I've heard back from CNN International that confirms that World One with Fionnuala Sweeney will disappear from its 9pm timeslot on CNN International's schedule from 18 January. World One had its debut in September 2009, but CNN International has now decided to move the Piers Morgan talk show into the timeslot that World One has occupied for almost the past year and a half.
A new hour long World One broadcast at 11pm (Nigerian time) will debut at the end of the day on 17 January, which will be anchored by Zain Verjee and Monita Rajpal from London. Meanwhile World Sport and one of CNN International's regular feature shows will be moved to the new open 12noon timeslot where Larry King Live used to be.
I just watched the coverage on CNN now and the reporter - Finuola Sweeney sounded as if the govt's intention of investing the proceeds in infrastructural development is being mis-understood. She CLEARLY failed to point out that Nigerians are basically angry because the govt is among the most corrupt in the world and Nigerians are 100% certain that the proceeds from this action will be stolen by a mere handful of individuals.
ReplyDeleteApart from that, this is not the first time the govt claims its removing the subsidy, this has been done at least 4 times in the past 10 years, and rather than having any improvement in govt services, it has continued to worsen. The govt keeps wasting huge amount of resources on pampering political office holders, the NASS (Parliament) members earn stupendous income & they continue to inflate budget every year to get more, while Nigerians hardly have electricity for up to 2 hours a day, roads are mere death traps, individuals have to provide their own bore-holes to supply water to their homes, small scale businesses rely on generators for which they need to buy fuel, there is absolute zero social welfare program in the country, youth unemployment is among the highest in the world while the country is the biggest oil producer in Africa and one of the biggest exporters of crude oil in the world.
Since the late 1950s, Nigeria has produced $280 billion in crude oil revenue since the discovery of reserves at Oloibiri, in the Niger Delta area, but the average Nigerian is no further away from poverty now than four decades ago (Alesina, et. al, 2003). In the four decades between 1970 and 2008, Nigeria lost $240.7 billion through illegal transfers of funds abroad, topping the infamous list of African countries that lost a total of $854 billion in the same manner, within the same period (Global Financial Integrity (GFI), 2011). The authors averred that this is a conservative estimate. Also, according to the GFI (2011), Nigeria ranks among the ten countries with the largest cumulative illicit outflows during 2000-2008.
I don't think these international news organizations understand our situation and concern. We have to put our destiny in our hands and chase these politicians away.
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