The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Way out of darkness

    Way out of darkness

    • Power ministry needs to change tact for better result

    We can understand the frustration of the Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu, with the deteriorating power supply in the country, especially since the beginning of this year. Up till December, 2023, power supply was getting relatively better and Nigerians could only have hoped that the improvement, no matter how incremental, would continue to get better. But they appeared to have been mistaken given the deteriorating situation of power supply nationwide.

    The situation had compelled the minister to threaten to hold individual electricity distribution companies (DisCos) responsible. As a matter of fact, the minister did not hesitate to add that licences of DisCos that are not ready to improve would be revoked, a thing the Federal Government has eventually directed the sector’s regulator, the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to do with DisCos that continue to serve darkness instead of light to their customers.

     “Moving forward, I’m committed to holding all distribution companies accountable for their performance.

    “Willful non-performance will not be tolerated, and severe consequences, including licence revocation, may be imposed,” the minister said in a statement.

    The minister is particularly unhappy with the performance of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), that he summoned to an emergency meeting on Tuesday.

     Of course, we have always known the factors responsible for the dip in power supply: damages to electricity equipment by vandals, lack of adequate gas supply, grid breakdown, low supply from generating companies (GenCos), the inability of DisCos to wheel supply from GenCos, etc.

    But the minister believed the problem had to do more with negligence, rather than sabotage. He noted, for instance, that his ministry has been exerting pressure on the GenCos to enhance their performance, resulting in a recent increase in generation to over 4000MW.

    “Despite this progress”, the minister said, “certain distribution companies are failing to adequately distribute the power supplied by TCN, while vandalism of power infrastructure exacerbates the problem in regions such as Abuja, Benin, Port Harcourt, and Ibadan.”

    It is not only ridiculous, it is equally frustrating that for many years, it has been difficult getting the DisCos to deliver optimally. Nigerians had thought that privatisation would solve the problem once and for all but they have been mistaken. Apparently, the privatisation was not well thought-out; hence the problems that have refused to disappear in the sector. 

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    We need to state however that threats would not solve the problem in the sector. It has never. Not even revocation of licence. The Ministry of Power has to think of ways to do things differently. As they say, you cannot do the same thing the same way and expect a different result. There should be concrete actions along the lines of the identified obstacles, with timelines on what Nigerians should expect.

    The ministry must do due diligence on all the players in the value chains —  GenCos, transmission companies (TransCos), DisCos, etc., with a view to narrowing down to where the problems are. This would enable the ministry and regulator to be able to better address the problems accordingly.

    We know it is the frustration with the state of affairs in the sector that has made some people to recommend death sentence for electricity equipment vandals. We are afraid we have always been averse to this idea of death sentence for the same reason that several progressive countries are moving away from capital punishment, especially with the irreversibility of the sentence once the convict has been executed. What happens if it was eventually discovered that judgment had been miscarried? The dead cannot be brought back to life.

    We know the pains that the nation and electricity consumers suffer due to the activities of these vandals; we nonetheless would rather go for long sentences as punishment for them.

  • Wrong-handed justice

    Wrong-handed justice

    • Woman arrested for administering ‘Sniper’ on baby may need medical attention

    A mother was late last week taken into custody by the police in Lagos State for purportedly attempting to kill her sick daughter by administering the poisonous insecticide known as ‘Sniper’ on her. The police said she was arrested for investigation after bringing the one-year-and-seven-month-old baby for treatment at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, and disclosing to a doctor what she had used on her to calm her excessive convulsions.

    Lagos State Police Command spokesman, Benjamin Hundeyin, a Superintendent of Police, was reported saying the woman was arrested after LUTH referred the matter to the security agency last Friday. He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the chief security officer at the hospital reported to the police that the mother brought the baby in to the hospital for treatment and told a doctor that she gave her ‘Sniper’ to drink when her convulsion was not abating. “The mother said she gave the liquid to her child so she could rest from her excessive convulsions,” Hundeyin said, adding: “Detectives were immediately dispatched to the hospital where they met the baby receiving treatment. The mother has been taken in for investigation after the child had received treatment.”

    The police’s response to the case of this woman smacks of stock and insensitive dealing in justice, if that is assumed to be the objective. The woman on her own brought the baby to hospital for medicare, not that the baby was rescued from her deadly clutches at home, or that she ran away and abandoned the baby after administering the poisonous substance. She also on her own disclosed to the doctor what she had done, apparently to guide LUTH medical personnel on what treatment to be applied on the baby. How all these added up to an attempt to end the baby’s life for which the woman was arrested by the police begs logic. It seems possible that the woman sought to relieve the baby of her convulsive syndrome, but applied an obnoxious remedy either out of sheer ignorance, confused agitation or a questionable state of mind. Whichever it was, none equates to hideous premeditation of seeking to end the baby’s life, and thank goodness it did not result in that.

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    People familiar with natal matters spoke of how some women could suffer from post-partum depression, which may render them cloudy minded for a long while after childbirth. This state of mind is an underlying condition of mental imbalance that could be akin to temporary insanity. Interestingly, nothing was mentioned in the case of this woman about the father of her baby, suggesting that she had the convulsive state of the child to contend with all by herself. It is conceivable how desperate she might have gotten in the bid to calm the child, hence her recourse to a remedy that was worse than the ailment for which remedy was sought. A quick lesson to learn here is that it is irremediably a misadventure to self-medicate where help should be sought from people trained to handle health challenges.

    Having said that, we think that the response of the police in arresting this woman for interrogation rather than offering her medical help, which may be what she really needs, betrays the underdevelopment of our justice system. In other words, the woman may be a sick patient profiled as a likely criminal – with the negative societal perception associated with such profiling. The police need expertise in humanising justice, including having specialists in human psychology, gynaecological and child health issues, among others, that may come handy in dealing with cases like the one in reference. Where relevant departments already exist within the police system, the personnel of those departments should be put to work on cases that appear to go beyond criminal intent, which is the core area of criminal detectives.

    We hope and pray that the poisoned baby is nursed back to full health soonest. But we also recommend that the embattled mother be taken for medical examination prior to being consigned to criminal investigation and subsequent prosecution. She may need a doctor more than she needs the judge.

  • Legacy project

    Legacy project

    • It gladdens the heart that Lagos – Calabar coastal road has taken off at last

    It is sweet music to the ears that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on February 26 approved the princely sum of N1.07 trillion for the construction of the Lagos – Calabar coastal road. The road would employ concrete technology. The excitement derives from the fact that the project has been under consideration for a long time, and has now received the proper attention that would see the dream come true. It is also fascinating that the road would have five lanes on each side and a train tract in the middle.

    The Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, indicated that the pilot phase of the project would consist of a 47.47 kilometre stretch.  It is gratifying to note that in a statement issued by his special adviser on media, Orji Uchenna, on March 7, 2024, the minister disclosed that the construction of the road has taken off.

    An upbeat Umahi, declared about the contractor, Hitech Construction Company Nigeria Ltd: “They have completed some filling of 1.3 kilometres from the day the project was awarded to them. It shows the speed they are going to deploy to this project. Within a couple of weeks, we awarded the project to them, they mobilised a lot of dredging equipment, and you can see that they have recorded 1.3 kilometres of section one of the phase.” Delivering this project within schedule and at optimum standard would constitute a distinctive infrastructural legacy for the contractor, the minister, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the government and nation as a whole.

    The 700-kilometre road will start from Lagos, pass through Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom states, and end in Cross River State. The project will therefore be of transformational consequence in travelling in southern Nigeria. But it will also be a pan-Nigerian highway, because two of the states lead to the north. Apart from facilitating travelling in a remarkable way, the road will open up commercial activities, communication and development in the areas it covers. The fact that the road would be constructed with concrete rigid pavement technology means that it would rely less on imported materials like bitumen. In this regard, it would be important to encourage cement manufacturers in the country to buy into the project.

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    The success of the road would also contribute to advancing engineering knowledge relating to the debate on which, between the asphaltic road and the rigid pavement road, is better and preferable. Moreover, the project has great potential for job creation.

    As a complementary measure to this game-changing road project, the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) should be strengthened to ensure proper maintenance of not just the Lagos – Calabar coastal road, but all federal roads in general, to give them a longer lifespan. Maintaining the road well would also contribute significantly to reducing the carnage recorded through road accidents, because a large proportion of road accidents in Nigeria have been attributed to bad roads.

    The physical components of the road and the train tracks need to be protected against vandalisation and pilfering. The security of the road users also needs to be given high priority to prevent a repetition of the kind of loss of lives and trauma experienced in the Kaduna – Abuja train attack.

    While commending the minister and the Tinubu administration for their doggedness and reassuring commitment to this legacy project, we urge them not to relent in their efforts towards its timeous completion. We also urge them to identify and swiftly undertake other development-enhancing projects.

  • A good development

    A good development

    • FCT’s decision to prosecute looters is welcome even if it is not enough

    Just as well that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command has decided to prosecute 15 suspects it arrested in connection with the looting of a warehouse belonging to the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) in Gwagwa-Tasha, Abuja, on March 3. Foodstuffs and other items kept in the warehouse were stolen. The roofing sheets, doors and gates were also carted away by the hoodlums.

    Josephine Ade, the FCT police spokesperson said in a statement later in the day that two security guards that were supposed to be securing the place were among the 15 suspects. She said 26 bags of maize, five motorcycles and some vandalised aluminium roofing sheets were recovered from the suspects.

    “The Police Command in the FCT is fully informed about the impulsive attack on Agric Department Strategic Food Store located at Tasha area of Abuja, on March 3,” the statement reads.

    “The attack has resulted to the vandalism and looting of the warehouse.

    “The command wishes to state that normalcy has since been restored to the area and the situation under control.”

    The looting, said to have taken place between 7.00a.m. and 9.00a.m. was allegedly perpetrated by residents of Jiwa and Karmo, conterminous communities to Gwagwa.

    We welcome the decision to prosecute the suspects arrested in connection with the looting. In such a situation, it is difficult to apprehend all the culprits. Only those of them that are caught, arraigned and convicted would serve as warning that the government does not approve of such shameful conduct. When such scapegoats are eventually sentenced in accordance with the law, it would serve as deterrence to those who might want to toe a similar path in the future.

     However, much as we condemn the action of the looters, we urge the government to work harder to assuage the hunger in the land. There is no doubt that the economic crisis is taking a huge toll on the average Nigerian and there is an urgent need to lessen its impact on the people.

    We acknowledge the plan of the FCT authorities to further tighten security at all public warehouses in the federal capital. This is good except that we doubt if we have enough security personnel for such duties in a way that it would not jeopardise security in some other areas.

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     Second, there is a limit to the kind of crowd that such security men can check. We saw the kind of crowds that participated in the #EndSARS riots in 2020. How many policemen or soldiers do you deploy to check such crowds protesting almost simultaneously in several parts of the country?

    What we are saying in essence is that while nothing should justify crime, and that people should not resolve to self-help to solve their problems, the government too must take actions to reduce the pang of hunger.

    Demoralising as they could be, incidents such as the attack on the warehouse in Abuja and similar ones in other parts of the country should not make governments to contemplate stopping warehousing of foodstuffs and other essential commodities for the rainy day.

    Indeed, they should strengthen the resolve of governments to do more on social palliatives, even if they must review the process from time to time for efficiency.

    Moreover, governments at all levels must find means of engaging our jobless youths in mechanised farming. Those wishing to establish small scale businesses should be assisted with training and soft loans.

    Meanwhile, we look forward to the arrested suspects having their day in court. As the Minister of State for the FCT, Dr. Mariya Mahmoud, observed, those who carted away roofs, doors and gates cannot be said to have done that because they were hungry. They are criminals and should be so treated.

  • Prisoners’ menu protest

    Prisoners’ menu protest

    • The issue goes beyond menu change

    It was the colonial masters that established formal prisons in Nigeria in 1861, following the declaration of Lagos as a colony. That was the beginning of the institutionalisation of formal system of governance aimed at maintaining law and order, and instituting punishment models for disobedience of colonial laws.

    However, as the population grew, and with Nigeria’s independence in 1960, most colonial institutions in the country began to change. Somehow, crime and criminality began to increase, given the changing societal dynamics influenced by socio-economic and political issues. These in some ways created many social deviants and more prisons.

    However, unlike in the United States where there are different prisons for state and federal offences, Nigeria has only federal prisons where both convicted and ‘awaiting’ trial persons are kept.

    Due to the systemic dysfunction in most sectors, the judicial speed in disposing of cases has not matched international standards, giving rise to serious congestion in prisons across the country. This comes with many side effects — overstretched infrastructure, overcrowding, sexual assaults, insecurity, depression and self-inflicted wounds.

    There have been more prison breaks in recent times and most of the escapees are often not re-arrested. 

    The Muhammadu Buhari administration changed the Nigerian Prisons Service to the Nigerian Correctional Service on August 15, 2019, after signing the Nigerian Correctional Service Act of 2019 into law. In the real sense, the change has been only in name; not much has changed in the administration of the correctional centres. The ‘correctional’ aspect remains a mirage as the inmates even have more violations of their human and constitutional rights by the state that is supposed to protect them. Many die out of lack of proper care in the correctional centres as there are often no effective health centres; facilities are poor even as the centres have become fertile grounds for the spreading of diseases, depression and sexual offences.

    About a year ago, the oldest prisoner in the country, Pa Egbunuche, who was condemned to death since 2001 with his son for murder died after an agency intervened for him to be released for treatment outside the correctional centre, due to his illness and old age.

    The story of late Pa Egbunuche is a metaphor for the average inmate in Nigerian Correctional Centres. Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison was built in 1955 with an initial capacity of 1,056 inmates. As of February 12, 2018, 69% of the prison’s population were awaiting trial, according to data from the Nigeria Prisons Service. So the judicial system has been such that justice is often delayed and some innocent people are often incarcerated for long and some others spend more time awaiting trial than they would have were they convicted for the alleged crimes.

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    So, recently when some prisoners in Jos, Plateau State, protested that due to the socio-economic condition of the country, they are now to be served rice twice a week as against the former four times, it was obvious that there were other triggers before the announcement. They reportedly had been expecting increase in the food they were being served before as promised, but instead, were informed of the change in menu plan.

    While we feel that the announced change is not in any way harmful to the prisoners, we want the government to realise that the protest was a symptom of something deeper than the menu change. The conditions at the centres are terrible. It is also a pointer to how Nigeria sees the institution that is supposed to be ‘correctional’ in all respects. The fact that the inmates, when released, or when they escape during jail breaks, come out more violent and more hardened than before shows the system isn’t correctional in the real sense.

    Governments must embark on prison reforms in line with global standards. Correctional centres must be true in form and operations so that the inmates would live dignified lives in the long term, in or out of prison. They have constitutional/human rights that must be respected too. An oppressed inmate is a danger to the society, inside or outside jail.

  • So long a puzzle

    So long a puzzle

    • The yo-yo over ridding telephone networks of suspect subscribers is well and truly puzzling

    Mariama Ba, the late Senegalese writer, wrote the novel, ‘So Long a Letter’.  It was legitimate feminist query for her beloved but patriarchal Senegal. 

    Today, with the umpteenth attempt to rid Nigerian Telcos (telephone companies) of fraudulent lines, teeming with kidnap kingpins and sundry felons, a fitting name for that seeming never-ending odyssey seems: so long a puzzle.

    The puzzle-in-chief: will it ever end?  The answer hangs in the air — as much as any future hope of success.  It’s well and truly puzzling — and chastening. 

    Yet IT, where Telcos play, and which drives subscribers’ safety, protection and sanity, is pretty much predictable, issuing from applied sciences, not the fluid social sciences.

    The latest episode of the never-ending saga got Telcos blocking no fewer than  40 million lines when the latest deadline expired on February 28 — 28 million lines (up from 12 million) more than anticipated.  The lines blocked had failed to link their subscriber identification module (SIM) with their national identity number (NIN).

    In December 2023 — the latest since December 16, 2020 when the SIM-NIN linkage drive started — the National Communications Commission (NCC)

    had asked Telcos to “tos” (render temporarily out of service) any defaulting line, as at the deadline’s expiry.

    Still, not every of the tossed lines was entirely the subscriber’s fault.  Many were blocked for seeming lack of NCC capacity to verify all NIN claims and promptly link them with the appropriate SIMs.  In the course of the frenzy, many subscribers were reportedly invited to revalidate their claims.  Those that couldn’t were tossed.  But some other subscribers claimed NCC never extended them any such invite.

    Indeed, a subscriber lobby is threatening to sue NCC for the mass tos-sing, though its grouse was NCC’s lack of compassion to further extend the deadline by a month.  That ground is slippery though, for it’s doubtful if compassion — at least in the present context — is actionable.

    Still, the shock is as much the high number as the reason for the tossed lines.  Gbenga Adebayo, chair of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON): “I can tell you that over 40 million lines have been blocked and the affected customers are those who didn’t submit their NIN at all,” he told ‘The Punch’.

    Let’s even assume that just half — 20 million — are guilty of not submitting their NIN.  Pray, how can a whopping 20 million subscribers still use their phones, for a link-up exercise that started in December 2020 — three years and almost three months ago?

    If this were indeed true — 20 million from a 224.7 million subscriber base is nearly one out of every 10 — would it be any wonder then: the security agencies’ general failure to promptly nab ransom-seeking kidnappers, using the NIN linked to the SIM to track the lines and arrest the defaulting callers?

    This is a well and true national

    subscriber network security emergency– an emergency NCC must tackle head- on.  But do the regulators even have the technical spine to do the grafting?  If they do have the basic capacity, might the problem be expanding the scope of their equipment to cope?  Is their manpower both adequate, in terms of numbers and continuous training?

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    The NCC should ask itself these crucial questions.  If it lacks or lags in any area, it should be open with the public, so it can get help as fast as necessary.

    Yes, Nigerians do have an annoying mindset, always sleeping until the last minute to jerk awake and start darting from the proverbial pillar to post where issues of deadline are concerned.  But it’s also grim reality that the registration venue is always packed, which seems to suggest the NCC technical base can’t cope with the speed and volume of subscriber pressure.

    Whatever the situation, what is absolutely unacceptable is having near-same exercises year-in, year-out, yet chalking miserable results that defeat the purpose.  Kidnapping, banditry, and even brass-tack terrorism — all mindless violence driven by ability to make rogue but untraced calls — are serious national security problems.

    The earliest NCC cracks this SIM-NIN linkage conundrum, the earlier the relief from the dire insecurity challenge.

    So, to make the exercise routine and seamless, the Federal Government must treat whatever NCC challenge as a national security emergency. That’s the only way to sanitise Telco networks, help reduce violent crimes and give the economy the new oomph it craves.

  • Tardy supervision?

    Tardy supervision?

    • CBN doesn’t have to wait for 4,173 BDC operators to break laws before taking action

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) penultimate week revoked the licences of 4,173 bureaux de change (BDC) operators, over alleged infractions of rules and regulations guiding their operations. The apex bank said it exercised its powers under the provisions of the Banking and other Financial Institutions Act, (BOFIA) 2020, and the revised operational guidelines for BDCs.

    Some of the allegations include failure to renew licence on time, render appropriate returns, comply with circulars on anti-money laundering; countering the financing of terrorism and disobeying counter-proliferation financing regulations.

    The CBN director, corporate communications, Mrs Sidi Ali Hakama, further announced that the apex bank was reviewing the regulatory and supervisory guidelines for BDC operations, and promised that when completed, it would be mandatory for all stakeholders in that sector.

    We agree that the BDCs had been fingered on several occasions over foreign exchange infractions, especially during periods of crisis in the foreign exhange market. Some BDCs had also been indicted for aiding foreign parties to undermine stability in the foreign exchange market.

    Unfortunately, for most Nigerians, the BDCs remain conduits through which public officials ferret scarce resources put in their care, out of the country, after helping the officials change budgetary allocations to foreign currencies. That explains why there is little public sympathy after a whopping 4,173 BDCs were delicensed.

    But it is important to ask why that large number is on the wrong side at a time? Does it mean the previous CBN leadership failed to oversight the BDCs? Of course, we worry about the ripple effects of the revocation on investments and employment opportunities.

    In strengthening the rules and regulations to make BDCs more efficient, the regulatory body should also be made more efficient in its duties. Such efficiency would weed out any BDC failing to meet regulatory conditions, without waiting for thousands to go all at once. No doubt, the infractions committed could not have happened suddenly, so obviously, there is failure of effective regulation on the part of the CBN. So, we urge the current CBN leadership to put up measures to deal with infractions as they arise.

    The BDCs which survived the CBN sanction were last week allocated $20,000 each to retail to end-users at the rate of N1,301 per dollar. According to Dr Hassan Mahmud, director, trade and exchange department, “Following the on-going reforms in the foreign exchange market, aimed at achieving an appropriate market-determined exchange rate for the Naira, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has observed the continued price distortions at the retail end of the market, which is feeding into the parallel market and further widening the exchange rate premium.”

    The BDCs are to sell at a margin not more than one percent of the purchase price. The intervention is to ensure stability at the low rung of the foreign

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    exchange market and stem the inflationary pressure on the naira; which strangely affects the pricing of goods in the local market.

    We are saddened by the economic sabotage by financial institutions which aids the under-valuation of the Naira, so we urge the BDCs to obey the directive of the CBN in the sale of the foreign exchange allocated to them.

    Henceforth, all the BDCs must play by the rules, and contribute their quota to ensure stability of the Naira. Those who engage in any form of sharp practice should join the queue of those whose licences have been revoked. The CBN has said many times that the recent untrammelled fluctuation in the value of the Naira is artificial, maintaining that the national currency is undervalued. The BDCs should be part of the solution. Those who refuse to do the right thing should be sanctioned.

  • The crypto probe

    The crypto probe

    • We need to understand their activities to adequately regulate them

    Amidst the concerns raised by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the possibility of illicit transactions and money laundering on the cryptocurrency exchanges and other sundry abuses, including the manipulation of Nigeria’s forex market, last week’s adoption by the House of Representatives of the motion to probe their activities could not have come at a better time.

    Sponsored by the member for Ifo/Ewekoro Federal Constituency, Ogun State, Isiaka Ibrahim, the motion seeks to investigate the status of cryptocurrency, and digital asset transactions in the country to ascertain their possible threats to national security.

    Top among the issues of concern was the “growing global concerns about the national security implications of cryptocurrency transactions through cryptocurrency exchanges, including consumer and investor security”; the current state of regulations. Are these adequate or is it, as some fear it to be – a case of the operators cart-dragging the regulatory horse? Or, better still, have the crypto exchanges been allowed to usurp the functions of the financial services sector regulator?

    Alluding to the United States of America Treasury 2022 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment report which indicated that “fiat and traditional financial activities contributed substantially higher (over 200 per cent) than digital assets transactions to global money laundering activities”, the concern by the members is that the widespread infractions currently experienced here “do not appear to arise in developed climes where appropriate statutes and regulations have been enacted and enforced to superintend crypto and other digital asset transactions.”

    The probe is also expected to beam its searchlights on the activities of international money transfer operators, payment gateways and platforms and cloud computing systems. So is the status of the e-Naira on the global cryptocurrency platform, the cost incurred, processes undertaken, and statutory compliance in creating the digital currency.

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    In all, the House seeks to engage all relevant stakeholders “to initiate necessary processes for establishing required legislation and regulations, while establishing the profile of operators in the sector such as legal status, parent company, and assess their compliance with our existing statutes or complicity in infractions against Nigeria, including money laundering, illicit transactions, currency speculation and bad practices.”

    We say better late than never. In fact, the issues, as distilled by the House do not suffer any ambiguity. The past may have been gone, the country nonetheless deserves to understand how she got to this point.

    When in February 2021, the CBN first barred banks and financial institutions from dealing in or facilitating transactions in crypto assets, the issue wasn’t so much about denial of the new reality but whether the country was ready to ensure adequate regulation for the operators. Interestingly, the same argument would come up last December when the CBN lifted the ban. Far from assuaging the fears of Nigerians, the statement by the apex bank then merely affirmed what was already known – that global trends had shown a need to regulate such activities.

    Now that the chickens appear to have come home to roost with recent revelations of mind-boggling abuses, manipulations and such other activities that have reasonably been shown to have undermined our national security, the imperative of regulation has become just as important as the thorough knowledge of their arcane operations and extensive activities if truly the country desires to identify the point at which the rains began to beat her. Part of that ugly past is the disclosure by no less an authority than the apex bank that an unregistered entity – Binance Nigeria –had in one year alone, moved some $26 billion cash from Nigeria from sources and users that cannot be identified.

    However, while it goes about that, the House should not lose sight of the big picture – the legislative imperative to ensure that activities in the sector are in alignment with global best practices.

  • About time 

    About time 

    • NBA’s partnership with INEC to try electoral offenders is a welcome deal

    Some suspected electoral offenders in the 2023 general election are reportedly having their day in court, thanks to tag-teaming between the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). Lawyers on the association’s platform said they had commenced prosecution of the suspects, among whom are officials of the electoral body itself and politicians.

    Former Inspector-General of Police Usman Baba had on the heels of the February 25, 2023 national polls announced that more than 700 offenders were arrested by police personnel for violating provisions of the electoral law. INEC early in May said it received 215 casefiles out of the arrested lot for prosecution, adding that it would partner with the NBA that had promised ‘pro bono’ legal services to prosecute the suspected electoral offenders. A report last week by ‘The PUNCH’ newspaper cited NBA’s National Publicity Secretary Habeeb Lawal as saying 196 suspects, including INEC officials and members of political parties, had been docked for sundry offences like vote-buying and arms possession, among others.

    The NBA image maker explained that the cases are being prosecuted in magistrates’ courts and high courts in all states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory by lawyers who are handling the cases pro bono. Offences the suspects are being prosecuted for, according to him, include “dereliction of duty, criminal conspiracy and disorderly conduct at election venues, unlawful possession of arms on election day, snatching and destroying of INEC materials, electoral malpractices, unlawful possession of election materials, voter inducement and vote-buying, malicious damage and assault, and electoral violence.” Lawal further said suspects were being prosecuted all over the country, “as there is hardly any state of the federation that the prosecution is not ongoing.”

    The concerted move to bring electoral offenders to justice is a big help for Nigeria’s electoral system where political actors get emboldened onto acts of impunity by the factor of non-accountability before the law. The pro bono service by NBA members is an added fillip considering that the electoral commission is not only hamstrung by procedural issues, but could also be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude and cost implication of the task at hand.

    Last January, the electoral body said it had secured the conviction of three electoral offenders from the 2023 general election. Speaking at a media and civil society roundtable, INEC Director of Voter Education and Publicity Mary Nkem said the electoral body could only pursue the conviction of electoral offenders after they had been arrested and investigated by relevant security agencies. She explained there are agencies with the responsibility to make arrests. “What the commission does is, after the offenders have been arrested and investigated, the agencies will send the file of those found culpable to the commission. The commission then takes action,” she said, adding: “For the 2023 general election, we received some case files of electoral offenders and they have been prosecuted and as we speak, about 19 case files were prepared for prosecution and filed for various jurisdiction of courts in Nigeria. Three have been completed and convictions secured.”

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    Nkem only echoed her principal, INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who had often made clear INEC’s ill-equipment to ensure rigorous prosecution of electoral offenders. At a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in December 2019, he said while INEC was saddled with the responsibility for prosecuting electoral offenders, it had no mandate to arrest offenders and conduct investigation “without which successful prosecution is impossible.” Where the commission manages to prosecute, there are circumstantial factors sabotaging its efforts. Yakubu said: “Unlike pre-election and post-election cases, there is no timeframe for prosecution of electoral offenders and a case could go on for several years. Some of the cases were dismissed for want of diligent prosecution while in some states, attorneys-general entered ‘nolle prosequi’ to get alleged offenders off the hook. Even where the commission recorded successful prosecution of offenders following the violence witnessed in a bye-election in Kano State in 2016, it is unclear how many of the 40 offenders sentenced to prison with the option of fine actually spent time in jail. The fine was paid presumably by their sponsors.”

    NBA’s partnership should strengthen INEC’s hand and relieve the commission of some cost burden, hence it is laudable. Bringing electoral offenders to justice will boost the deterrence factor and sanitise Nigerian electoral system. But the combined efforts are at best yet tokenistic in the face of the extent of impunity bedeviling our elections. The judiciary needs to put good practice direction in place to ensure speedy trial of offenders if the deterrence factor would be made effective. But more important is that government should give serious consideration to calls for creation of an electoral offences commission that would have all residual powers to dedicatedly pursue the prosecution of electoral offenders. This recommendation was made in the Justice Uwais panel report, and INEC itself has been in the forefront of clamour for its implementation. We lend our voice to the call and urge that efforts by past national assemblies at formulating an enabling law be urgently revisited.

  • Why dollar is choice currency in Nigeria

    Why dollar is choice currency in Nigeria

    • By Tajudeen Adigun

    Naira was ab initio a strong currency. When it came in 1972 to replace the Nigerian pound, which was modeled and value-fixed after the British pound, two naira was equal to one British pound. In value then, naira was higher than one dollar in the forex market. Not any more, General Ibrahim Babangida came; his military junta government ran into economic/financial stormy waters that befuddled his comprehension. The economic challenge at the time defied Babangida’s so-called evil genius mantra. The then military government could not balance the annual budget. Its expenditure was more than the revenue. There was a yawning gap, a hiatus that had to be filled. It required financial assistance – loan to make is gel. The quest for a loan to tidy over the financial challenge, as a matter of necessity, drove the military government into the waiting hands of international money lenders, the World Bank and its twin sister, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    The two money lenders don’t suffer borrowers gladly. They are not Santa Claus. Loan is not free. Besides paying the principal and interest at the point of defraying, other conditionalities and strings were tied to the loan as stipulated by the lenders. The borrower must accept the attached strings and the conditionalities to access the loan. The economic gurus at the World Bank and IMF threw the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) down the throat of Nigeria and pronto the value of her currency, naira, bit the dust. The value of naira fell in the foreign exchange market. Before SAP, naira was more than a dollar, about $1.4 to N1. Suddenly, the exchange rate became N4 to one $1. It was an era when Dunlop, Michelin tyre firms, and other major private firms left Nigeria to Ghana and other West African countries.

    That was the first time naira suffered devaluation in the forex market. It was a major loss of value for naira in the comity of world currencies. Thus, people lost more than 400 percent value of money in their pockets and bank accounts. Painfully, the initial N4 to one dollar did not improve in value in favour of naira. It was a decline in value. Rather, the exchange rate between naira and dollar degenerated in favour of dollar. Naira’s value went into a free fall from its Olympian height. Curiously, it has not recovered till date.

    The World Bank and IMF were the financial institutions that were imposed on the world by the victorious Allied Forces – countries like the United States of America (USA), Britain, Russia, France, among others, after World War II. By 1945 when the Axis Forces, nations like Germany, Spain and Japan raised their hands in surrender and acceptance of defeat, the countries that fought the war had incurred huge debts. This was not a surprise as they had largely prosecuted the bitter war with borrowed money.

    Thus, the World Bank and IMF were set up by the victorious Allied Forces to impose reparations on the Axis Forces, coordinate payment of the loans borrowed from different international money lenders to prosecute the war. Called the Bretton Wood institutions, that was how the duo banks assumed the role of lender of last resort to countries in the world. Henceforth, World Bank and IMF became the economic consultants and lenders of the last resort to most countries that found themselves in an economic strait-jacket.

    The Central Bank in each country is known as the lender of the last resort in the financial management of its country. It regulates and coordinates activities of other banks. In the case of World Bank and IMF, they lend to nations and others. Expectedly, the Breton Woods institutions were created in furtherance of New World Order agenda. They were to champion the interests and causes of the major stakeholder in the Allied Forces – Britain, USA and probably France.

    To the surprise of observers, there is no country either in Asia, Africa or South America that has been cured of economic challenges since the inception of the Breton Woods institutions. They have no record of country that has been down prostrate on the economic stretcher and was cured of her malaise.

    If a nation borrowed funds to ameliorate her economic challenge, it is unlikely that she would get relief or be weaned of the debt. Instead, the payable interest would grow bigger and bigger, thus making it unpayable. During the Babangida era most, if not all, the African and Asian countries that went to the Bretton Woods institutions for solution for their economic challenges were told to the embrace Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)  

    At this point, it should be mentioned that the two money lenders have, over the time, proved to be poor doctors or managers of nations’ economic and financial debacles. Countries that go to them for rescue usually come out worse than they were before approaching IMF and the World Bank. Matter of fact, they continue sinking into worse financial quagmire, incurring bigger debt on debt without any sign of relief in sight or any glimmer hope of exit.

    The stringent conditionalities attached to the debt become an albatross, not to talk of the tear-pocket interest charged. If a country takes a loan from IMF, it is equal to financial suicide. Those who have walked the usual lane of the Bretton Wood institutions are bound to lament with songs of sorrow in their mouths. The path is akin to taking a patient, who is suffering from blood shortage in his system to a doctor who would drain his blood, thus worsening his plight.

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    When a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, came to Aso Rock for the second time in 1999, he inflicted a worse injury on the naira as he unwittingly made the dollar a second legal tender in Nigeria. He was paying ministers he regarded as super important in dollars, while others were paid in naira. This created a superiority and inferiority complex among ministers. What a slap on the naira’s face!

    What Obasanjo did, what reason he might have given to defend the policy, was nothing but covering then Naira with an inferiority garment in its territory. It was a mortal blow to the currency. Besides relegating naira to a second class currency on its own terrain, the policy of paying ministers in dollar made naira unattractive even to ordinary Nigerians. Is it therefore a surprise that most privileged citizens of this country are proud to put dollar price tags on their commodities and services?

    It was, therefore, not a surprise that Obasanjo’s payment of minister in dollar served as a signal that triggered adoption of dollar by politicians as the choice currency to lure delegates’ votes for them at intra-party contests to pick candidates to contest inter-party election for offices. Henceforth, aspirants would share dollars at party primaries. Thus dollar has gained a foothold among politicians who are the movers and shakers of events. That, to their minds, was the sure way of winning primaries and becoming the standard bearer of their party.  This made stock-piling dollar an attractive and irresistible hobby for any serious-minded aspirant.

    The dollar has become a hunted currency for its many uses. It is craved by all and sundry. This ubiquitous quest for dollar among power players makes its scarcity and rising value against the naira pronounced.