As of now, el-Rufai is leaving a legacy in Kaduna State, which will be used as criteria to judge his government. His inconsistent policies directly affect many institutions and sectors in the State, creating all kinds of socio-economic consequences. So it is a lot more difficult to defend the Kaduna State government’s policies when el-Rufai is its best role model. 

The State’s socio-economic position is alarming, with high poverty and unemployment rates. According to the United Nation’s Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, 44% of the population in Kaduna are in extreme poverty. For every 100 people living in Kaduna, 44 people do not have access to health, education and essential living resources like water, housing, and food. The State has a combined rate of 73% for unemployment and underemployment, ranking second in Nigeria behind Imo State. That means only 27 people are fully employed out of every 100 living in the State. Although, Nigeria’s double-dip economic recession has contributed to making the country maintain its poverty capital status for the second successive year. However, the State is also wrestling with el-Rufai’s bad economic policies. 

Some would argue that the el-Rufai government has built roads and bridges. However, rural areas’ infrastructural investment and community development are unbalanced. The government mainly invests in five local governments out of the twenty-three. The current data shows that building a bridge and roads is not attracting investments. The neo-liberal policies designed to collect taxes from the entire residents to raise internally generated revenues are people into hardship and creating inherent social issues in the State. 

Of course, the State’ has fiscal sustainability challenges, which is why the State no longer reveals its investment funding sources. Gone are the days when roadside billboards show the figures, dates, and duration of contractors’ contracts in Kaduna. Neither does the Kaduna state government publish the information publicly. For example, the information on the cost and source of funds for the roads this government is building is unavailable. These are public funds, and transparency shows that public infrastructure procurement follows value-for-money standards and practices. 

The World Bank 2021 report shows that Kaduna has a weak legal and institutional framework for public-private partnerships and does not pay contractors at the stipulated time. These contractors own businesses that employ thousands of people and borrow money at exorbitant rates from banks to make ends meet. Failure to pay companies has contributed to the closure of companies, causing hardship to owners. Unfortunately, we will only know the true economic position of Kaduna after this government has departed. 

Nevertheless, the apparent outcome of the el-Rufai government is represented in the data. They have created a wider disconnect between the three political regions of the State in terms of jobs, security, investments, health, and education. The retrenchment of thousands of workers to allow the State to create an allowance for public spending has pushed hundreds of thousands into poverty, which brings me to the last point of discussion – education.

Last week, a Daily Trust reported that over 7,000 Kaduna teachers are awaiting posting nine months after recruitment. Their salaries have also not been paid – creating more hardship. Let’s recall when el-Rufai justified the sacking of 22,000 teachers in 2017 by calling them unqualified. He then employed 15,897 more but still found a way to explain the sacking of 4,562 of those he employed, all within a year. But this lack of consistency is not limited to the education sector. It is seen across the government’s Ministries, departments and agencies.

According to the 2020 Kaduna Annual School Census report, there are 5,312 public schools in the State – the figure keeps fluctuating by a wide margin every year. The report shows that 66% of these schools have no water source, 67% have no health facility, 36% have no decent chalkboard, and 80% have no power source. Most of these schools also need teachers because there is a shortage of teachers in public schools. Therefore, we must all be concerned about the future of the next generation. The parents of the over 2.5 million children in Kaduna State’s public schools are right to be worried.

UNICEF reported that Nigeria has about 11 million children out of school, the world’s highest recorded figure. The statistics show that one out of every five children you count globally is from Nigeria. As Nigeria’s third most populous State, Kaduna must enrol more children into education. The Almajiri system is contributing to the high illiteracy rate in our communities. The consequences of leaving young children uneducated have contributed to our insecurity challenges. But the State has not designed a pragmatic project that will prevent young boys from begging for food on the street. 

In a nutshell, el-Rufai has not been able to develop a coherent policy that will improve the living standards of people living in the State. Based on the evidence, el-Rufai’s lack of understanding of basic economics has contributed to the present problems. Of course, that is why his political stock is plummeting as fast as the living standards of the people in Kaduna.

As I conclude, many would expect to read a solution for the problems created by el-Rufai. Indeed, el-Rufai will require an army of seasoned specialists to teach him some basics of economics before he can grasp the broader picture. But there is no guarantee of how long that will take. In the meantime, his advisers should find a way to make him understand that rolling out austere neoliberal policies does not work for developing economies. It only leads to harmful socio-economic consequences, like increased poverty, unemployment, poor education funding, and worsening income distribution. 

Dr Nasir Aminu – Cardiff Metropolitan University

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A lot of people have asked me about my take on the video of the little child, a pupil of Chrisland schools, Lagos involved in a leaked sex video. Ordinarily, that is not a video I would rush to watch because there was nothing glorifying about it. I reluctantly did after listening to the plea of the pupil’s mother on Twitter for Nigerians’ help. I needed to have a clear understanding of what the issue was all about. And sincerely, I could barely watch it to the end, because I saw more than what I bargained for. By the way, for those doubting the age of this little child, I have been told by those who should know that she was actually 10 years old as of the time the sexual act was videoed. Remember, the whole episode took place in Dubai where the elite high school had gone to participate in the World School Games between March 10-13, 2022. She turned 11 on March 18, five days after the programme.
I have read so many comments, and analyses on this matter on social media, with many blaming either the child, the parents, the school or the society as a whole. This article is not aimed at engaging in any blame game. I know that with the best of parenting, things do go awful. I am also aware that even in mission schools, where the word of God and divine principles are practically forced down the throat of students, some of them still do things that only Satan and his cohorts could possibly contemplate.

As for those blaming the society, as it was in the beginning, so it is and so shall it be. There is nothing new under the sun. The society has never been known to help anyone. In fact, the 21st-century society is at its worst, hostile and at best indifferent regarding child-raising. This is no shock as most of the social media platforms we have today were developed by Dotcom millionaires, who at the time were young, childless adults who never had to consider regulation for the safety of young, innocent and curious children. The internet reeks of oversight. A simple tick of an ’18 and older’ box will give a prepubescent child the keys to pandora’s box.  
However, each generation has always had their fair share of distractions. Regarding how a child behaves, behavioural experts are apt to tell us that people’s behaviours and actions cannot be viewed in isolation. A lot of factors determine what people do. So, blaming a child without having a full understanding of who she is and what she has gone through in life will not be fair. So, I am staying clear of the blame game.
Having said that, could this case have been better handled? I think Yes. Maybe the mother shouldn’t have gone to social media to seek Nigerians’ help. That appeared to have exacerbated the whole thing. There are things to bring to the public domain via social media, there are others that require great discretion. In this case, the child’s identity which was at least protected by the school was revealed by the mother’s appearance on Twitter. We have to acknowledge the bitter truth that we live in a hypocritical world. Many people out there are just looking for what will help them ease tension, they don’t really so much care about other people’s pains. Some are just curious. Many derive pleasure from what gives others pain. People often assume that the solution to every issue in this age is to solicit social media attention for spreading awareness. However, as the details of the situation continue to unfold, it seems like the woman’s expectation that social media could be of help, in this case, may have been a big miscalculation. 
It is an unfortunate reality that cases of deviant behaviours will continue to occur in our schools even under the best system of supervision. The most important thing is to develop a pragmatic way of dealing with them. The government cannot continue to be reactive all the time. Rushing to shut down a school because a parent complained about a situation, to me, is not the best way of handling a problem. You can’t deny hundreds of other pupils the right to learning because of the misdeeds of either the school or a tiny minority of pupils.
What is the government trying to prove? Why should the innocent, who are in the majority, suffer for the sin of the minority? In this case, 76 pupils went on a trip and about five of them misbehaved, why should others be denied the right to their education because of that? Each time the government rushes to shut down a school, it denies the majority of pupils who have a right to learn, the opportunity to do so. The Lagos State government’s penchant for shutting down schools should be checked. I know that government wants to be seen as doing something, but we can’t be doing public relations with students’ lives. The government now runs like a corporation more concerned about protecting its image than solving problems. But every child’s interest should be taken into consideration before a decision is taken. That is why the government must be proactive and put in place a modality for handling problems in schools. For example, there could be a provision that schools enmeshed in difficult controversies would be managed by the government pending the outcome of investigations.
The state could establish a council saddled with the responsibility of performing that responsibility. Such a council could be made up of educationists in the public and private sectors- who have a track record of integrity. That way, a seamless process of investigation and punishment is established.
In the same vein, there should be well laid down punishment for erring schools. The sanction could be as stiff as a complete take-over of a school that failed to do the due diligence in caring for the children in their care.
The schools themselves should have proper rules of engagement. Part of the problem is that some of these elitist schools often relax their rules in order to attract students, hence they tend to overlook deviant behaviours or pretend not to know certain things. They tend to naturally want to cover some evils so that they can continue to keep the students in school. This isn’t strange. Many of them are guided by an economic motive. But by the time they know that certain things can end their existence, they are likely to weigh things before covering up for any student.
The government can ban children in primary and secondary schools from operating certain social media accounts- schools can do so too. Such a ban would have prevented a situation where a child could run a social media account with thousands of followers. In the case of the unnamed Chrisland pupil, she runs a social media account called “bhadgurl4k (bad girl fuck) that has over 526 videos with over 6,000 followers. There are schools in this country that have very strict rules and regulations. Do students obey all these rules —No. But are there consequences if they are caught—Yes. That should be the rule.
No doubt, parents have a role to play in the upbringing of their children. It is unfortunate that sometimes even with the best of input, some children still turn out badly. There are also cases where parents have completely outsourced the training of their children to the school. This won’t work. As a matter of fact, spending time with one’s children is perhaps the greatest and the most difficult aspect of parenting. It’s far more expensive than the money invested in their education. You can’t outsource this job no matter how much you pay as school fees. The earlier we all knew this, the better the society we are likely to build.
Olabisi Deji-Folutile (PhD) is the editor in chief of franktalknow.com and a member, Nigerian Guild of Editors. Email: [email protected]
Re: What Nigerian Government is paying lecturers is insulting
I wish to appreciate, wholeheartedly, your elucidating comments on the ‘nauseating salaries’ of Nigerian universities Lecturers.
Your analysis/breakdown explicitly and aptly exposed the extent to which Nigerian academics have been pauperised, impoverished, and dehumanised. 
I joined millions of caring Nigerians who may have read you to commend and wish you all the best in your endeavour. 
God bless.  
Signed 
Frank Ikponmwosa

Madam,
May the Lord bless you so much beyond your imagination on this exposition on the humiliation of university teachers by the government operatives.
I am not a lecturer neither a student, and neither do any of my children attend Nigerian university but I felt extremely sad on their salary structure as highlighted.
I write mainly to encourage you to keep up the flame until your other senior colleagues can buy into this and continue talking about it for our government to do the needful.
God bless you, madam.
Tijani, A.O.

I have read your writeup on ASSU strike, actually you have spoken the minds of many Nigerians. I suggest that “NO ELECTION IN 2023 IF ASUU ARE STILL ON STRIKE” May be this will be the only language that the federal government would listen to. My Opinion. 
Hapsat Babajo

Dear Ma’am,
 
Good morning from Vienna! I am compelled to put down few lines for you – call it, if you please – an APPRECIATION.
 
It is by a stroke of chance that I stumbled upon an article you wrote in “SAHARA” on the MOST DEPLORABLE CONDITIONS OF SERVICE IN NIGERIA PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES. NOTHING could readily be added to your most excellent analysis AND CALL FOR ACTION! 
Personally, I cannot be more ashamed and furious about the WILLFUL CALLOUSNESS OF THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT to systematically destroy EDUCATION in that country that is widely acclaimed a “FAILED STATE” (YOU surely must have read Karl Maier’s “THIS HOUSE HAS FALLEN. MIDNIGHT IN NIGERIA”). 
The neglect of EDUCATION hastens this process!!! Cry the Would-be-Beloved-Country!!!
 
Now, I know why MANY Professors have gone into the practice of “wanting something” from their candidates before they moderate their thesis! Unfortunately, my wards have been VICTIMS of this order!!!
 
Well, thanks for your insightful publication!
 
Rev. Fr. Ndubueze Fabian MMAGU (B. Phil., M. A. theol., PhD theol, MSc-Psychotherapy)

Dear Ma’am,
Thank you for your lucid writeup on the ASUU strike action.
It was heart-warming that someone understood the REAL issues.
Unfortunately, addressing the drift in our educational system may require more than strike actions. It will be welcome if civil society groups and the private sector will engage government and ASUU with a view to finding a more robust approach to funding the tertiary institutions.
Once again, thank you ma’am.
I declare my conflict of interest that I am a lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos.
Have a graceful weekend.
Kind regards
Adeseye Michael Akinsete
Senior Lecturer
College of Medicine, University of Lagos
Honorary Pediatric Haematologist & Oncologist
Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba
[email protected], [email protected]

You are super. Just to commend you on your article about ASUU. 
Obinne Obiefuna

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Most parents like to think that their generation’s burden was the heaviest. And that today’s children are too soft and spoilt by the easy life to be up to any good. Well, I disagree. Or let me put that a bit differently: I don’t agree completely.
 
The debate about just how far astray today’s children have gone was sparked afresh by the juvenile sex video of students of Chrisland School, VGC, Lagos, who had gone for the World Schools Games in Dubai between March 8 and 14.
 
Since that video was leaked a few days ago, the “Dubai Five”, the children involved, have taken a serious verbal beating. Deeply distraught members of the public have been holding up the video as proof that after many years of parental negligence, we may have succeeded in raising aliens who will succeed us.
 




How can children sent on a special programme at great expense by their parents for only a few days and in the care of their teachers, turn a learning opportunity into a sex orgy? How can children enrolled in one of the country’s most expensive private schools and who may have been selected for this programme on merit, let themselves, their parents and school down so badly?
 
Isn’t that video the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle that shows that years of namby-pamby parenting can only raise a generation of self-indulgent, grasping and self-absorbed children whose only interest is instant gratification at any cost?
 
The short answer, is, not exactly. But the explanation is long and complicated.
 
What happened in Dubai was a nightmare beyond description and even for a country so used to stumbling from one painful distraction to the next, this one would be hard to sweep under the rug. Yet, I think it would be a bridge too far to cite it as evidence of the final takeover of the wayward generation.
 
Far from being lost and wayward, I think that today’s youngsters, particularly those belonging to Generation Z, the closest demographic cousins of the Dubai Five, are perhaps more vocal, more diverse, more socially connected, smarter and certainly more curious than any generation before them.
 
Interestingly, the smartphone, that pervasive device and perhaps the single most powerful force in the lifestyle of this generation is both an extraordinary source of pleasure and a huge source of misery for them. It’s their playground, of course. But sadly also, it’s their trap – the most intrusive tool ever invented since George Orwell’s Big Brother.
 
That is not to downplay the gravity of what happened in Dubai. It’s simply an invitation to be a little less sanctimonious, a call to put aside the heart-breaking foolishness of the Dubai Five, and to reflect for a moment, on what might have been only, say, 40 years ago.
 
If our parents had the benefit of smartphones to scrutinise and monitor us at school and play, would they have seen something dramatically different in our secret lives from what we see in the Dubai Five today?
 
We should be shocked and outraged and sad that out of 76 children who went on a weeklong sport competition, what we’re being reminded of is not the laurels they competed for or the strides made, but a video that reminds us of how disastrously we’re failing in our duties as schools and parents.
 
I’m appalled that Chrisland is once again at the centre of this scandal less than three years after a teacher in the school was tried and convicted for raping a two-year-old girl in the school and after it also came short of a public showdown with parent and actress Mercy Johnson-Okojie over allegations of child bullying.
 
The school has explained that it went to extraordinary lengths to keep the children safe and away from mischief; that it kept them seven floors apart in the Dubai hotel where they were lodged. It also denied carrying out any pregnancy tests on the child as her parents alleged, saying what was done was the mandatory Covid-19 test on their return from the trip and actually named the laboratory where the test was done.
 
On top of that, it has explained that the authorities went the extra mile to engage the mother of the child after the matter came to light in a post-travel review, but that she refused to cooperate and at a stage, threatened to “take the matter to social media,” because she believed that her daughter had been drugged and “raped” and that the school was trying to cover up.
 
The school failed in its duty of care, even though the board insists that the authorities had been implementing a higher standard of child care and protection since the unfortunate incidents of the past and, in fact, awarded itself a pass mark that out of 76 children taken to Dubai only five let the school down.
 
But the five, even one, is 100 per cent to the parents involved. Having nine staff members, comprising seven male teachers and two females, look after 76 students of 50 boys and 26 girls, was a recipe for trouble.
 
But the parents didn’t do better. Listening to the recorded video of the mother of the girl, you would almost think her daughter’s fees were the price for outsourcing the responsibility of parental care. And it breaks your heart to think that while her daughter was still nursing the trauma from the exposure, she had time to be coached by a social media influencer for a PR dogfight with the school.
 
Part of the disease of the rich is that they not only boast of sending their children to big schools and also boast of paying hefty fees, they think that their money should buy them a presence in their children’s lives. That is apart from payments for regular indulgences like a smartphone before they have left the crib and a trip to Dubai with Uncle T and the rest of the creche family while the parents are watching Zee-World at home. It’s not funny.
 
In the blame game between the school and the parents, care for the Dubai Five – which should be the real focus of the unfortunate incident – is missing. The ego of the feuding parties makes them want to protect their own turf, while busybodies swoon with testosterone over the explicit video. In between the real question is lost: who recorded the video and how did it go out?  
 
Whether the sex was consensual or not and whether the juveniles had the cognitive capacity to recognise what they were doing, it is improbable that any of the parties involved would have authorised the sharing of the video, as part of the so-called “Truth or Dare” game. And that unauthorised sharing was a crime. It was a ghastly infringement on the rights of the children and can only deepen their wound.
 
If we care about the children beyond nailing them to the cross of social gossip, we must come down from our high horses and refrain from tossing them out like a few bad apples. That would only further damage their esteem and impair their recovery. And here, I’m concerned not only about the treatment of the juveniles involved in the act, but also those present in the room and all 76 on that trip.
 
Lagos State has to do better than closing the school. It has to investigate the source of the recording and leakage and provide a common ground for the school and parents of the Dubai Five to rehabilitate the children, perhaps with help from child welfare specialists outside the government. It’s time to put the children front and centre.
 
Though Lagos is considered perhaps the most socially responsive state in the country, its handling of the tragic death of Bowen College student Sylvester Oromoni, who died under very suspicious circumstances leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Chrisland would be a good place for the state to redeem itself and to show that at least when children’s lives are involved it is not a captive to the mob or special interests.
 
The story of the “Central Park Five”, a group of five teenagers in the U.S. wrongly accused and convicted of a crime they didn’t commit shows that where technology is rudimentary the state’s malicious incompetence could be exploited to ruin young lives and families.
 
The story of the Dubai Five shows, however, that surrendering our lives completely to technology, in a race in which children are destined to lead, also comes with a heavy price. And our absence from their lives could sometimes make the price even heavier.  
 
Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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The staggering sum of #100 million fixed by the APC NEC for its presidential nomination form has rightly sent shock waves of righteous indignation across the country. The APC had fixed #30 million for the “expression of interest form” and #70 million for the “nomination form”, making a total of #100 million. 
The party hopes to rake in #1.5 billion from the 15 aspirants that have so far declared interest in the presidential race. By this singular act, the APC has shown a shocking insatiable bacchanalian propensity to corrupt democracy, democratic ethos, and also scam the entire country. 
The vulgarity of this exercise lies not just in the abominable fee prescribed, but more in the party’s pretentious mantra of fighting corruption, using a well-orchestrated and carefully oiled Hitler’s Goebel’s propagandist machinery of dubious pedigree. It is the more abhorrent when we realize that this is miles apart from (indeed more than double) the price fixed by the party’s whipping child, the opposition PDP, which has fixed its at #40million –#5 million for the nomination of interest and #35 million for the nomination form. The #100m is also over 100% of the #40 million fixed by the same APC for 2018, presidential nomination form.
President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC have, by this singular act, exhibited a very odious and unpleasant example of how not to fight corruption. They have managed to convince Nigerians that politics is indeed the art of grand deception, double-dealing, duplicity, beguilement, sham and self-contradiction. They have justified the cliché that diplomacy is the clever art of telling a person to go to hell in such a way that he actually eagerly looks forward to the journey.

Nigerians should recall that in the prelude to the 2015 presidential elections, president Buhari had trenchantly criticized the #27.5 million levy imposed on his party aspirants for presidential nomination form. He had pooh pooed it as exorbitant. He has now supported #100 million for the same exercise.
With the new amended Electoral Act of 2022 fixing the #5 billion limit for presidential campaign as against the earlier #1 billion under the 2010 Electoral Act, as amended, Nigeria’s politics and democracy have been completely monetised with a swing towards anti-people capitalist mercantilism. It has been turned into a marketplace bazaar of bare-faced monetary banditry reserved only for state captors, who have cunningly cornered our collective commonwealth. It is so shameful and so disorientating that Nigeria can ever find herself in this despicable state of nadir.
Under the Buhari government, Nigeria has since become the poverty capital of the world, outstripping India. Nigeria ranks the number 149 most corrupt country in the world out of 180 countries surveyed, as adjudged by Transparency International, under its Anti-Corruption Perception Index. The macroeconomic environment has been badly fouled, leading to a free-for-all fall of the exchange rate of the naira which now exchanges between #580 and #700 to the dollar, as against #180-#190- Buhari met it in 2015. Nigeria daily experiences an uncontrollable inflation rate that defies any economic sense, analysis and solutions.
To aspire to be a Governor under Buhari’s “puritanic” APC, an aspirant must cough out #50 million; while aspirants to the Senate, House of Representatives and House of Assembly must vomit #20 million, #10 million and #2 million, respectively.
With this circus of Baba Sallah’s Alawada Kerikeri histrionics and sheer theatrics, President Buhari and the APC successfully completed their disdain for, mockery and denigration of Nigerians and our hard-earned democracy.
Buhari and the APC must tell us where they hope that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, whose present annual salary is #12.126 million as recommended by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission set up under section 32(d) of part 1 of the third schedule to the 1999 Constitution, will Obtain 100 million from when he would require 99 months (eight years and three months) to earn the #100 million price for the nomination form. It will take President Buhari himself whose salary is #14.05m 84 months (7 years) to get #100m. They must explain to Nigerians where aspirants like Dr Chris Ngige and Rotimi Amaechi who are ministers with an annual salary of #2, 026, 400 (#168,867 per month) will get 100 million for a presidential form, when it will take them nearly 50 years to earn #100 million. Let Buhari and the APC explain to Nigerians how Kayode Fayemi (Ondo State Governor), Yahaya Bello (Kogi State Governor), David Umahi (Ebonyi State Governor) and Rochas Okorocha (ex-Imo State Governor), whose salary per annum is #2, 223, 705, will cough up #100 million when it will take each of them 45 years to earn #100 million. Where will non-wealthy members of the APC, like Gbenga Hashim Olawepo get such money from?
This APC party and President Buhari must tell Nigerians where Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and former Senate President Dr Ken Nnamani would fetch #100m from, when their salary as Senators was and is #750,000 per month (aside from humongous allowances). It would take Kalu and Nnamani 135 years to earn 100 million. In the final analysis, APC is probably zeroing in on Orji Uzor only a few presidential candidates in the persons of billionaires like Kalu and Bola Tinubu. The Director-General of Tinubu’s Support Organization (TSO), Kebbi-born Aminu Suleiman, has already signed a cheque for the #100 million. To them, it is “chicken change”. Nigeria is haemorrhaging badly. It is just like the case when Rome was on fire while Nero fiddled away.   
The price tag of #100 million has obviously conscripted the political space, marginalized, emasculated, and excluded the youths and women from the APC political space. Yet, this is the critical segment of the society that ought to enjoy inclusiveness and a liberalised political space to ensure their full participation in politics and engagement in the national conversation.
Where is the place of the “Not-too-young-to-run” policy signed into an Act of Parliament by Buhari on May 31, 2018? The APC’s mockery of democracy has certainly thrown up nothing but money-baggism, godfatherism and crass opportunism by those who have captured the State and our commonwealth.
I now frontally challenge any of the aspirants who will purchase these forms, to show us the source of the fund and also publicly display their tax returns in the last three years.    
The APC’s Shylock’s “pound of flesh” extortionist #100 million levy is politically insensitive to the already vanquished Nigerians, having regard to the present grinding poverty, unending insecurity, unabated corruption, melancholy, disorientation, hunger, thirst, pains, pangs, blood, hopelessness and haplessness, with which the party has afflicted Nigeria and Nigerians in the last 7 years. Nigeria has never found herself in such battered and tattered doldrums since Lord Lugard forcefully amalgamated the disparate enclaves of Northern and Southern protectorates on January 1, 1914, to found the contraption called Nigeria. 
The exorbitant sum of #100 million is a direct invitation to bare-faced thievery and political brigandage when these aspirants eventually win elections and emerge leaders. The price tag constitutes direct and brazen discrimination against other pauperized Nigerian members of the APC party, especially the youths and women, contrary to section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, which provides that “participation by the people in their government shall be ensured in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”. It is also provided that “the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice” (section 14(1) of the Constitution).
While “the state social order is founded on ideals of freedom, equality and justice” (section 17(1) of the Constitution); section 42(1) prohibits a citizen of Nigeria from being discriminated against on the basis of sex, community, ethnic group, place of origin, religion or opinion. This is precisely what the APC has done to the youths, women and disabled members of the party. This is more so because the Constitution does not permit independent candidacy. Members of the APC, except the select deep pockets, money bags and nouveau rich, are automatically cut off from the party’s various elective offices.
The problem with the tune, tone and template now set by the APC is that politics has become the exclusive preserve of the high, mighty and wealthy members of the society; and not for the poor. This has devalued democracy and institutional morals. The APC is now rabidly promoting plutocracy (government of the wealthy); gerontocracy (government of the oldest members of the society); and oligarchy (government of a select few). 
If President Buhari and the APC are genuinely interested in widening and deepening the political space, they should immediately call for a NEC and NWC meeting of the APC to rescind and cancel this obnoxious policy of deliberate exclusion of critical segments of their ruling party. It is a policy that is only fit for the national museum of monuments and artefacts.

Source saharareporters