The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Maximum vs. minimum wage? Loot; Blood; LGAs; Flood

    Maximum vs. minimum wage? Loot; Blood; LGAs; Flood

    Maximum vs minimum wage is a disparity struggle deliberately inflamed by thoughtless political selfishness and greed. When politicians fuelled their highly inflationary and corruption-prone rocket-propelled maximum salaries and irresponsibly large perks, they had no thought or compassion for the N18,000 per month minimum wage Citizen Common Man. Most states refused to pay the ‘new’ N30,000 minimum wage. They lacked understanding of the subsequent explosive impact on the economy of the huge disparities they introduced in their greed-over-need approach to self-gratification while in office.

    It was a political party which sold presidential nomination forms for N100 million and the following month, kidnappers began to demand N100 million to release their victims. Get the connection? National Assembly, NASS buys jeeps worth N160m while we have 20million children out of school and those maybe 30m in terribly backward poor non-child-friendly school environments lacking qualified teachers and textbooks. In the Nigeria-of-the-N160m-jeep, we have a criminally high maternal mortality rate and five million IDPs living in unbearable conditions. Nigeria is at war with terrorists, bandits and kidnappers. Only three bold NASS members rejecting the jeeps. Will they be ostracised by ‘CLUB NASS’? What will happen to their already bought jeeps? 

    EFCC returns $22,000 to the FBI after conviction of an internet fraudster is a good sign of cooperation between local and international anti-financial and security crimes investigation agencies. Hopefully, the just ended 14th Commonwealth Anti-corruption Conference in Ghana, hosting the heads of all anti-corruption agencies in the Commonwealth and beyond will yield results.

    Read Also: Nigeria debuts at 18th African Sambo Championships in Egypt

    What we want to know in Nigeria is where did and where do all the seized assets in Nigeria go? What actually happens to all the local seized assets in billions of money in several currencies and even international bank account seizures? What is the fate of all the expensive jewellery, land, landed property, buildings, shares, businesses and vehicles seized?

    What happens to the money imposed as fines in court cases or returned after plea bargaining?

    We are defective at record keeping and preservation of documents and material. Nigeria requires miles of shelving for clean and tidy safekeeping of retrievable recovered items index lists and contents.

    Yes, there is an ecosystem of Registered Auctioneers unknown to most people. It is at auctions that items are sold to the highest bidder, to prevent fraud and bring maximum profit. What happens to the money raised at auction? Telling us about Abacha loot returned is important but there is the need for public information on the numerous cases of loot recovery with cases of N400m, N1-100billion stolen. Secrecy creates corruption.

    If the British Medical System during the 1970s could give blood untested for Hepatitis C and HIV to many thousands resulting later in Hepatitis and HIV infections, imagine the impact of untested blood on Nigerian lives. I remember raising an alarm in the 1980s when we began testing blood for HIV without screening for hepatitis. All fell on deaf ears.

    In medicine we see patients with liver cirrhosis these days in their 30s and 40s. Many of them admit to long periods of taking traditional medicine, agbo, but it is possible that they were given then ‘life saving’ blood transfusions as infants and children. Was that blood tested for hepatitis C or HIV? We must ask our blood transfusion departments nationwide if they are adequately funded by our usually short sighted and greed driven politicians to give safe blood tested for Hepatitis B, C and HIV etc.?      

    The ongoing battle for the elevation of the LGAs to autonomous, as dreamed of by most Nigerians out of government, is essential for grassroots development. LGA elections are being moved to INEC. Caretaker LGAs must become anathema. The requirement for funds due the LGA to be in State/LGA ‘Joint Account’ is wrong. Until LGAs are politically and financially free, there will continue to be neglect at the LGA levels and theft by governors. 

    The world weather is changing. Floods, drought, snow, sun, dry and rainy seasons, all unseasonal and unpredictable in quality and quantity. In Nigeria in the 70s, I wrote a story of a massive flood in Lagos. I also wrote a story during my NYSC in Jos and Lafia in the then Plateau State in 1975-6 about a massive snowfall in Jos. Both stories never saw the light of day. Too farfetched and too doomsday, I was told. 

    Well today, Lagos, my home state, sadly along with 20+ other states, has been weather-warned to expect major floods. And snow will come to Nigeria again as it did before. Flooding is common in low-lying Lagos with lots of higher reclaimed land blocking historical existing drainage. The future for Lagos is not bright especially with rising sea levels and the floods worldwide.

    To manage flooding in Lagos, there is an aggressive government effort to reclaim from ‘illegal builders’ the ‘right of waterways/drainage’. Long neglected clogged canals are being cleared of refuse and plant growths. Waste collection must be stepped up, especially in poorer areas, before it is wrongly thrown into the gutters at the first rains, further blocking them. CLEARING DRAINAGE CANALS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY SUSTAINED PREVENTIVE NATIONWIDE REFUSE COLLECTION ESPECIALLY IN MARKETS AND POOR AREAS.

    We want to see Ministry of Works engineers and staff in raincoats and Wellingtons boots out in the rains studying and monitoring the flooded roads nationwide, mapping drainage, runoffs and post rainstorm strategies. And after the floods prepare for another heatwave!

  • The long walk to 2027

    The long walk to 2027

    The 2023 electoral cycle is the one that never ended. Even after the Supreme Court dismissed the cases brought before it by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party’s (LP), Peter Obi, it was clear that for the two men, there was no closure.

    They never accepted defeat, never congratulated the winner President Bola Tinubu, and showed by their reaction to final judicial defeat that they were ready to relitigate the matter – this time in the court of public opinion.

    Standard behavior – even in politics – accepts that there’s time for everything; a time to campaign, a time to govern. The changing of times is usually marked by the termination of legal hostilities at the apex court. But in an age where denialism has become reality, nothing is the same.

    The only outcome that would have been acceptable to either Atiku or Obi was one in which they were declared winners. Since it is impossible to have three winners on one contest, they have grudgingly accepted the fact that there’s a president sitting in Aso Rock, while they are skulking around in the opposition wilderness. This is just a restless, holding position.

    Everything they have done since points to the fact that they are warming up for a repeat of a contest that is at least three years away. Take Obi for example. While his performance at the polls last year surprised many by its reach into largely Christian areas of North-Central, it also exposed the weaknesses of his presentation and how his candidacy was perceived.

    He would have loved to be seen as a pan-Nigerian figure whose message resonated with a younger demographic, but the lopsided results in the Southeast made him out to be an ethnic project. His performance in the Southwest was anaemic – with the exception of Lagos where a complex mix of religion and ethnicity delivered a famous win for him in the presidential poll.

    By choosing the same-faith ticket, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Tinubu, opened the window for his rivals to weaponise religion. While Atiku attacked the ticket will all the gusto he could muster, it was Obi who really made a meal of it. He traipsed through mega churches the length and breadth of the South with the rallying cry ‘Christians, take back your country!’ Such exhortations were often greeted with exuberant cheers.

    His determined attempt to cement himself as the Christian candidate in an environment where the Muslim-Muslim ticket had been demonised would end in a scandal after his fawning ‘yes daddy’ phone conversation with Pentecostal grandee, Bishop David Oyedepo, was leaked.

    While he was pursuing the strategy of locking up the Christian vote North and South, he forgot the downside of being seen as anti the other side of the religious divide. It was no surprise therefore that the LP flagbearer made only the most perfunctory of attempts to canvass votes in the far North. It was a factor that would deny him the national spread required to win the presidency.

    It is clear the man recognises the mistakes made and has been taking baby steps to remedy them. For instance, the same person who wanted Christians to take back their country one year ago, was sighted in a couple of gatherings during Ramadan breaking fast with Muslims.

    Social media was also agog with images of a poorly executed borehole project bearing his name somewhere in Zaria. Many were quick to conclude he was was rebranding ahead 2027. Such were the extremes to which he went in 2023 that he would need more than these photo-ops and posturing to reverse the damage.

    As for Atiku, he has never hidden the fact that for as long as he has breath, he would pursue his dream of becoming president. So, next stop, 2027. But with the former Vice President there’s been noticeable change. Gone is some of the arrogance that misled him into thinking he could win the last election without the support of the Nyesom Wike-led G-5 rump of the PDP.

    The same man who preferred to hang on to the questionable electoral asset called Iyorchia Ayu rather than work with five state governors, is today feverishly marketing a grand coalition of opposition parties as the only way of toppling the ruling party at the next election. For inspiration, he points to the victory of the 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye at the recent Senegalese presidential poll as evidence of what’s possible when parties work together.

    Read Also: Tinubu devoted to interfaith unity, religious freedom — Shettima

    It can be taken for granted that all things being equal, the incumbent will run again. At least he made that obvious when at the inauguration of Lagos Red Line rail project in February, he taunted Joe Ajaero and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to wait until 2027 if they were interested in political power.

    The trouble for Tinubu’s rivals is that while the next elections represent a window of opportunity for those who wish to supplant an officeholder with a record, they would be reduced in that time to merely carping on the sidelines watching the president wield power.

    They may wish he stumbles from error to error – providing them with ammunition to attack his record. But the reverse is also possible; that he could go from win to win – becoming more presidential as the days go by. Critically, he’s taken some pivotal and very unpopular steps early in his tenure, giving him sufficient time to ride out any negative blowback. Early signs point to the fact that fuel subsidy removal and the forex reforms were the right calls needed to unlock the economy.

    Given what we know about the evolution of political power in these parts, it’s going to take more than opposition name-calling to bring about regime change at the next election – especially if the pace of reforms is sustained and the economy rebounds and becomes stronger. PDP, LP and others would then have to make a compelling case as to why voters should dump a tried and tested model for a pie in the sky.

    In the days when the British Tory Party seemed to have a lock on power, going from one electoral triumph to another, it was a young Tony Blair who warned his comrades in the then far left-leaning British Labour Party about the need to develop policies and an image that would make them electable. He argued that no matter how well-meaning a party’s policies were, they could do nothing about them except they found a way to get into power. He would then push Labour to be more centrist and eventually electable.

    At least the Labour Party was not just a cohesive platform, it was perceived by British voters as a credible alternative to the Conservatives. Today, the PDP which in its days in power appeared invincible and even dreamt of governing non-stop for 60 years, is on the ropes – riven with factions. This week it would hold crucial meetings that would affect its future. It is a measure of how much confidence Atiku has in it that he’s desperately marketing a joining of forces with other parties.

    The same affliction has paralysed the Labour Party which is locked in an internecine feud with NLC which claims to own it. Such is the bitterness of the dispute that it promises to be long drawn – rendering it largely useless to anyone hoping to ride it to power.

    Perhaps, the most credible challenge to APC rule lies in an opposition coalition. But its prospects are dead on arrival because of the ambitions of the would be promoters and partners. The day Atiku sacrifices his ambition for Obi or the NNPP’s Rabiu Kwankwaso or vice versa, is the day to begin to take such a project serious. Until then, any visions of power these perennial contestants may be having are nothing short of a mirage.

    •First published on April 17

  • Assessing Tinubu’s first year in office

    Assessing Tinubu’s first year in office

    In a piece published below my column on the back page of The Nation newspaper on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, titled Tinubu propelling Nigeria towards renewal, the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, outlined five key foundations or “core principles” underpinning the renewed hope agenda and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s leadership vision in order to make it easier for assessors of his one year in office to be able to connect the dots between his vision and its outcomes, both short-term and long-term. He prefaced the principles with Tinubu’s corporate background and exemplary achievements as a two-term Governor of Lagos state.

    The five principles cover (1) policies and actions that will attract long-term local and foreign investments to Nigeria, including rebuilding the credibility and capacity of the Central Bank and a robust tax infrastructure to lesson the burden on businesses; (2) policies involving difficult decisions, such as the removal of fuel subsidy and multiple exchange rates, always bearing in mind that such decisions would cause temporary pain and taking measures to assuage those pains; (3) policies and programmes that will provide targeted relief and benefits by way of grants, education loans, consumer credit, cash transfers, food and fertiliser distribution, and so on; (4) the need to make necessary adjustments to policies, programmes and decisions, where necessary, in order to accommodate public response—we saw this in the adjustments to the palliative and Student Loan programmes; and (5) the need to establish a robust communication network in order to keep Nigerians abreast of the policies, decisions, and programmes being made on their behalf; hence, the formation of a pioneering National Communications Team.

     Without any intention of discouraging the Minister, I hope he knows that his rather nuanced analysis is not likely to influence assessors of the President’s one year in office, which comes up in a week’s time. As a matter of fact, none of the assessments already published or discussed on radio and television has taken cognizance of the Ministers brief. But why is this so?

    There are three major reasons. First, many politicians and pundits hardly read newspapers, and even if they do, many of those who would assess the President are not likely to read the Minister’s piece. Of those who are likely to read it, many may not recognize its import as they might even not have read the Renewed Hope Agenda, being the President’s manifesto during the campaigns.

    Nigerians’ non-reading culture is widespread, even among the highly educated. I recall devoting one of my columns to the inaugural lecture of a Professor in one of our universities. Another Professor casually asked on the floor of the University Senate if anyone had read the article the previous week, which brought the university to global limelight. Only three others put up their hands. One of them was the Professor, whose inaugural lecture was highlighted in the article. Without prompting, he confessed that it was another Professor in another university, who alerted him to the article! But that is a subject for another day.

    Second, most assessors have made up their mind, based on partisan, ethnic, and religious biases as well as personal vendettas. Against this backdrop, Tinubu should expect acerbic criticisms, bordering on condemnation, by politicians of the opposition parties, especially the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party, their ardent supporters (especially on social media) and pundits fronting for them. Besides, there are newspapers and their editorials as well as TV stations, which have hardly seen anything acceptable to them in the Tinubu administration. This group of assessors has hardly grown out of the bitterness of electoral loss. Besides, as the politicians begin their spadework for 2027, they are not likely to see anything good coming out of Abuja.

    Read Also: LP crisis: Obi shuns NLC, endorses Julius Abure-led NWC

    Third, most members of the ruling All Progressives Congress as well as supporters and friends of the President are not likely to find fault with his policies, programmes, decisions, and actions, at least not in the public square.

    Apart from these three groups, however, there are assessors, who would look at Tinubu’s policies, programmes, and projects dispassionately, and assess their short-term and possible long-term impacts. This group will include economists, financial institutions, such as Goldman Sacks, and international bodies, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These are professional assessors, who would look at all the facts before reaching a conclusion.

    In assessing Tinubu’s one year anniversary, one set of data worth looking at critically is the financial situation of the country, when Tinubu took office in May 2023. Everything had gone downhill. The Central Bank was in a big mess. There were multiple exchange rates for different categories of customers. Banks were hoarding dollars and selling them at high profits. There was palpable dissonance between monetary and financial policies. The nation was deeply in debt. Fuel subsidy was already technically removed as it was not in the budget as from June 2023, leaving Tinubu with no option than to announce its removal on taking office. While it was in vogue, fuel subsidy was a potent instrument of corruption and a cash cow for only a tiny segment of the population. Its removal allowed the general population to benefit from the subsidy fund by adding it to state allocations. Unfortunately, state Governors have not lived up to expectations in adding the value of the additional fund to the dividends of democracy in their states.

    The above notwithstanding, it is now getting late in the day for Tinubu to blame his inheritance. According to Bill Gates, “If you are born poor, it’s not your mistake, but if you die poor, it’s your mistake”. In governance parlance, the buck stops on the President’s desk.

    To complicate the President’s poor inheritance problem, many citizens are still hurting from the economic effects of the President’s policies, some of which are inevitable, as indicated above. Nevertheless, none of these factors should impede a thorough assessment of the President’s effort so far.

    A meta-analysis of the assessments will be undertaken next week.

  • Ngelale: Nigeria’s Climate Action Man?

    Ngelale: Nigeria’s Climate Action Man?

    Ajuri Ngelale as special envoy on Climate Action is a right man for the job. Although he is also regarded as the widely acclaimed right man for his other job- chief explainer of Nigerian government policy – some ask: ‘With all its university first classes and environmental NGO activity in the shadow of Ken Saro Wiwa, is Nigeria so bereft of climate action talent that it could not find another  environmentally savvy  man or preferable woman?’.

    Nigeria does not need, and morally speaking, cannot afford, to give a well-paid and influential second job to one good man when first jobs are denied needy families requiring a good working breadwinner. Presidential conundrum?

    Regardless, Ajuri rose to fame riding the climate action media meteor and it may be fair that he tries to bring his climate action and media passion to serve Nigeria and the presidency bedevilled with lobbying protagonists of ‘Oil Forever Or Till The World Ends Or Till The Oil Runs Out- WHICHEVER COMES FIRST!’

    Ajuri faces huge resistance in an oil thirsty country with such a politically paralysed, incompetent and corruption driven  poor electricity grid, 5Mw vs 100Mw required for 160m + cynical citizens after 63 years of independence during which almost every roof hides generators, petrol or diesel, in the ‘The Century of Hydrocarbon-isation of Electric Power’. Of course, there is a small but growing solar power component to help provide 24-hour power.

    Pls. add the disaster around ‘The Toxic Plasticisation Of The World’ involving every drain and rubbish dump in Nigeria, from table, kitchens, offices, playgrounds and every meal and requiring recycling and banning of single use plastic.

    Please add the need for mass production of pipe-borne water and running taps, to stop the ‘Pure Water Epidemic’ and definitely not individualised pure water bags to provide potable water.  Recycling plants for all types of plastics is required. Even tyres should be recycled by law and not burnt. All these require massive National Orientation Agency, NOA educational programs and coverage.

    Overall, there is need for the new envoy to explore and promote a multi-pronged approach to achieve environmentally friendly successes.

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    NIGERIAN SOLAR/ GREEN ENERGY   RESEARCH:  Request more Solar Research Projects in Nigeria funded by TETFUND.

    ENCOURAGE BEST QUALITY SOLAR FACTORY INFRASTRUCTURE: Invitation to several, not a monopolistic one, cutting edge foreign solar panel and battery production factories by companies to set up in Nigeria to fill the gap between power need and the weak hydrocarbon electric power grid gap and need.

    A SOLAR LOAN SCHEME: A generator-to-solar incentivised N50-100b Revolving Solar Equipment Conversion Loan Scheme. Bank of Industry or other bank run, 5-10 years loans, minimum-single digit interest with no money paid to clients but direct to contractors repeatedly vetted by ICPC, EFCC and Forensic accounting agency. This exists in many countries. 

    RESTORING/REVAMPING WATER PROJECTS FOR TAP DELIVERED POTABLE WATER in all cities and towns to cut out bottled and plastic bag -pure water pollution.

    Compulsorily URGENTLY CREATE   TEACH CLIMATE ACTION CURRICULUM with university created wall charts to every child and youth in all schools, primary and secondary, and all tertiary institutions and universities as part of General Paper. No exceptions and for every course.

    Study, revive and broaden existing climate action projects fulfilling many SDGs particularly the ‘T.R.E.E INITIATIVE’ – ‘The Rural Environmental Empowerment Initiative’ aimed at planting 10m trees by 2025 with its component ‘ONE STUDENT ONE TREE PROJECT [OSOTP] of LAUTECH’s GROWING GREEN INITIATIVES; National SHEA TREE RESTORATION ADVOCACY PROGRAM, NSTRAP [2019-2025, and LOCAL COMMUNITIES TREE PLANTING PROGRAM, LCTP -domesticated to every  POLITICAL WARD need leadership and direction. Is Ajuri Ngelale up to the task? Yes, we pray so. 

    Ngelale has a lot on his climate action plate. He does not have to reinvent the wheel on climate action. Nigeria has an army of climate action activists in need of more than voice. They need to be listened to by an action government instead of shouting themselves hoarse against various government and private sector SDG and environmental transgressors damaging the planet. There is a long road from chic environmental sloganism to climate action. However, only the federal government can direct and fund an education media blitz recruiting some well-paid Nollywood stars to sing and act in the media around slogans like Reuse, Repair, Recycle etc.

    Will he deliver or wisely delegate the research and methodology to achieve maximally? Nigeria is sadly in a hurry in the wrong direction towards climate inaction and self-destruction with policy summersaults, poor implementation and zero use of a comatose, perhaps underfunded, moribund unresponsive NOA. In many countries throwing litter on the ground is anathema. In Nigeria it is the norm and good behaviour is the exception for even VIPs can be seen dropping water bottles and sweet wrapping on the floor or ground at functions or in class and lecture rooms expecting someone else to come and remove the litter that should not have been created in the first place. Disgraceful. Of course, it a job for parents, teachers and then governments and NOA.

    Can Ajuri put the brakes on and even reverse our misfortune  before our CINS, Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence and Selfishness combined with NASS indecisive environmental inaction condemn us to become Climate Action Orphans or Climate  Action Pariah or [irresponsible] Climate Action Trumpites or Climate Action  Refuseniks-Rejectionists?

    We pray, for the children of Nigeria’s sake, that Aguri Ngelale succeeds in bringing environmental change, bottom- up.

  • NNPC forensics; Cybercrime levy; Harry’s message   

    NNPC forensics; Cybercrime levy; Harry’s message   

    Nigeria suffers a nationwide fuel shortage. Only the Nigerian Institute of Social Research and Social Studies Departments in universities can calculate the cost to business, communities and citizens of the trillions of hours and naira lost to the 160+m [are we really  200m+?] Nigerian citizens. Just think about it and multiply it for   hours, business, appointments, study time, work time, travel time, loses, power cuts, and losses of opportunities, perishable farm foods and closed businesses unable to obtain fuel.

    NNPC is being called out once again to defend its role as umpire and main fuel supply chain actor including strategic reserves to combat the extreme shortages Fellow Nigerians are suffering three weeks.

    Nigerians urge the Presidency to initiate three investigations into its finances and structure.

    The first NNPC investigation should be a forensic audit, perhaps by the same body which did the CBN investigation. This will bring the NNPC quickly in line with the administration’s clean-up in CBN. This investigation will send a serious message to Nigerians and encourage the SERAP, Legit, EFCC and ICPC-led anticorruption drive. NNPC Ltd is the largest corporate body in Nigeria and handles the current life blood of Fellow Nigerians financial survival in naira and dollar inflows and costs.  Sadly, the NNPC Ltd needs a forensic inquisition to make its management and staff less prone to corrupt practices.

    The second NNPC Ltd investigation required is the administration efficiency investigation. If failures in the NNPC’s fuel supply chain are to be stopped, then the whole structure requires an administrative audit. This will be to identify the bottle necks to the latest spectacular failure in service delivery. Such an NNPC administrative audit will explore the human action failures, the emails and phone calls timelines, who was sitting on their hands waiting for gratification instead of signing off on procurement and delivery confirmation protocols timely and as-and-when-due and who always delay decisions to demonstrate the power of an office or for gratification.  This urgently needed NNPC Ltd administrative audit is justified and overdue for both commercial and service delivery credibility and to restore confidence in the NNPC Ltd.      

    The third investigation is a federal character audit. NNPC Ltd stands accused, with justification, of having serious ethnic bias, and not in any way favouring the states, victims of environmental disasters, which deliver the oil lion’s share. Nigerians demand representation in NNPC Ltd.     

    Read Also: Electricity tariff: Don’t derail plans in power sector, FG begs Labour

    Cybersecurity deductions for the security of the secrets, databases and operational IT of government and its  MDAs has always been and should remain the responsibility of the government through budget line items with cybercrime running costs budget, simple.

    Cybersecurity deductions for the business community secrets and databases  should be  squarely in the hands of budget line item of  businesses, be they banks, financial institutions, corporations and even kiosk databases and library and private hospital and school databases.

    Why should cybersecurity require a new tax? Is this another giant fiscal scam in the making in which office holders will be tempted by trillions to spend unaccountably as the workings of the NSA office are secret. Imagine giving NSA ‘free money’. Yes, the circular mentions big organisations which will pay the money to make up the tax but those organisations will turn on the client citizens and extract the funds somehow. The bottom line is that this is a new additional and unnecessary ridiculous camouflaged charge on citizens!  As pointed out by Baba Yusuf, there are four layers of taxes – federal, state, LGA, bandits/kidnapper and please add for non-bandit areas, the area boys, parking boys and those seeking funds at every gate of every function, etc.

    The history of ‘Funds’, Pension, Police, Education  etc. leave a bad taste  in  management and value questions with poor accountability and little value for the huge funds disbursed. Nigerians are reeling from TETFUND revelations as ‘Funds’ allow the few to freely spend our money. Most of the previous ‘Funds’ have never met the much boasted about goals and the consequent expectations of the citizenry, even though the expectations of the often corruption and greed driven creators of such ‘Funds’ ideas may have been met. Nigeria has a way of turning every, even good golden, idea into dust.

    Nigerians already pay transfer charges, COT/FGN Electronic Money Transfer Levy and other charges

    Some were introduced at the whim of the then CBN governor and collaborators in the banks. 

    The visit of Prince Harry, founder of the INVICTUS GAMES and Meghan has the silent message emphasising the plight of many and the amazing performance of some of our injured armed forces personnel in mental recovery and sports and work-related activities. Congratulations to the armed forces and organisations, NGOs and sports bodies. But many more hands must come on deck – like BIG BROTHER, Corporate Nigeria Nollywood and the media. The federal, state and LGAs as well as Corporate Nigeria, not only in Abuja but at state, LGA and ward level must participate in honouring supporting injured officers and men. They have less than 10% of needed mobility equipment, prostheses, wheelchairs, jerseys, kit and equipment for sporting, work support and travel assistance for local and international opportunities.

    Harry and Meghan’s silent exemplary message to Nigeria’s political and financial leadership is to increase our government and private sector budgets and activities and services for empowerment, recreation and rehabilitation of injured armed forces and all challenged persons.

  • Mutually assured destruction in Rivers

    Mutually assured destruction in Rivers

    The gladiators in River State’s political slugfest crossed the Rubicon long ago: all their recent actions only confirm the fact. People say there are no permanent foes in politics – not in this South-South state.

    Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, on a visit to the state at the weekend, told a gathering that making Siminalayi Fubara governor was a mistake he would correct at the right time. A day after, his embattled successor who, interestingly was Accountant General in that period, declared he would probe all eight years of the Wike administration. It was an ominous step which carried the unstated threat that he knew where financial bodies were buried.

    Just yesterday while touring some projects he lamented the debt burden on the state caused by Wike’s projects. As he reeled off the figures of outstanding liabilities he said much as he loath to do so, he had to speak out ‘so the blowing wind will expose the fowl’s bottom.’

    The probe and the sudden disclosures are therefore not so much about accountability, but dragging a preening opponent into a mud bath.

    Interestingly, in May 2022 the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared Fubara and three other officials of the state government wanted for alleged criminal conspiracy, money laundering and misappropriation of N117 billion.

    Can the probe threat then be said to akin to being a judge in one’s own case, or should we see it as a manifestation of the Samson complex – pulling the entire structure down on everyone?

    No matter the motivation the move is understandable. Over the years governors have been known to use such probes to fight their rivals or estranged godfathers. Wike did same to Rotimi Amaechi over the metro line and other projects. Godwin Obaseki did it to Adams Oshiomhole in Edo after their falling out. In Kaduna State, the assembly is probing the financial affairs of the Nasir El-Rufai administration.

    There’s nothing novel about the feud. It’s a replay of godson trying to break free from the shackles of the benefactor. Sometimes it blows open when an overbearing godfather goes too far and tramples on the ego of his successor. Other times, it’s the case of an unwise godson not biding his time and stooping to conquer.

    We can discern how the Rivers conflict got to this point through Fubara’s statement that he would always appreciate his predecessor, but never worship any human being.

    Everyday that passes you get a sense of the growing cockiness of the Fubara camp. At the weekend one-time factional Speaker of the House of Assembly and current Chief of Staff to the governor, Edison Ehie, told a television station his boss would teach his foes a hard political lesson.

    Much of their confidence comes from the hazy legal status of the state legislature and its leadership. But equally key is the fact that governors are very powerful in Nigeria, so much so that some have become mini emperors. They dictate who gets what at state and federal levels and have the key to the treasury. Rivers is one of the most affluent states in the country and Ehie has suggested that the fight is about controlling the state’s resources.

    But as powerful as governors can be, we have also seen that they can be brought to heel. Local factors determine how these power struggles pan out, not minding how powerful the gubernatorial office is. For instance, where most governors are able to impose their successors, we saw in Delta State in 2015 where a combination of power brokers thwarted Emmanuel Uduaghan’s bid to install his anointed.

    Read Also: Electricity tariff: Don’t derail plans in power sector, FG begs Labour

    Four years later, former Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, was frustrated in his bid to impose his man. In Lagos State, Akinwumi Ambode, lost his chance to run again after the bulk of his political family rose up against his aspiration.

    So, in analysing what is likely to play out in the Wike-Fubara face-off, people shouldn’t be in a hurry to declare victory for any side. This is going to be a long drawn fight that could go to the highest court in the land. There will be collateral damage, such that whoever is left standing at the end would only have achieved pyrrhic victory.

    For starters, the Wike political family that went into the 2023 elections as one unit, is now fractured. Given the bitterness of the ongoing fight it’s hard to see how they can ever work together again. More is better than less for any structure.

    In this dispute mistakes have been made on every side. The first was the bombing of the House of Assembly following threats by lawmakers to begin impeachment of the governor. It doesn’t require clairvoyance to discern that only those opposed to what was about to be executed in the chamber may be behind it. In short order, Fubara would order the demolition of the whole complex ostensibly for renovation. The rubble became a tomb for the assembly’s records!

    It’s as if the Rivers governor’s camp has torn a page out of the playbook of Edo Governor Obaseki, during his battles with Oshiomhole. In 2020, faced with a hostile bunch of lawmakers who were still loyal to the then APC national chairman, he caused the roof of the assembly to be removed and lorry loads of sand and gravel to be dumped at the gate to facilitate ‘renovation.’

    The sudden zeal to beautify the assembly temporarily rendered the facility unusable. What followed was factionalisation of the legislators with the majority anti-Obaseki elements sent into exile, while the minority ruled the roost.

    Today, in Rivers, a farcical situation exists where three or four lawmakers are passing budgets, screening and confirming commissioners, whereas Chapter 5, Part 2, Section 91 of the constitution states that the House of Assembly would consist of between 24 and 40 members, and quorum would be one-third of that number.

    The Fubara camp sees in this context what it thinks is it’s trump camp. The constitution does provide that those who defect from the party on which they were elected would lose their position. But it goes on to give certain provisos. For instance, the defections can be justified where there is a division in the party. It also provides a role for the Speaker in the process of declaring the seats of defectors vacant.

    Flowing from this, many have accused the pro-Wike lawmakers of making an unforced error. Knowing that the courts will be ultimate arbiters in this dispute, it is important to understand how they work with evidence, not hearsay. True, there was a press conference where the legislators purportedly quit. But don’t rule out a twist.

    For instance, when a lawmaker wants to defect, he writes a letter to the presiding officer of the chamber who reads same to the whole house and proceeds to cross the carpet, as it were. His seat would then be declared vacant. Have these processes been followed in the Rivers assembly? Have the lawmakers formally resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with evidence in form of letters of resignation? Can the local party leadership confirm they have renounced membership? Have these legislators been registered and formally issued All Progressives Congress (APC) cards?

    Ultimately, the courts would determine how this conflict ends. They would rule on the legitimacy or otherwise of the Martins Amaewhule leadership or whether Victor Oko-Jumbo’s claim to the Speakership is real or fanciful. Which way the decision goes will also determine the fate of the governor and his foes.

    In January this year, Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja gave a series of rulings that effectively tied Fubara to the status quo. Among other things he nullified the N800 billion budget passed by the Ehie faction of lawmakers, declared the Amaewhule group authentic and warned Fubara not to exceed his powers.

    But just a few days ago, there was another injunction from the state High Court which barred the 25 pro-Wike lawmakers from parading themselves as members of the House of Assembly. Flowing from that the governor issued an Executive Order directing the assembly to meet in Government House. This is in direct violation of the Omotosho court order.

    The dramatis personae in the power struggle clearly have very short memory. They forget that it is in that same Rivers State that disobedience of an existing court order led to APC not having a governorship candidate at the 2019 polls.

    There’s another scenario on the table of options. This is a state which in the past was notorious for political violence such that it was branded ‘Rivers of blood.’ With the hardline positions of both sides the hope is that things don’t degenerate to violence. That would make a compelling case for presidential intervention through a state of emergency.

    Rivers is not an ordinary state. It plays host to the headquarters of many firms active in the oil production industry. If it is at war with itself there are economic implications for the country as a whole.

    Control is important but all sides need to ask themselves how far they are willing to go. The hawkish positions that have been adopted are clearly the work of persons behind scenes with their own agenda.

    Many thought the political solution sponsored by President Bola Tinubu was a recipe to calm things down and postpone the fight to another day. But the ink was barely dry on the documents before all sorts of interests began piling pressure on Fubara, arguing the deal was not only lopsided but unconstitutional and non-binding. Perhaps, due to their influence and counsel, the governor has only implemented one or two items like recalling commissioners, but steadfastly stopped short of representing the 2024 budget, or doing anything that confers legitimacy to the assembly led by his opponents.

    With the heat turned up, many are now calling for another presidential intervention. But why would Tinubu lend the prestige of his office to brokering another deal when the initial one has been observed only in breach? Respect for his office would have required that the original pact be honoured to the letter, even if for the sake of peace.

    Peace is the primary requirement for building anything. For those egging on the combatants, it is pertinent to state that those at war can never be at peace. Everyday this conflict drags on, it is entertainment for non-partisan observers, but a distraction to the main players – Wike and Fubara. But more importantly, by the time it runs it’s course, there would be damaging consequences for all sides whenever they are counting the cost of their ‘victory’.

  • Memories of my father

    Memories of my father

    As I entered my octogenarian years, I began to remember my father more and more. I searched the invisible archive in the deep recesses of my memory for reasons for the reminiscences about him. I came up with one strong reason—the close relationship he established with me when I was young and growing up. This was manifested in a variety of ways, four of which stand out and recur frequently in my memory.

    No.1. I cannot remember when the practice started but I always found myself on his shoulders on the way to and from the farm until I was about age 6 or so. I would sit on the back of his neck, with my two legs dangling on his rib cage, one on either side of his neck. He would hold me by my thighs, and I would grab his head for support. Occasionally, I would remove his cap and put it on my head. It once fell off when I dosed off and neither of us knew until we got to the farm. Fortunately, someone behind us found it and hanged it on a nearby tree stump. We found it there a few days later on our return journey. That was in the late forties, when traditional Yoruba culture still maintained its essence.

    No.2. Another memorable frequent episode was sitting on the floor between his legs at arbitration meetings. He was so popular and highly respected in the village that he was often the first choice in the settlement of family disputes. They usually came knocking before 5am in the morning before setting out for the farm. On one such occasion, one of our neighbours came to report his recalcitrant son. I recall that my father had settled the dispute when the same son sold one of his father’s cocoa farms and blew the money. On this latter occasion, he had sold his father’s Hercules bicycle, one of the most prized bicycles in those days. The man insisted this time around that he was going to drive his son out of the house, because he could no longer tolerate a troublemaker in his house. My father’s words to the man have continued to resonate with me. “Don’t drive away Troublemaker,” my father told him, “because he will be needed to confront Trouble, when Trouble comes knocking. A house without a troublemaker is an empty house.” Years later, as I reflected on my father’s words, I came to understand his admonition as a reference to the universal concept of the black eye in the family.

    No. 3. I will always remember and thank my father, first for apprenticing me to an Ifa priest to become a diviner and later for withdrawing me from the divination school to learn to read and write. His father, he later told me, was a practicing diviner, but he on his own decided not to learn divination but to become a cocoa farmer. That’s why he joined other cocoa farmers from Oke Idanre to establish Ajegunle village in the valley below in 1926. But he promised his father that his first son would be a diviner. That explains why I was apprenticed to one.

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    However, as his prowess in cocoa farming grew, he was made the treasurer of the farmers’ association, even before the Cooperative Society was established by the Western Region government. My father was intrigued by the ability of the association’s secretary to recall details of the association’s previous meeting, by deciphering some scribbles on paper, which, to my father, looked like an extension of Orunmila’s markings on opon Ifa, based on the configurations of the opele.

    By the time I was enrolled in school, my father had partially converted to Christianity, but never at the expense of Ifa. He regularly consulted his diviner between church services, although he owned a copy of the Holy Bible and the Catechism. He had heard stories about Genesis and the creation in church, and he wanted me to read the Book of Genesis to him. I was in primary school but could read and write at the time. After over 30 minutes of reading the Yoruba Bible, my father stopped me to ask if I knew which part of the Bible spoke about Oduduwa and Orunmila. All I could tell him as a small boy was that the stories in the Bible were not about Yoruba people. By the time I learned enough in anthropology classes to give him a full answer, he was already gone.

    I would later combine the experiences of Ifa and of learning to read and write, by doing my doctorate research on divination and writing my PhD dissertation on the subject. One of my defining contributions on the confluence between Ifa and literacy was an article I wrote in 1992, titled Schooling, language, and knowledge in literate and nonliterate societies, and published in the Cambridge Journal, Comparative Studies in Society and History.

    No. 4. In recent months, memories of my father became more frequent. I began to see in me what I noticed about him when last I saw him alive—getting slower at simple tasks; taking longer to finish a meal; taking more time to get in and out of a car; forgetting things once in a while; mismatching names with faces; and so on. But I keep seeing some positive similarities as well—the unending love of our children, and dedication to our calling, he to farming and I to reading and writing.

    One other thing, and this is very important. During one of our last meetings, as I was preparing to go overseas, he warned me not to make sacrifices like him for any family member or relative. Anyone who knew my father knew that any family member’s or relative’s problem was his problem. He would go all the way to render any and every possible assistance. He wanted me to have none of that. Why? I asked him. He confirmed that his diviner told him to warn me, if I wanted to have a long life.

    He died a few years later on the eve of my dissertation defense, while I was away in California. I got the news around 2:00am but told no one until after the exams that afternoon. I could not have dedicated the dissertation to no other than my father.

  • The highway by the coastline

    The highway by the coastline

    Many years ago, after driving along Highway 101, otherwise known as the Pacific Coast Highway, along the California-Washington corridor in the Western United States, I asked myself why Nigeria did not have such a highway running along our 700+ kilometers of coastline. The Pacific Coast Highway runs about 1,650 miles (about 2,655 kilometers). The Highway is known as Highway 1 to the South up to the Mexican border and Highway 101 to the North up to the Canadian border. Apart from the sea breeze and breath-taking views of the Pacific Ocean along the way, travellers get to see scenic views and visit numerous historical sites, relaxation points with eateries, and forest walk trails. The Highway and its points of attraction bring in millions of tourists and regular travellers every year and billions of dollars to the economies of the states along the route.

    I was happy when the Goodluck Jonathan administration seemed to provide a much-awaited answer to my question by initiating the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway along the Atlantic (Gulf of Guinea) corridor. The project would connect nine Southern states, namely, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, and Cross-River, exposing them to unprecedented tourism and bubbling economic activities. My hope was dashed when nothing came of it, only to be raised again when the Mohammed Buhari administration began paper and verbal work on the coastal road. As usual, nothing concrete happened. Nevertheless, that administration provided some foundation for the succeeding administration to build on.

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    It is against this background that I expected President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be congratulated for bringing the project to the limelight to the point of even commencing on its first phase. Instead, three major criticisms have surfaced, some genuine but others baseless. Questions about transparency and cost are in order but questions about procurement are red herring as adequately pointed out by the Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, an engineer of repute. The cost of the project, he argued on an Arise TV interview, was informed by costs of materials in similar road projects being handled simultaneously in other parts of the country, while skills and track record were used to award the contract to Chargoury’s Hitech Construction Company Limited, just as the Third Mainland Bridge was awarded to Julius Berger for similar reasons.

    In the manner of his Chicago certificate trip during the presidential election, the PDP candidate and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, embarked on a smear campaign against the project and even against the person of the President. Oh, he is Chargoury’s business partner, because his son, Seyi Tinubu, is on the Board of a subsidiary company, which manufactures ceramic tiles and sanitary towels. It does not matter to Atiku whether the fellow had been on the Board before his father became President.

    Perhaps the most critical question raised is about the cost of the project, especially at this time of the nation’s economic downturn. What these critics fail to realise is that it is at such times in US history that the government spends the most money, especially on infrastructure and economic bailout for banks, factories, and struggling citizens. The lessons of the Great Depression (1929-1939) may have been lost or even unknown to many Nigerian politicians today. However, those among them, who read, would have learned that President Franklin D. Roosevelt developed programs to bail out failing banks and industries as well as pass the National Labour Relations Act of 1935. Above all, the government invested in infrastructure in order to strengthen roads and bridges and thus prepare the nation for heavy loads that may come with economic recovery.

    Perhaps a better example that many Nigerian politicians may be familiar with is the Great Recession, which heralded in the Barrack Obama administration in 2008. Tinubu’s administration began in 2023 in similar circumstances, although the causes of the recession varied from one country to the other. For example, in the US, the burst in the housing bubble led to decline in the mortgage market and caused many banks to go under. However, here in Nigeria, our banks were feeding fat on consumers and even on the government, while the economy was heavily depressed. Or how does one explain trillions of Naira in profits by Nigerian banks just as the economy entered one of its worst recessions?

    What is important here, however, is the similarity in the economic recovery approaches. In the US, Obama engaged in huge infrastructure funding in order to get more people back to work, ease transportation, and create economic opportunities along the road network value chain. Besides, he invested heavily in bailing out banks and the auto industry. He also provided support for those who could not meet their mortgage obligations and paid unemployment benefits to those who were laid off at work due the recession. That was the American version of palliative.

    President Joe Biden (then Obama’s Vice President) followed the same template to aid recovery from the downturn in the economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, by paying directly to seniors on Social Security benefits and those who were laid off. He also passed a huge infrastructure bill for the same reasons Obama did.

    Here at home, President Tinubu is using a time-tested template to revive the economy. Interestingly, the stressors in the Nigerian economy are more varied and more serious than those of the US economy during Obama’s time. Here at home, we have different small fractions of the population feeding fat on the majority. Hence the need to stop fuel subsidy, harmonise the foreign exchange market, improve labour conditions, attend to the poor masses, cut back on electricity subsidy, while also working to improve electricity supply, and, above all, improve the transportation network.

    A common denominator in the recession recovery efforts mentioned above is heavy investment in road infrastructure, and that is what President Tinubu has embarked upon. He got work resumed on the East-West Road and many other highways, which some critics mischievously claimed he had abandoned. One Peter Obi, for example, advised focusing on inland roads, omitting that President Tinubu is already doing so, and criticising him for embarking on the coastal highway, without highlighting the huge advantages of such a venture. Others criticise the choice of Lagos as the starting point. Haba! Isn’t Lagos on one end of the coastline? And what better end to start than the economic hub of the nation?

    Of course, it will take years to complete the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, but it has to be started, just as the other roads President Tinubu inherited were started by previous administrations.

  • Allow kegs; JAMB 76% failure

    Allow kegs; JAMB 76% failure

    Hurray, Taraba State announces that EFCC will monitor ongoing World Bank and other projects. This is just what we have been demanding in this column for years for every single government and MDA project. Federal and other states please follow suit to save Nigeria from a new round of preventable corruption discoveries killing citizens.

     Today we must discuss the common petrol kegs in homes and shops nationwide – 25 litres, 10, 50 and even 100litres- have been used and abused by immediate resale on the black market. At every single petrol station, thousands of genuine needy keg owners line up for domestic and office use. Some bring several kegs for co-workers. Millions of genuinely needy citizens owning thirsty petrol generators powering domestic, education, reading, work and play needs.

    There is not enough electric power – just 3-7Mw meeting just 5% of Nigeria’s power needs of 70Mw. The rest is made up by toxic fume generator power.

    The tragic consequences of our 50-year power deficit include many lives lost from petrol tanker and generator explosions and fumes like the recent one in Rivers State. These losses are due to greed and incompetence related failure to plan and execute stepwise worldwide accepted increased power supply by successive governments. 

     The current law appears to empower the watchdog of petrol stations, to close stations selling into kegs. But many petrol filling stations are compelled by the circumstances outlined above, and tremendous local pressure including threats and violence and cash, to service the needy keg citizens. Unscrupulous attendants will always service the local area boys. 

    The ‘no kegs law’ is yet another asinine law punishing all the citizens for the sins of those buying to resell on the black market. Instead of enforcing the bad law, please deploy security to stations to protect keg citizens from criminal black market keg fillers.

    This is just another one of the over 100 unintended consequences of serial bad governance for which the citizens have to pay a heavy price.

    The government failure has forced every office and shop and home to own a small to large petrol generator 500cc –15KVA and kegs compulsorily and, from barber to businessman.

    Why should Nigerians again be punished for the wicked black marketers? 

    Government has created a problem that it cannot solve by the ban on keg petrol sales. 

    Fellow Nigerians should not all suffer because of petrol keg black marketers. Fellow Nigerians already have suffered multibillion naira losses from black markers in foreign exchange, government-neglected roads and corruption mis-built roads and unnecessary obstacle course queues to get seven IDs. In contrast, instead of Nigeria’s crippling 1, 3 or 5 year renewal, other countries give 10 years to life IDs saving citizens time and money and improving the sense of nationhood.

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    Shame! While the introducers should be praised, those who stood against the 10-year passport should be exposed and punished. ‘Our Mumu done do’ as Charlie Boy has said. And WE STILL DO NOT HAVE A FACE AND FINGERPRINTS DATABASE accessible by police in stations!! Yet we were taught that ‘simple things occur commonly’! Sadly, here ‘simple things are made complex and complex things made impossible’ and even worse ‘everything we touch turns to corruption and dust’ and not gold dust.  

    We celebrate and congratulate the amazing leadership of the honesty-is my- practical-and-policy’ Prof Is-haq Oloyede on the 2024 JAMB exam successfully carried out with minimum infringements and maximum credibility. We congratulate Fasesin Ayomiposi, Kunle-Olawepo Ayomikun, Aaron David   among others for scoring 355 in JAMB 2024 and the nearly 200,000 who scored more than 200. Of the 1,989,668 who registered 1,904,109 sat while 80,810 were absent due to illness, under preparation, Boko Haram and other terrorism, wrong venue and even fear of getting caught for cheating. 64,624 were under investigation. We should cry and accuse every politician when 1,402,490 i.e. 76% scored less than 200 and may require to re-sit the exam in 2025. How many of the 1,402,490 were resits?

     Passing an exam is personal brain power, teacher, school/home environment driven. If  a child was deprived of oxygen at birth, that student will not get high JAMB results. That is compromised brain power.

    2024 EMERGENCY EDUCATION STRATEGY MUST FIGHT for the JAMB AND MOCK FAILURES so they pass the next exam before they become permanent societal failures.

    The 76% failure is not a student but a government failure though it will cost the students and their families many millions in money and hours of study.

    To prevent mass failure, developed countries have a bottom-up approach to education. They pour money and very well-trained and well qualified staff into pre-school, KG and primary school realising that a solid foundation in 1-11year olds is the most important component of getting an educated workforce prepared for the future. A hallmark of developing countries is to almost totally ignore the entire education system and especially the primary part. Consequently, there are minimum or no qualifications for those putting the first ideas and words and songs into the mouths and minds of our youth. A governor in the North is said to be paying N10,000/month to primary school teachers. Contrast them with Montessori schools and other primary schools in the private sector. The world is familiar and horrified by the poor state of the Chibok School as revealed by the international media.  We have quality and quantity work to do in education.

  • Hard times are for learning

    Hard times are for learning

    There are events in the life of nations that transform them forever. While not suggesting that anything happening to Nigerians now approximates what Jews experienced during the Holocaust, after that harrowing experience they vowed ‘never again.’

    South African blacks suffered through the apartheid years and were scarred by their experiences. When Nelson Mandela got his chance to rule he rejected a new form of discrimination by the majority, choosing instead to build a ‘rainbow nation’ out of the ashes of racism.

    Nigeria had her civil war, a sufficiently traumatic event that would have changed another nation. Despite the fact that a generation that were witnesses to its grim fallout are still active in governance, they don’t appear to have learnt any lessons from it.

    Ethnic suspicion, hate, profligacy, lack of vision and extreme corruption – some factors that led to that dark chapter in our history are still alive and well today, as we try to make sense of troublous times more than half a century after the guns fell silent on the Eastern front.

    Perhaps, the excruciating nature of this season is to brand it on our psyche that as a nation we can’t continue business as usual. We have lived a lie for too long. We’ve been pampered and screened from truth about our true condition.

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    Sometime in the last ten years people were horrified when the dollar-to-naira rate breached the N200 barrier; they are shell-shocked now that the greenback is going for over N1,400. Inflation which in the last 20 years never crossed the 20% mark is almost hitting 30%. Although, that’s still a far cry from what prevailed between 1992 when the rate was 44.59% and 1995 when it reached an all-time high of 72.8% under General Sani Abacha.

    Nigeria is smack in the middle of an economic crisis and it’s a hurricane that has been brewing. It is trouble that many with insight had been predicting for years. But administrations that have come and gone chose to play ostrich, ignoring the obvious systemic distortions. This crisis wasn’t caused by the removal of fuel subsidy; that move simply blew away all pretences and exposed the tattered condition of our undergarments.

    Today, it is politically correct to lament about how people are suffering as a consequence of the double whammy of spiralling inflation and naira collapse. Everyone going on about general hardship is simply stating the obvious. Even if they say so a thousand times, it changes nothing. What is needed is the silver bullet that would bring inflation down to lower double figures and forex rates to affordable levels.

    Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes. That is the reason why the twisting and the turning by the Central Bank and all those managing the economy has not resulted in any dramatic improvement. The apex bank can do all the tweaking it wants, if there are no significant increases in dollar inflows, not much would change.

    Part of the problem with our country is living in denial, just kicking the ball down the road, hoping that magically we will emerge from the hole we’ve dug for ourselves.

    I believe that one of the first steps towards recovery is full disclosure. We need to know how bad things are so we can begin to make the necessary adjustments. For instance, Nigerians need to be reminded that up till last year, 95% of all our revenues were being spent on servicing debts!

    The World Bank’s Macro Poverty Outlook for Nigeria: April 2023 put the actual figure at 96.3%. That left less than four percent for funding government’s objectives. The report observed that while oil price booms previously supported the economy, all that changed in 2021.

    The cause for this, according to the World Bank, was macroeconomic stability weakening amidst declining oil production, costly fuel subsidies, exchange rate distortions, and monetisation of the fiscal deficit.

    Our economic reality has largely sustained by things that were not sustainable. Fuel subsidy was not sustainable and virtually everyone – from labour unions, to economists, to all the presidential candidates at the 2023 election agree it had to go.

    The exchange rate was make-believe – sustained by the CBN shelling out billions to defend it against major global currencies. While this allowed the populace to access forex at relatively affordable rates, it opened a thriving window for arbitrage that made overnight billionaires out of people with the right connections.

    The battering of the naira was collective work and we must all own it. Typically, most of those moaning delude themselves they had no hand in it. Those who were making hay round-tripping, government officials who spend billions to buy dollars for hoarding, politicians who have to be bribed to do their constitutional duties and would only receive their gratification in dollars, contributed.

    Most bureaux de change (BDCs) are owned by those who have the power to approve them and allocate forex. For years it was in their interest to sustain the system of multiple exchange rates – virtually placing their feet firmly on the neck of a prostrate naira.

    We didn’t learn much in times of prosperity. Rather than investing proceeds of the 70s oil boom on building a future, the lack of leadership vision saw us squandering petrodollars on fiestas and jamborees.

    Between 2003 and 2019, crude oil rates were at record highs, yet not much was done to wean us from our appetite for imports, or to diversify the economy. While the world was preparing for change in the use of energy with a tilt away from fossil fuels, we carried on like the windfall would last forever.

    That’s the explanation for how we went from former President Olusegun Obasanjo paying off most of Nigeria’s debts at the time of Obasanjo’s exit to where we were at Muhammadu Buhari’s departure where over 96% of national revenue was being spent on debt serving.

    That we’ve not learnt any lessons or are not inclined to was evident in the recent controversy over the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) headquarters from Abuja to Lagos. Rather than being scandalised that over N500 million was being wasted on needless travel between cities by the agency’s officials, the argument was over regional political advantage.

    For most countries dealing with rampant inflation and forex scarcity it’s like going through hell. While are our challenges may not be as grave, there are certain aspects that are reminiscent of the Greek economic crisis between 2010 and 2018.

    At the height of its troubles Greece could not borrow. The populace was confronted with several reforms and austerity measures that led to impoverishment, loss of income and property, and a humanitarian crisis of sorts.

    There was massive political upheaval leading to the fall of government after government and the flight of hundreds of thousands of well-educated Greeks out of the country – their own version of japa.

    The government introduced round after round of tax increases, spending cuts, and reforms between 2010 and 2016, which caused riots and protests nationwide. In addition to these measures, the country still needed several bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others.

    One lesson from the Greek experience is that getting this economy back to health might be a matter of years, not months. It is a bitter truth that we need to start getting used to. Another is that some of the remedies might be bitter medicine no one wants to take. It would be akin to economic chemotherapy which would be brutal to the one being treated.

    The government will need to do more to block leakages, break up age old practices where a privileged few have fed fat on government. These steps won’t be popular with vested interests and would be opposed. What is required is the iron will to press through.

    As citizens we have a responsibility to take pride in that which is produced locally. We must change our consumption habits, produce most of what we eat or drink or wear. Those in production must up their game such that the gap in quality between imports and local products is eliminated.

    One major source of dollar demand pressure is the importation of petroleum product. With the Dangote, NNPC’s Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries as well as BUA’s facility, set to begin production in the near future, Nigeria could soon be in a position where it no longer needs to bring products.

    Things may look dire right now, but it is not hopeless for this country. What would really be sad is after making a massive effort to get out of the woods, we don’t learn our lessons. There may be hardship in the land, but we must keep reminding ourselves of the immediate and remote causes so that they are not repeated.