LAURETTA ONOCHIE

Nigerians have been in a celebratory mood. And for good reasons too. For the first time in 16 years, NIGERIA was not listed in the top ten most corrupt nations in the world. This is an indication that the war on corruption which Nigerians are bravely and courageously waging, is slowly but surely bearing the desired fruit. Investors and tourists are now queuing at Nigerian foreign missions, for visas to Nigeria. International community leaders and institutions are applauding our leadership and commending them for the reforms they are fighting the established interests to bring about. Secondly, MOST Nigerians love President Buhari. THATS AN INDISPUTABLE AND INFALLIBLE FACT! Only the corrupt and the criminally minded elements hate him and his guts for venturing into their territory to clean them out, and restore a semblance of sanity, probity and accountability in our nation. So with the misinformation that was going on about his health status, many Nigerians were obviously deva

The very idea or insinuation that President Buhari is anti North and anti Islam is to say the least, preposterous and mischievous. The truth is that those making the scathing attacks on the person and the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, believe that they are THE North.  Well, we have news for them. They are not THE North. They are just Nigerians who, over the years have grown used to privileged lifestyles of circumventing the laws for their personal aggrandisement, to the neglect and detriment of the poorest in our society. They have been shortchanging the Nigerian economy by demanding waivers from Customs and Excise and other governmental Agencies. This means that they are tax cheats!  Because their friends were in government, they demanded and easily obtained for themselves, things that should have gone to ordinary Northerner and other Nigerians. They have set up cartels of young impoverished people they use for smuggling cars, rice and other items across the bo

I feel very sorry for those who are making a great deal of effort at tainting everyone around the President. It's a case of, "We are filthy and rotten, we must wrestle you till some of our filth rub off on you." If it doesn't fit, It won't stick! They started with President Buhari himself. Lies upon lies where cooked up about his person. How, years ago, he misappropriated funds while serving at the Petroleum Trust Fund. That fell on its face. Flat on its face. Years ago, it was thoroughly investigated and found to be untrue. TOTALLY UNTRUE. They moved on to President Buhari's religion. They have mapped out the plan of how Pres. Muhammadu Buhari planned to Islamise Nigeria, just that he was not part of the arrangement. Only those with no common sense and some mischievous intents, believe the trash. It did not matter that Ex-Pres. Jonathan was a regular at the meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Conference and benefitted financially from the Islamic

💢 Alleviating the sufferings of the poorest and the most vulnerable in our nation is high on the agenda of the Pres. Buhari administration. 💢 Consequently, significant progress has been achieved in the implementation of the Social Investment Programmes (SIP) of the Buhari Presidency which are: 🌇 The N-Power Volunteers Corps, NPVC. 🌇 The Home-grown School Feeding Programme 🌇 Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT. 🌇 Micro-Credit Schemes. 🌇 The N-Power Volunteers Corps, NPVC. Verification exercises are going on very well across the states of the federation, regarding the 200,000 first batch of the half a million unemployed graduates being engaged to serve in their communities teaching, supporting the healthcare systems and educating farmers. ✅ Focal Persons, appointed by each state governments to coordinate with the Federal Government on the Social Investment Programmes have been conducting verification exercises in their states and reporting back on progress and challenges

One would have ignored the ranting of Deji Adeyanju but for the position he holds in a faction of PDP, the neonate opposition party that ruined our nation and stole our collective joy as a people. Before the advent of PDP in our national political space, Nigerians were the happiest people on earth. But all that is gone now, within a short space of time- sixteen years!  For one whose party cannot run its own affairs and has fallen apart since the end of money sharing culture in 2015, it reeks of contradictions for him to on one hand, desire pomp and pageantry on October 1, 2016 and on the other, deep reflection on the socioeconomic situation foisted on the nation by the inept PDP government of ex-Pres. Jonathan and his more than forty thieves.   Reflection? Oh no! Pomp and pageantry were what Deji was really after. That's what he was used to. It would start with Deji and his co travellers in the ruination train of Nigeria, being invited to the Presidential Villa. At th

🐠Ask the people of Baga in the North East of Nigeria. They are mostly fishermen but could not fish.  🐠 Ask many Nigerians from the North East. They could not do the things many of us take for granted, e.g, they could not celebrate Nigeria's independence commemoration, Islamic, Christian and cultural festivals. Even weddings could not hold.  🐠 They had become refugees in their own country and the government of the day looked the other way. Boko Haram insurgents had turned their normal lives into a hellish nightmare.  🐠 For the people of Baga, all the change they needed was 🐠 a chance to be alive, 🐠 return to their ancestral home, 🐠 earn a decent living through fishing and 🐠 live close to their kith and kin in their own community.  🐠 They do not want a pocket full of stolen cash.   🐠 They do not want imported expired rice that was grown twenty-five years ago.  🐠 They do not want dollars as their children went to local schools in and around their commu

When it emerged in April of 2014 that over 200 Nigerian school girls had been abducted from their school, it sparked not just a national outrage and disgust, but the international community too, was outraged and disgusted at what many saw, not just as crime against the education of the girl child, but a crime against humanity. Groups and individuals, using the hashtag, "#BringBackOurGirls", sprang up locally and across the world, to hold the President Jonathan administration by the balls, to act decisively to rescue our girls. This inept government, did little but use its cronies to try to prove that the abduction was a hoax. The whole world especially women and mothers identified with the pain, agony and anguish of the Chibok school girls' families. The closest the female members of the Jonathan Administration got to acknowledging this heinous crime by the Boko Haram insurgents was a show of shame organised by the Wife of the then President, Mrs Patience Jo