The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • New Naira, new concerns

    New Naira, new concerns

    It was odd that Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele were not on the same page concerning the CBN’s move to redesign the Naira. It was yet another sign of untidiness in the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. 

    After a needless controversy, the president’s position on the issue clarified the situation.  A statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said Buhari backed the CBN in a Hausa radio interview to be aired on November 2 on Tambari TV on Nilesat. The statement was titled ‘CBN has my backing in replacing Naira notes, says President Buhari.’

    The apex bank had, on October 26, announced its decision to unveil redesigned N200, N500 and N1000 notes on December 15, 2022. The existing notes would cease to be regarded as legal tender by January 31, 2023, it stated.

    Two days later, Ahmed told the Senate Committee on Finance during the 2023 budget defence session: “We were not consulted at the Ministry of Finance by the CBN on the planned naira redesigning and cannot comment on it as regards merits or otherwise.”

    Read Also: IMF lists dangers of dollarised economy as naira crisis persists

     President Buhari’s position has not ended the matter because there are other controversies connected with it. For instance, while explaining the expected positives of the Naira redesign, CBN’s Director of Corporate Communications Osita Nwasinobi had argued that the change would, among other things, help to “curb the incidents of terrorism and kidnapping due to access of persons to the large volume of money outside the banking system used as a source of funds for ransom payments.”

    It remains to be seen how redesigning the Naira will help the fight against terrorism and kidnapping. It is likely those involved in such criminal activities are aware of the CBN’s new design and would redesign their operations too.

    For instance, reacting to the issue, the controversial Islamic cleric who has acted as a negotiator with terrorists in the past, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, argued: “As for the question of starving kidnappers of Naira, it goes without saying that they will resort to Dollars and other hard currencies which will further put more pressure on it, making the rotten situation worse.”

    He added: “Kidnapping can only be stopped by robust policing, social justice for all, and equitable wealth distribution. Any cosmetic measure will not stop it.” 

    It can be said that his words expressed the thoughts of many Nigerians who don’t see the new Naira as a solution to the country’s “comprehensive crisis.”    

  • UK’s ‘revolving door of chaos’

    UK’s ‘revolving door of chaos’

    “Omo a ni, e je o se!” (He’s our child, let him rule) — was the Ibadan battling cry, during the tempestuous 1983 general election.  On the stump were two brilliant fellows.

    The one was Bola Ige, aka Cicero of Esa Oke, the charismatic incumbent of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s beloved party, Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).  Ige, the razor-tongued Ijesa man of formidable intellect, had talked himself into trouble with his Ibadan hosts, from whose stock even came his wife, Atinuke; and among whom he had lived, all his colourful adult life.

    The other was the genius of numbers, Victor Omololu Olunloyo and the intellectual’s intellectual, at home with any topic under the sun, though he was — still is — a razor-sharp engineer.  He was something of a maverick, though. He was the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) governorship candidate.

    Ige versus Olunloyo?  Something had to give!  So, everyone fell back to sentiments; and the rather defensive Ibadan, relishing the first time a homer would be boss at the Agodi Government House, gushed: “Omo a ni, e je o se!”

    Roll the camera forward to Great Britain 2022.  Boris Johnson had just self-destructed.  Rishi Sunak, the ethnic-Indian though now a thoroughbred Brit, loomed large in the horizon to be Prime Minister.

    But a conclave of Tories and the British establishment popped up Liz Truss — “Omo a ni, e je o se!”  The only difference, from the Oyo 1983 scenario: Sunak was the far better material, as his campaign economic proposals clearly showed.

    Well, the Brits settled for the native — but she spectacularly crashed after 45 days: the shortest tenure of a PM in British history!  But before her, Truss had sacrificed Kwasi Kwarteng, the ethnic-Ghanaian, whose disastrous proposals as Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance minister) did Truss in!  So long for the shimmer of “most racially diverse British cabinet in history!”

    Just as well: Jeremy Hunt (who succeeded Kwarteng as chancellor and rolled back his catastrophic proposals) is not hunting for Ms Truss’s job.  But he sure haunted her out of it, by utterly dismantling the PM’s controversial proposals to stabilize the market!

    Well, back to another Oyo cultural parallel: perhaps with her short rule and spectacular crash, Liz the PM, just “followed” namesake Elizabeth 11, the monarch?  Talk of the British “Abobaku”!  

    With Sunak now PM, and Labour’s Sadiq Khan already Mayor of London, the Raj is finally having its own against the flickers of mother empire! Interesting times!

  • Dubai’s wars

    Dubai’s wars

    Ties between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have dipped to a new low with an indefinite visa ban by that country on all categories of Nigerian applicants. All pending applications stand rejected, without provision for refund of fees already paid, and new applications aren’t welcome. The UAE made that decision known in a notice late last week to her trade partners in Nigeria including travel agents.

    According to reports, the UAE in the notice said the visa suspension will last until resolution of issues between her and the Nigerian government. She did not disclose what the issues were, but they’re apparently linked with trapped aviation revenue owing to scarcity of foreign exchange in Nigeria. “All Dubai applications submitted are now rejected. It is general for Nigerians and approvals are on hold at the moment. Kindly advise your clients to resubmit applications when the issue is resolved between both governments,” the notice to travel agents stated. That general ban came just a little over one month after the UAE stopped issuing tourist visas to Nigerians under age 40. For many months since 2021, both countries have tussled over aviation slots for respective airlines, resulting for some time in mutual flight bans.

    Read Also: I won’t govern Nigeria from Dubai – Tinubu

    The UAE appears to be targeting Nigerian travelers to its domain for a raw deal, but Nigerians can’t stop thronging Dubai. This week alone, hundreds of stranded Nigerians were evacuated back home, with many saying they were denied work permits owing to a new visa policy restricting opportunities for this country’s nationals. And even as we speak, a Nigerian lady, Dinchi Lar, is under one-year prison sentence in the UAE for recording and posting on her Twitter handle on 31st August the ill-treatment of Nigerians at Dubai airport, which that country adjudges to be cybercrime even though she subsequently deleted the post. Dinchi was sentenced on 12th October after having been detained since 6th September. Nigerian government says she has a 15-day window to appeal the verdict and has promised her moral and consular assistance.

    Authorities in the UAE aren’t making any effort to disguise their hostility towards Nigerians. But Nigerians won’t stop travelling to that country, and so it is imperative for the Nigerian government to iron out the issues at stake in the interest of Nigerian travellers. Trouble also is that many of the travellers are tourist or study visa holders turned economic migrants. If we would be respected, we must earn that respect by honouring the terms on which visas are issued or apply for the right visa to begin with. But then, it’s unacceptable for the UAE to profile Nigerians. Totally unacceptable.

  • Thieves at large

    Thieves at large

    What can be said about the scale of crude oil theft in the country? It beggars belief. News of the discovery of a four-kilometre illegal pipeline in Forcados, Delta State, said to have been used to steal humongous quantities of oil for nine years undetected, sounded like fiction.

    According to the Federal Government, Nigeria loses about 100,000 barrels of oil per day to thieves, and an estimated three million barrels every month. This is going by current statistics, the authorities said.

     It is also estimated that more than $3.3bn (£2.9bn) has been lost to crude oil theft since last year. Crude oil is Nigeria’s main export, and the country is bleeding terribly from the effect of this scandalous stealing.

     An unbelievable number of oil-theft points have been discovered since August when the government controversially awarded a pipeline surveillance contract worth N48bn per annum to a company linked to Government Ekpemupolo, popularly called Tompolo, to check the massive oil theft in the Niger Delta.

    The former leader of the militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, was reported saying: “I think we have found over 58 points that have been tapped in both Delta and Bayelsa states.” It’s unimaginable how many more oil-theft points will be discovered as the operation continues.

    No arrests have been made. This is not just intriguing; it is also alarming. The identities of the thieves who built these theft points and ran them have not been revealed. Are they unknown? Are they unknowable?

    “Since it is a breach against the law, whether on pipelines or not, the law will certainly take its course. But it is not NNPC that will handle that aspect,” the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Garba-Deen Muhammad, was reported saying.

    He added: “The GCEO (Group Chief Executive Officer) said it on site when he visited the areas. He said when these people are found the law will take its course.”

    Does this mean none of the criminals has been caught? If that is so, why is it so?  Tompolo has said his firm is “only providing intelligence for the security people to assist to do the work.”  The discovery of oil-theft spots should lead to the arrest of the thieves.

    The authorities should not give the impression that the oil thieves are ghosts and the illegal facilities for oil theft were built by spirits. That can’t be true.

  • UK’s ‘revolving door of chaos’

    UK’s ‘revolving door of chaos’

    Outgoing British Prime Minister Liz Truss made history last Thursday when she resigned after just 44 days. She will be the shortest serving premier in that country’s history, and her tenure will be remembered as the most chaotic. The previous holder of the ‘shortest tenure’ record was George Canning who stayed 119 days in office in the early 19th Century. And his tenure was reportedly cut short by death.

    Ms. Truss holds a few other records. She is the last premier to be appointed by the late Queen Elizabeth II and the first resignee of King Charles III’s reign. The 96-year-old queen who oversaw 15 prime ministers in her 70-year reign died three days after tapping Truss. Besides, Truss holds the record of having two Chancellors of the Exchequer (British finance minister) serve in quick successions. Her first chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced unfunded tax cuts of 45billion pounds that sent government’s borrowing cost spiralling, compelled emergency intervention by the Central Bank of England, and elicited a reprimand from the International Monetary Fund (MF). The British market was so spoofed that the pound crashed. Kwarteng was dismissed after 38 days in the post, making him the second shortest-serving Chancellor after Iain Macleod who died a month into office.

    Read Also:Liz Truss believed in markets, but the markets did not believe in her

    Another record by Truss is, she is the fastest to lose premiership authority. Jeremy Hunt, who replaced Kwarteng, U-turned nearly all of the controversial policies. But despite volte-face, Britain yet grapples with the fallout from the economic plan, with inflation at record level and mortgage rates ballooned. Consequently, Truss’s personal approval rating fell to minus 70, according to pollsters at YouGov, making her the most unpopular party leader in British history. She is also the fastest to change her mind about holding onto office. Her resignation came barely 24 hours after she told parliament she was “a fighter, not a quitter.”

    Truss succeeded Boris Johnson, who was also pressured out of office, by winning a contest to lead the ruling Conservative Party. In Britain’s unwritten Constitution, the leader of the party with most seats in the House of Commons gets invited to form government. Hence, the election of Truss was by the Conservatives and not the British electorate. Now the Conservatives are searching for their fifth leader in six years – an indication of how tumultuous British politics has gotten since the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union (Brexit). Meanwhile, opposition Labour Party has soared in opinion polls and its leader, Keir Starmer, called for national election in a statement shortly after Truss resigned. “The British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos,” he said.

  • Flight of doctors and nurses

    Flight of doctors and nurses

    It’s no news that many Nigerian healthcare professionals continue to leave the country for pastures new.

    A national symposium on brain drain that took place in Abuja, this week, further highlighted the increasing exodus of Nigerian doctors and nurses to foreign lands because of poor working conditions in the country.

    The exit figures are disturbing. More than 9,000 medical doctors are reported to have left the country to work in the UK, Canada and America, between 2016 and 2018. Also, more than 700 medical doctors trained in Nigeria are said to have relocated to the UK between December 2021 and May this year, a period of six months. The number of Nigeria-trained nurses registered in the UK is said to have grown from 2,790 in March 2017 to 7,256 in March 2022.

    The President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr Uche Ojinmah, said at the event: “As of today, Nigeria-trained doctors are leaving in droves for Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. No official figures yet, but it can’t be less than 2,000 as of today.”

    It is alarming that the authorities, who should tackle the problem, are busy doing nothing about it. There are consequences. The country’s doctor-patient ratio is alarmingly low, and is nowhere near the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standard doctor-patient ratio of one doctor per 600 people.

    Read Also: Brain drain: Nigeria loses 9,000 doctors to UK, U.S., Canada in two years

    With only about four doctors available per 10,000 people in Nigeria, it is unsurprising that there are issues regarding availability of, and access to, quality primary healthcare services in the country.

    The Director-General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Prof. Ayo Omotayo, also observed at the event that “there is a need for an improved health workers’ supply to tackle the supply deficit.” He added: “there is the urgent need for our country to meet the 15 percent allocation of the total domestic budget to the health sector as pledged by Nigeria and African countries in 2001.”

    In April 2001, heads of state of African Union countries met in Abuja and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 percent of their annual budget to improve the health sector. It is disappointing that Nigeria has consistently failed to meet the standard of the Abuja Declaration.

    The country’s 2022 budget is N17.16 trillion, and N724 billion (4.2 percent) was allocated for healthcare across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. This picture of poor funding shows why health-sector budget improvement is a necessity.

    It’s likely healthcare professionals will continue to leave the country as if escaping from a hopeless situation. The authorities should urgently deal with the contributory factors. It’s clear who is to blame.

  • ASUU: Rumbling belly, fare blues

    ASUU: Rumbling belly, fare blues

    Eating crow, the tears from the professorial court of Emmanuel Osodeke, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, are real!

    “In schools those days, every lecturer live(d) on campus and you could trek to your office,” he told a live TV interviewer, “but these days, many lecturers live 20, 30 kilometres to their offices.  How,” came the clincher-jeremiad, “will they pay for their transport to work?”  And yet more tears!

    How indeed?  Would ASUU members, proud aristocrats of the world famous Nigerian Academia, now seek out credit from Danfo drivers, Keke Marwa hustlers and even the get-away Okada riders wherever they still clog the road, just to call off their strike, even if they had not signed any agreement with the government, after eight long months ?

    But Osodeke’s motive was clear: a massive emotional scamming based on a tendentious claim of “owed” salaries, powered by sickening self-righteousness, outrageous sense of entitlement, all processed by ultra-phantom thinking.

    “These are the issues we are going to have, that the branches will have to deal with,” His Excellency, the ASUU President moaned.  “We expect the government to pay the money (eight months salary arrears) so that these people will go back to work, while we are negotiating on other issues.”  Ha-ha!

    Read Also: ASUU strike: Final year medical student turned food vendor dies

    Pay the money!  Negotiating other issues!  What cant!

    ASUU, as well as everyone, knows the main (if not the only) issue for the ASUU Aluta army is to be paid for work not done, and combatively so!  Osodeke, with his Aluta executive, egged on by their Aluta lawyers, had told their members sweet Aluta lies that they would be paid no matter how long they went on strike.

    Osodeke even once boasted ASUU could go on strike for two years, among other reckless statements, including dubbing state universities “fake”, at the high noon of the strike’s madness.  So, how come ASUU members, primed for a “two-year” strike, are now hungry and can’t afford transport fares to work — after just eight months?

    ASUU should eat its crow in humility.  This attempt at emotional scamming is a no-brainer; and honestly a new low.  The government should stay the course: give ASUU it’s fair due but not pay salaries for work not done.  That would reinforce ASUU’s bad conduct.

    This is imperative to weed out future sterile and reckless strikes from Nigeria’s tertiary education calendar.

     

     

  • Devastating floods everywhere

    Devastating floods everywhere

    About five hundred persons have died and many hundreds of thousands displaced in floods that have swept in this year and overwhelmed residents in 33 out of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    Among others, the floods in Kogi State outpaced waters that accounted for the last major flooding in 2012, and swamped whole council areas including Ibaji that State Governor Yahaya Bello confirmed was “100 percent under water.” Even the state capital, Lokoja, and environs were inundated, such that the access artery between the southern and northern areas of the country through Lokoja was cut off. In Anambra State, more than 70 persons died when a boat in which they were fleeing dangerously high waters that submerged their community capsized. Lives have also been lost to flooding in Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, Jigawa and Rivers states to mention a few. Farmlands have as well been washed away.

    Read Also: Fed Govt plans special fund for flood victims

    President Muhammadu Buhari was reported at the weekend blaming constructions over drainage channels, disregard for early warnings by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and effects of climate change for the flood disaster. He is right, but not totally. The flooding across Nigerian states is fuelled by water that Cameroonian authorities release from that country’s Lagdo dam. In an after-the-fact statement on 19th September, NEMA notified Nigerians that Cameroon had commenced release of excess water from Lagdo’s reservoir on 13th September, 2022, which was bound to complicate the flooding in Nigeria. “We are aware that the released water cascades down to Nigeria through River Benue and its tributaries, thereby inundating communities that have already been impacted by heavy precipitation. The released water complicates the situation further downstream as Nigeria’s inland reservoirs…are also expected to overflow between now and October ending,” NEMA said, adding: “This will have serious consequences on frontline states and communities along the courses of rivers Niger and Benue.”

    If Cameroon must release excess water from Lagdo, communities located along the downslope path of that water are sitting ducks. But could Nigeria have stopped Cameroon from releasing the water? Nope, because this country is reportedly in breach of a basic understanding governing the operations of the Lagdo dam. Reports said Cameroon and Nigeria had a pact to build two dams such that when water is released from the Cameroonian dam, the Nigerian dam would contain it and prevent it from causing flooding. The Nigerian dam is, however, yet to materialise, reducing Cameroon’s obligation to merely giving advance notice of its intention to release water from Lagdo. With such backfooted position of Nigeria in the arrangement, effective redress is farfetched for deluged communities.

     

     

     

     

  • Dariye: No remorse

    Dariye: No remorse

    Plainly, the man is struggling with the memory of his conviction and imprisonment for corruption-related crimes. Prematurely released from jail based on a controversial presidential pardon, he is now taking advantage of the undeserved release to argue that it was merited because he wasn’t guilty in the first place.

    In April, the presidency had announced pardon for a former governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, based on the approval of the Council of State following recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy (PACPM).

    He was among 159 people listed for pardon and clemency. Another former governor, Jolly Nyame of Taraba State, was one of them, also controversially.

    They were two-term governors from 1999 to 2007.  Dariye was serving a 10-year jail term, and Nyame was serving a 12-year jail term.  According to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), “Both men were jailed for criminal misappropriation, diversion of public funds, and criminal breach of public trust and misappropriation of public funds.” They were released from Kuje Custodial Centre, Abuja, in August.

    Read Also; Dariye: From prison to NASS?

    “The whole amount we are talking about is N1.1bn,” Dariye said recently on a Channels TV show while speaking about his trial. According to a report, “he said N800m went to Plateau State account, N100m went to Peoples Democratic Party in the South-West; N100m went to Obasanjo campaign organisation; N80m went to ecological fund and about N60m to N66m went to PDP’s Plateau State office; about 274 wards and every ward got about N200,000.”

    He sounded like he didn’t understand that it was wrong to have diverted public funds the way he did. He said his trial “was politically motivated.” He even brought God into the matter, saying “But I leave the rest to God.”

    Dariye showed no remorse, not even a sense of remorse.  “If that was the case, I take it as part of the cross of serving in a democracy,” he said. “If that donation amounted to criminal misappropriation, so be it. There are people who have done more damage that are not in prison. But I take it and I thank God.”

    It is likely this post-release attitude is encouraged by the presidential pardon that cut short his imprisonment. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he might not have displayed the same attitude if he had been made to finish his jail term.

    He fundamentally fails to see that he actually committed crimes and deserved to be punished. If he feels no remorse, he should keep quiet.

  • Between Kola Abiola and Louis Bonaparte

    Between Kola Abiola and Louis Bonaparte

    The quietude of Kola Abiola’s run for the presidency, on the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) ticket, was just broken by a court that fixed hearing on a suit by a rival claimant to the ticket, Patience Ndidi Key.

    The PRP primaries were held on June 5.  The hearing has been fixed for November 8.

    The break of the lull is just as well!  Abiola’s loudly quiet run is a sharp contrast to his father, Basorun MKO Abiola’s boisterous and glorious run — and win — of 1993.

    MKO served out his entire mandate in military detention, from which he never came out alive.  However, his posthumous recognition as a past president, by President Muhammadu Buhari, somewhat lessened the sting.

    Still, the son’s very quiet run is such a stark contrast to the father’s triumphant win you may well remember French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis Bonaparte, his poor nephew-imitation.

    That poor — indeed laughable — comparison inspired that timeless put-down by Karl Marx: history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce.

    Read Also: Presidential poll: Court fixes November 8 for suit against PRP’s Kola Abiola 

    The one is running on PRP.  Yes, it’s the oldest party in Nigeria today.  The late Malam Balarabe Musa resuscitated the 2nd Republic PRP of Mallam Aminu Kano, going through the crucible to prevail against the Ibrahim Babangida order, that insisted on the Hobson’s choice of its two funded parties, in the run-on to the still-birth 3rd Republic.

    The other — and original — ran on the ticket of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which crushed its Siamese twin, the National Republican Convention (NRC); and handed the progressives their first ever presidential win in Nigerian history.

    PRP may be the oldest in Nigeria but today it’s a rather modest platform.  Even when it once attracted the partisan love of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, it never went near being a mainstream party, with any serious chances at winning presidential power.  Today, it would appear even more humble.

    So, might the son be running — if he prevails in the suit —  just to make up the numbers when the father clearly ran to win — and won — triggering a rare national ardour?

    Time will tell.  But right now, the contrast is startling.  Wallahi, Louis is a far cry from Napoleon!