SOCIAL MEDIA BITS

SOCIAL MEDIA BITS

Last week, President Buhari headed to Japan, Akinwunmi Adeshina stole the show, and Akinwunmi Ambode felt the heat…
Last week’s edition of Social Media Bits ended with the prediction that we hadn’t heard the last of immediate past Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode’s travails. Penultimate week, his Epe residence was raided by officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t seem to find week. But Ambode can’t breathe easy.

Last week, it was the turn of the Lagos State House of Assembly to put the heat on Ambode. It set up a committee to probe the purchase of 820 out of 5,000 buses proposed by the ex-governor for mass transit. The lawmakers had originally objected to the idea of buying the buses. Figures in the region of N46 billion are being mentioned. The noose is tightening and one wonders who’s going to save Ambode.
Meanwhile another Akinwunmi was the star of Nigeria’s social media space last week after pictures of him hobnobbing with global leaders at the G7 summit in France surfaced.

The former Minister of Agriculture and current president of the African Development Bank has been touted as the kind of leader Nigeria needs. Just goes to show the power of optics. And social media.
It coincided with President Muhammadu Buhari’s trip to Japan for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development. Many opined that President Buhari headed the wrong meeting, especially as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in France for the G7 meeting.

Not to worry, Abe returned to Japan for the TICAD. Adeshina too, who took more pictures, this time with Buhari.
Still on the subject of global politics, the United States announced last week that it would be increasing visa fees for Nigerians as a reciprocal measure because Americans were paying more to obtain Nigerian visas than the other way round. It took just one day for the Nigerian government to respond by reducing fees for Americans. The speed is commendable and it sure helps when you have a minister to take decisions.

Still on reciprocity, it has been suggested on social media d that Nigeria starts insisting on travellers from Europe being inoculated for measles after indications that cases are surging with the disease no longer considered eliminated in the UK, Greece, the Czech Republic and Albania.

Nigerians usually have to show proof of being vaccinated against yellow fever before being allowed to many countries, so tit for tat?
However, a much bigger threat spreading fast with no antidote in sight is the plague of kidnapping which is now a regular occurrence. The security forces are at their wits’ end and even when stories of successful rescue of the kidnapped surface, they end up being false as was the recent case in Kaduna.

The families of three law students of the Ahmadu Bello University had to debunk the false claim that they were rescued by the police. They had to negotiated and pay a ransom, they confirmed. Which, unfortunately, is the new normal as even the Police do the same.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly seems to have held the nation hostage as they keep getting away allocating resources to themselves as they deem fit.

It is no secret that what should be a lawmaking body primarily, is just another (one of the most profitable, we should add) avenue to live fat off the commonwealth with little to show.
BudgIT has been asking questions and we all need to demand accountability from the National Assembly, no matter how futile a task it may seem.

Questions should also be asked of President Buhari following reports that his Minister of Defence retired Major General Bashir Magashi was once caught in a corruption scandal involving deals worth $550,00 (about N200million -at N362 to a dollar) but was let off the hook after negotiating to forfeit part of his loot to the state.

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