable, sustainable and more prosperous future.

Elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. I salute the commitment of the millions who voted in peace last February and of those leaders who contested for office vigorously but fairly, submitting to the authority of the electorate, the Independent National Electoral Commission and judicial process.

I understand very well the frustrations our system has in the past triggered. I will be standing down in 2023 and will not be available in any future elections. But I am determined to help strengthen the electoral process both in Nigeria and across the region, where several ECOWAS members go to the polls this year.

As Commander-in-Chief, my primary concern is the security of the nation and the safety of our citizens. When I assumed office in May 2015 my first task was to rally our neighbours so that we could confront Boko Haram on a coordinated regional basis. Chaos is not a neighbour any of us hope for.

We have been fighting on several fronts: violent extremists, cultists and organised criminal networks. It has not been easy. But as we are winning the war, we also look to the challenge of winning the peace, the reconstruction of lives, communities and markets. The North East Development Commission will work with local and international stakeholders to help create a new beginning for the North East.

The Federal Government will continue to work with State Governors, neighbouring states and our international partners to tackle the root causes of violent extremism and the networks that help finance and organise terror.

Our security forces will receive the best training and modern weaponry, and in turn will be held to the highest standards of professionalism, and respect for human rights. We will use all the human and emerging technological resources available to tackle kidnapping, banditry and armed robbery.

The new Ministry of Police Affairs increased recruitment of officers and the security reforms being introduced will build on what we are already delivering. We will work tirelessly at home and with our allies in support of our policies to protect the security of life and property. Our actions at all times will be governed by the rule of law.

At the same time, we shall look always to engage with all well-meaning leaders and citizens of goodwill to promote dialogue, partnership and understanding. We need a democratic government that can guarantee peace and security to realise the full potential of our ingenious, entrepreneurial and hard-working people. Our policies are designed to promote genuine, balanced growth that delivers jobs and rewards industry.

Our new Economic Advisory Council brings together respected and independent thinkers to advise me on a strategy that champions inclusive and balanced growth, and above all fight poverty and safeguard national economic interests.

As we have sat down to celebrate with friends and family over this holiday season, for the first time in a generation our food plates have not all been filled with imports of products we know can easily be produced here at home. The revolution in agriculture is already a reality in all corners of the country.

New agreements with Morocco, Russia and others will help us access on attractive terms the inputs we need to accelerate the transformation in farming that is taking place. A good example of commitment to this inclusive growth is the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area and the creation of the National Action Committee to oversee its implementation and ensure the necessary safeguards are in place to allow us to fully capitalise on regional and continental markets.

The joint land border security exercise currently taking place is meant to safeguard Nigeria’s economy and security. No one can doubt that we have been good neighbours and good citizens. We have been the helpers and shock-absorbers of the sub-region but we cannot allow our well-planned economic regeneration plans to be sabotaged.

As soon as we are satisfied that the safeguards are adequate, normal cross-border movements will be resumed. Already, we are making key infrastructure investments to enhance our ease of doing business. On transportation, we are making significant progress on key roads such as the Second Niger Bridge, Lagos – Ibadan Expressway and the Abuja – Kano highway. 2020 will also see tangible progress on the Lagos to Kano Rail line.

Through Executive Order 007, we are also using alternative funding programmes in collaboration with private sector partners to fix strategic roads such as the Apapa-Oworonshoki Express way. Abuja and Port Harcourt have new international airport terminals, as will Kano and Lagos in 2020. When completed, all these projects will positively impact business operations in the country.

These projects are not small and do not come without some temporary disruption; we are doing now what should have been done a long time ago. I thank you for your patience and look forward to the dividends that we and future generations will long enjoy. Power has been a problem for a generation.

We know we need to pick up the pace of progress. We have solutions to help separate parts of the value chain to work better together. In the past few months, we have engaged extensively with stakeholders to develop a series of comprehensive solutions to improve the reliability and availability of electricity across the country.

These solutions include ensuring fiscal sustainability for the sector, increasing both government and private sector investments in the power transmission and distribution segments, improving payment transparency through the deployment of smart meters and ensuring regulatory actions maximise service delivery.

We have in place a new deal with Siemens, supported by the German government after German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited us in Abuja, to invest in new capacity for generation, transmission and distribution. These projects will be under close scrutiny and transparency – there will be no more extravagant claims that end only in waste, theft and mismanagement.

The next 12 months will witness the gradual implementation of these actions, after which Nigerians can expect to see significant improvement in electricity service supply reliability and delivery. Separately, we have plans to increase domestic gas consumption. In the first quarter of 2020, we will commence work on the AKK gas pipeline, OB3 Gas pipeline and the expansion of the Escravos – Lagos Pipeline.

While we look to create new opportunities in agriculture, manufacturing and other long neglected sectors, in 2020 we will also realise increased value from oil and gas, delivering a more competitive, attractive and profitable industry, operating on commercial principles and free from political interference.

Just last week, we were able to approve a fair framework for the USD10 billion expansion of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, which will increase exports by 35 percent, restore our position as a world leader in the sector and create thousands of jobs. The Amendment of the Deep Offshore Act in October signalled our intention to create a modern, forward-looking industry in Nigeria.

I am confident that in 2020 we will be able to present a radical programme of reform for oil and gas that will excite investors, improve governance and strengthen protections for host communities and the environment.

We can expect the pace of change in technology only to accelerate in the decade ahead. Coupled with our young and vibrant population, this offers huge opportunities if we are able to harness the most productive trends and tame some of the wilder elements. This is a delicate balance with which many countries are struggling.

We are seeking an informed and mature debate that reflects our rights and responsibilities as citizens in shaping the boundaries of how best to allow technology to benefit Nigeria. During my Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2019, I promised to lay the enduring foundations for taking a hundred million Nigerians out of mass poverty over the next 10 years. Today I restate that commitment.

We shall continue reforms in education, health care and water sanitation. I have met international partners such as GAVI, the vaccine alliance, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who support our social welfare programmes. I will continue to work with State and Local Governments to make sure that these partnerships deliver as they should. Workers will have a living wage and pensioners will be looked after.

We are steadily clearing pensions and benefits arrears neglected for so long. The new Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development will consolidate and build on the social intervention schemes and will enhance the checks and balances necessary for this set of programmes to succeed for the long term.

I am able to report that the journey has already begun with the passage and signing into law of the 2020 Appropriation Act. As the new decade dawns, we are ready to hit the ground running. Let me pay tribute to the Ninth National Assembly who worked uncommonly long hours to make sure that the 2020 budget scrutiny is both thorough and timely.

The close harmony between the Executive and Legislature is a sharp contrast to what we have experienced in the recent past, when the Senate kept the previous budget for 7 months without good reason just to score cheap political points thereby disrupting the budgetary processes and overall economic development plans.

Our policies are working and the results will continue to show themselves more clearly by the day. Nigeria is the most tremendous, can-do market, offering extraordinary opportunities and returns. Investors can look forward with confidence not only to an increasing momentum of change but also to specific incentives, including our new visa-on-arrival policy.

They can also be certain of our unshakeable commitment to tackle corruption. As we create an environment that allows initiative, enterprise and hard work to thrive, it is more important than ever to call out those who find the rule of law an inconvenience, or independent regulation an irritation.

We are doing our part here in Nigeria. We will continue to press our partners abroad to help with the supply side of corruption and have received some encouragement. We expect more funds stolen in the past to be returned to us and they will be ploughed back into development with all due transparency.

This is a joint initiative. Where our policies have worked best, it has been because of the support of ordinary Nigerians in their millions, numbers that even the most powerful of special interests cannot defy. I thank you for your support. Transition by its very nature carries with it change and some uncertainty along the way. I encourage you to be tolerant, law abiding and peace loving.

This is a new year and the beginning of a new decade – the Nigerian Decade of prosperity and promise for Nigeria and for Africa. To recapitulate, some of the projects Nigerians should expect to come upstream from 2020 include:

47 road projects scheduled for completion in 2020/21, including roads leading to ports; Major bridges including substantial work on the Second Niger Bridge; Completion of 13 housing estates under the National Housing Project Plan; Lagos, Kano, Maiduguri and Enugu international airports to be commissioned in 2020; Launching of an agricultural rural mechanisation scheme that will cover 700 local governments over a period of three years; Launching of the Livestock Development Project Grazing Model in Gombe State where 200,000 hectares of land has been identified; Training of 50,000 workers to complement the country’s 7,000 extension workers; Commissioning of the Lagos – Ibadan and Itakpe – Warri rail lines in the first quarter; Commencement of the Ibadan – Abuja and Kano – Kaduna rail lines also in the first quarter; Further liberalisation of the power sector to allow businesses to generate and sell power; Commencement of the construction of the Mambilla Power project by the first half of 2020; and Commencement of the construction of the AKK gas pipeline, OB3 gas pipeline and the expansion of the Escravos – Lagos pipeline in the first quarter of 2020.

Thank you very much!

-President Muhammadu Buhari.

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Fake Prophecies

I used to find the credulity of Ghanaian Christians offensive, but now I find it utterly disgusting such that writing about it even upsets my being.

2019 has ended under the Gregorian calendar and under the Chinese Lunar calendar, we are still in the 7 Twelfth Month 2019 (ji-hai)—the year of the pig.

Last night, illiterate scammers parading themselves as spokesmen and prophets of the Christian celestial dictator, Yahweh, unleashed on us series of nonsense predictions called prophecies including that the NDC will win the 2020 election by 52.1% and that Chris Attoh will also be shot dead like his wife.

As usual of these scammers, they placed a caveat—that if we pray or whatever nonsense they expect us to do, things seen may be changed.

It’s like throwing a coin and saying the head will come up but if a person has a clean heart then the tail will show. When the tail shows, you will shout that it happened that way because that person has a clean heart and if the head shows, you will say your prophecy has come to pass. Whatever happens, the scammer wins. How do we even measure the purity of a person’s heart in any reasonable sense? Yet people were shouting to this nonsense.

I spent my 31st night in the most useless way—chewing on some goat meat. I didn’t pray or thank any of the hundreds of Gods claimed to be in existence for anything and yet just as my life was better than many that prayed to God the precious year, it will be far better than theirs again this year.

You don’t need the mercy of any God or buy into the any of God myths to be able to find peace, wealth and comfort in this life.

Religious Africans never learn. You keep praying to a God each year only to see the so-called leaders get richer and better alone and you can’t see the handwriting on the wall?

I have stopped writing on the God delusion because the African Christian is not ready to become wise.

You should continue in your stupidity and wait on the mercy of a certain being living in heaven, some sort of Devine North Korea—doing as he pleases.

All the people I grew up seeing praying to God for a better future, I still see them doing it 30 years later—clinging on the false hope that even after damn 30 years this impotent God will suddenly answer their prayers and they will become somewhat comfortable in life.

It’s a joke and the laughter is paid by them—as always.

2019 was a great year for me, an atheist, and with the same dedication and smart thinking, 2020 will be the same or even bigger. I do not need the goddess of good luck to throw anything my way—I just need my mind and efforts.

Stop being foolish in 2020 or just quit worshipping a God that asks you to suspend your thinking faculties for one year and start using your brain and see the huge difference that will make in your life. You can bet me on this—just for one year.

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Secret to Becoming Rich

I met some prominent rich Ghanaians in Ghana recently and when talking about creating wealth, one mentioned something I have come across in my readings—sort of telling me that people do not become rich by accident.

No rich man is stupid, including those who even become rich by winning the lottery. There is a secret to becoming rich and maintaining that wealth.

This rich man who has not read the book, the Richest Man in Babylon, stated that to create wealth, a person must strive to have at least 6 sources of income streams. He stated that it’s dangerous to be making 1 million dollars a month from one source. Because, when this single income source cuts off, you begin to earn nothing per month.

For him, that’s the danger of being employed only. When you are fired and your only source of income is your employment, you become income-less.

According to this friend, it is better to have 6 income streams, with each giving you (let’s say), 1000 GHS a month—a total of 6,000 GHS a month than have a single source giving you 10,000 GHS income.

The above is the practical interpretation of “do not put all your eggs in one basket.” While many of us know this adage, we do not really practice it.

You do not have to over-stretch your income streams and therefore it’s suggested that 6 is good. And if you can, they should not all be closely related—such that a fall can bring all of them to the ground. Think Dr Nduom.

How many income streams do you currently have, including your employment?

People do not become rich by chance—there is a path to becoming rich and many of us do not take that.

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Black Woman

There are two groups of Ghanaian women currently walking the surface of the earth—in and outside Ghana, per my opinion. These women belong to the same generation but have a different approach to life.

While the first group is aggressively looking for every opportunity to make money and is involved in all manner of legal jobs even if not so glamorous, the second group does not intend to lift a finger to work but desires all the expensive things.

I know Ghanaian women who are paid 300 GHS a month for full-time jobs, and others paid about 1,500 GHS for full-time jobs. These women wake up early to join “trotro” to their respective jobs. They swim through layers of stress and sometimes disrespect from their bosses. But they are resilient, and they want to work to earn their own cash—no matter how little.

The second group lives a magical and fascinating life. Without any job or income fetching investments, they still manage to look glamorous, wear the expensive weaves and spend almost all their time on social media. How these people come by guaranteed money each day and night is what makes them magical and their life uncertain.

The first group sets up little businesses, from catering to sewing, in their attempt to define themselves as entrepreneurs, and earn some money. When you meet these women, they mostly wear cheap synthetic wigs—that clearly show signs of over-usage. They are women on a mission, to self-cater and retain a bit of respect as human beings. They mostly do not own a car and on good days rely on uber, and most days “trotro.”

The second group, however, rocks floor-sweeping expensive human weaves and their long painted nails come with them wherever they go. They spend a lot of their time having breakfast, lunch and dinner at posh hotels and restaurants—and when they don’t have a car, they usually ride in ubers or in the passenger seat of a man’s car. ‘Air condition’ is their middle name.

Today seems brighter for the second group of women but the future is darker. When the pendulum of financial support from their enchanted sponsors or preys switches against them, they will be left without a roof over their heads. But they are not bothered, they’ve convinced themselves that their cash flow will never end.

Life can be interesting both today and tomorrow if you play your game well and focus on long term guarantees.

For us, we are mere spectators and writers.

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Students of the Tema branch of Gimpa have honoured Dr Adu Boateng, CEO of Endpoint Homeopathic Clinic for his outstanding contribution to effective healthcare delivery in Ghana, his committed to the global Breast Cancer fight and for his charitable contributions to various Ghanaian communities.

On Saturday, October 13, as part of activities to mark this year’s Breast Cancer month and to honour those who continue to generously dedicate their expertise and resource to the fight against Breast Cancer, the students organised an event to commend Dr Adu Boateng’s personal commitment to the cause and that of his Clinic across the country. 

Dr Adu Boateng and his Endpoint Homeopathic Clinic have for many years been offering free Breast Cancer screening to individuals and have also become fountainheads of various other charitable contributions in Ghana. It’s for these contributions that Dr. Adu Boateng and the Clinic were honoured.

At the event which was held at the premises of the Spintex branch of the Clinic, Dr Adu Boateng was presented with a citation by the student—which acknowledges him as “a celebrated homeopathic practitioner and [as an individual whose] passionate heartbeat is giving back to society in a typical charitable manner and this has seen him successfully built a six unit classroom block for the Eye of the Lord orphanage school at Nsawam and also, a six unit lecture hall and a resource centre for the University of Education Winneba ( UEW)”

The citation further  states that, “In view of Dr. Adu Boateng’s stellar performance, his exemplary and dedicated contribution to continuous health-care delivery, his phenomenal and astounding exploits, coupled with the tremendous and impressive charitable works, the office of the Women’s Commission, and SRC of GIMPA, Tema branch,  on the occasion of his free delivery of the Mammography Screening of Breast Cancer by the Endpoint Homeopathy Clinic, hereby acknowledge the significant, monumental, distinctive and selfless service of Dr. Adu Boateng.”

Dr. Adu Boateng who was grateful for the honour assured the students that he will continue to be a strong partner to the global Breast Cancer fight.

The various students were provided with free Breast Cancer screening as well as education.

About Endpoint Homeopathic Clinic

Endpoint Homeopathic Clinic is an award-winning provider of quality healthcare and unparalleled services in Ghana; promoting and advancing the science of homeopathy for the past 10 years.

As a forward-looking health delivery outlet, Endpoint Homeopathic Clinic provides the very latest research-based homeopathic treatments with a service that is second to none. The clinic is committed to patient satisfaction as the primary driver of its healthcare delivery.

Endpoint Homeopathic Clinic has received several prestigious awards, including the Most Result-Oriented Homeopathic Clinic in West Africa and the Outstanding Homeopathy Hospital of the Year in 2016.

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