Category: Editorial

Last week, most major cities across the country were in turmoil following a two-day protest by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). The protest was organised in solidarity with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which has been on strike for five months and yet counting. Because in those five months, university undergraduates and post-graduate students in most public universities have been at home, most Nigerians were in sympathy with the protesters. For us, we hold that government needs to take urgent steps to end the ASUU strike.

Indeed, the longer the strike lasts, the greater the danger to our national development as it will affect the quality of graduates, and these are persons who would head different sectors of the national economy in years to come. There are also threats of strike by other sectors of tertiary education like the staff unions of polytechnics and colleges of education. While these challenges are not new, they are getting exacerbated by the day. Only two days ago, ASUU rolled over its strike by another four weeks!

We urge the Federal Government and other relevant stakeholders to take urgent steps to ensure that our undergraduates and post-graduate students get back to school. The present delay is dangerous, as it also exposes students to diverse temptations. After all, the cliché that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop is factual. The rise in cybercrime, otherwise known the yahoo boys syndrome, is likely linked to the delay in resolving the ASUU strike and others the tertiary system.

Unfortunately, the elite do not feel the pain, as their children are mostly studying abroad at a huge cost to the nation – if only in the use of scarce foreign exchange. Last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reported that $378million dollars got spent in five months on foreign education. Such huge foreign exchange outflow no doubt adds to the economic challenges facing the country; after all, the present free fall in the value of the naira is a result of all manners of pressure on the national currency.

For the elite class, particularly public office holders, whose children are comfortably studying abroad, the prolonged ASUU strike sounds like a distant challenge, unlike the case with majority of Nigerians whose children are at home, wasting away precious time. Like salt rubbed on the public’s injury, pictures of these elite celebrating the graduation of their children abroad often regale the media space, whereas those left in care as public servants idle away.

We hope the Federal Government takes to heart the two-weeks grace period given by the NLC to resolve the ASUU strike. Hopefully, Minister of Education Adamu Adamu would work with a reported directive by President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that government reaches a resolution with ASUU in earnest. Considering the challenges presently faced by the national economy, a shutdown by way of national strike could push it further south into recession.

We urge the Federal Government not to delay until the expiration of Labour’s grace period before scrambling to broker an understanding with it. The Nigerian public is disenchanted that while government claims it has no money to meet industrial demands, officials are being accused and arraigned for allegedly misappropriating humongous sums that could substantially meet the demands by ASUU. President Buhari, already in the twilight of his tenure, should worry about his legacy and take steps to resolve the ASUU strike.

On their part, ASUU and its sympathizers must tone down their rhetoric and make genuine concessions to end the strike. The comparison of the pro-ASUU labour rally to the better forgotten #ENDSARS protest that mutated into a grave threat to national security should be avoided. It is in the common interest of Nigerians that the ASUU crisis and others in the tertiary education system are resolved amicably.

Indications that the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is still very much around in the country give cause for concern. It’s been more than two years since the pandemic disrupted normal life across the world, and it is disturbing that the virus responsible for the disease keeps evolving and remains a serious threat in many countries.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has warned of a possible fifth wave of Covid-19 in the country, saying, “In the last eight weeks, the test positivity ratio has continued to increase.”

About 1,332 cases were recorded in one week within the period, the centre noted.  It also observed that most of the reported new cases were in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos, Rivers and Kano states.

The first case of the disease in the country was reported in February 2020 after the initial outbreak in China some months before.  The number of confirmed cases in the country as at July 28 was 261,213 including 3,147 fatalities. As at the same date, there were 575million cases globally, including more than 6.4million deaths.

To stop the spread of the virus, the NCDC has asked Nigerians to be safety-conscious and embrace non-pharmaceutical protocols like wearing face masks, washing of hands and maintaining social distancing. It has also asked states to ramp up testing.

The importance of personal responsibility in preventing the spread of the disease cannot be overemphasised. It has been observed that many people in the country now act as if the virus is no longer active and ignore the recommended safety measures. This is wrong and dangerous.

Also, it is noteworthy that the authorities have relaxed restrictions on public gatherings, which previously helped to check the spread of the disease. This places greater responsibility for safety on the people.

The reported resurgence of the disease requires that the people be vigilant and faithful to safety protocols. In addition, the authorities need to intensify public awareness efforts and surveillance, and ensure that testing is sustained.

As the country faces new Covid-19 challenges, it is also faced with the possibility of an outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) within its borders following the detection of the disease in Ghana, its West African neighbour. The World Health Organisation (WHO), on July 22, announced the confirmation of two fatal cases of MVD in Ghana.

The virus spreads through direct contact with blood or body fluids of a person who is sick with or died from MVD. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, chest pain, sore throat, abdominal pain and diarrhea; and when severe can include jaundice, inflammation of the pancreas, weight loss, delirium, shock, liver failure, massive hemorrhaging, and multi-organ dysfunction.

There is currently no treatment or vaccine for MVD and the death rate is reported to be nearly 90 percent. The country cannot afford to allow the Marburg virus infiltrate its space. Trying to tackle Covid-19 is enough trouble.

NCDC Director-General, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, said: “Measures have been put in place to prevent an outbreak of the disease in-country. Point of entry surveillance has been heightened, trained rapid response teams are on standby to be deployed in the event of an outbreak and the NCDC’s Incident Coordination Centre (ICC) is in alert mode.” This preparedness is reassuring.

The coronavirus battle has been compounded by detection of monkeypox in the country. This is another viral disease. In a situation report last week, the NCDC confirmed 133 cases of monkeypox in 26 states, and said there were at least 357 suspected cases of the disease in the country. It said three deaths were recorded from January to July, one each in Delta, Lagos and Ondo states. There are ongoing efforts to strengthen surveillance, it added.

Lassa fever, yet another viral disease, remains a major public health challenge in the country, with 857 infections and 164 deaths recorded so far this year.  This too needs to be tackled.

The country cannot afford to lose these viral battles. The authorities and the people must do all that is necessary to win.

Security, identity and utility wired into one smart card — that is a short and precise definition of the new Lagos State identity card for residents of the megapolis, which Governor Jide Sanwo-Olu unveiled on July 21.

A long-time initiative of the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA), the once-upon-a-time plastic card meant only for identification has been upgraded into a smart card for multiple purposes, among which is citizen security and comfort — and the upgrade held simultaneously on Lagos Island, Badagry, Ikorodu and Epe.

The features of the new card are basic identification linked to the carrier’s biometrics; and an electronic wallet in which funds can be stored for e-shopping and sundry transactions to aid the cashless economy that the government is promoting.

The carrier’s biometrics have serious implications for crime and security, since the holder is electronically tagged and can be traced should there be any suspicion of crime.  This is a key security and safety imperative in a city-state with a thumping population soaring by the hour.

But the chip in the smart card also allows every holder access to government services: pension administration, health insurance, school allocation linked to residential addresses so that a child is not posted to a school too far from his or her neighbourhood, and sundry other social amenities.

The card’s wallet can also be integrated into the cowry card for toll payments on roads run by the Lekki Concession Company (LCC) and also for e-fare in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) buses.

Governor Sanwo-Olu declared at the unveiling: “This ‘smart’ card will help address the issues surrounding the identification and traceability of Lagos residents, and ultimately help inform government’s planning and provision of services designed to secure lives and property.”

That is a core security function.  But the planning potentials of the smart card could be immense, other things being equal. The governor told his audience that the registration card would make planning more thorough and budgeting more effective.  That should make it easier to deliver the proverbial “dividends of democracy” in an opportunity centre where population balloons by the day, swollen by Nigerians from all over the country flocking to Lagos for jobs and other economic opportunities.

The governor further revealed: “Already 6.5million residents have been enrolled on the database by LASRA, with the state witnessing four-fold increment in registration in the last three years.”  That appears a piece of good news, particularly as the state government has set its sight on capturing no fewer than 10 million residents before the end of this year.

This innovation is well and truly revolutionary, particularly in the modern way of linking citizens to governmental system, which may make planning more pin-point and budgets more accurate.  If well driven, it could hallmark a shift for the better in Nigeria’s often shambolic planning.

The government should publicize the citizen benefits in the card, particularly access to amenities and health insurance, and placing kids in schools nearest to their homes.  If these benefits are drummed up enough, the citizen response could be immense.

Also, the success and acceptability of the card could provide the government with great potentials to draw players in the huge informal sector into the tax register.  If the card aids better planning, which delivers better on amenities, that should not be a hard sell.  In fact, that nexus could help to boost taxation, since citizens know they would get value for every kobo of taxation.  It is therefore an innovation other states may want to emulate.

Still, a key success factor is to ensure that the “wallet”, embedded in the card’s chip, is secure and as fraud-proof as possible.  It would be a pity if this otherwise promising tool is undone by shrieks of thieves hacking into card holders’ cash.

To the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), the current times are such that demand extraordinary measures. Speaking at its breakfast meeting in Lagos last week, the body’s national president, Mansur Ahmed, called for a separate forex window for its members to bring in raw materials on the grounds that the current regime where forex is allocated to both importers of finished goods and raw materials importers at the same rate in the same window is a disincentive to the real sector. “We cannot source foreign exchange to bring in raw materials because the dollars have gone too high.  Today, the exchange rate is at over N620/$. How would you be able to produce at that exchange rate and still be able to sell? There will be no market,” he said.

Interestingly, MAN also believes that such extraordinary measure should not be restricted to the forex arena alone. The body advocates a similar radical measure to stem the rising cost of diesel which some of the members had reported as hitting N1,100/litre in some parts of the country. To this, MAN would pose the rhetorical question: “How can a manufacturer survive that?”

The MAN chieftain also referenced the body’s earlier entreaties to the government to allow importation of diesel from neighbouring Niger Republic to cushion the impact of rising prices on production, which he claimed had met a brick wall.

“We need to sustain our manufacturing and for us to do it, we need the government to give us the right environment. The biggest challenge we face today is the complete absence of infrastructure. Without infrastructure, there is no way you can manufacture,” he had noted of their situation.

That these are extraordinary times is merely stating the obvious. Even without the latest spiral of inflation, crises of exchange rate and energy, the lot of the Nigerian manufacturer has been anything but enviable. What the current crises have done is to knock the bottom off the sector already known to be endangered.

To that extent, MAN is in order to press the case of its members. In fact, the survival of the sector, as indeed the entire economy, may come to depend on concessions and other such forbearances that the government is able to grant them at this difficult time. Being in good stead to articulate the general concerns of the real sector in which it is a leading player, the body’s regular observations obviously deserves to be taken seriously. The issue is whether the ad hoc measures proposed would actually benefit the larger economy.

On the first suggestion, the problem is how it could be achieved without creating a monstrous cartel of speculators that would prove just as problematic if not impossible to manage in the end.  Simply because the problem is shortage of forex, the apex bank already has its hands full in ensuring that those truly deserving have access to available forex.  A new forex window at this time will not only create another layer of bureaucracy (and possibly corruption), around the process, it will surely open the floodgate for other interest groups to make their own cases.

On the other hand, the proposal on diesel is worth pursuing provided that the country, Niger Republic, has sufficient stock to share.

Howbeit, the two issues, it needs to be understood, stem from the same premise of a monumental failure of government to plan for the future – the failure to diversify the economy to guarantee multiple sources of forex, and the failure to ensure that the nation’s fuel needs are met through domestic refining. Short of a miracle, it’s hard to see an enduring way out of the problem in the short term. We urge that the government puts on its thinking cap if only to address the problem holistically.

In the meantime, a more practical approach would be for MAN and other similar bodies to request the government for tax waivers and other sectoral incentives to enable them tide over the current crisis.

Like mere stack of cards, the national electricity grid collapsed again penultimate week, throwing much of the nation into darkness. It was the seventh collapse this year, occurring barely five weeks after a previous incident. The collapse also happened 20 days after the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) facilitated a contract-based performance deal with distribution companies (DisCos) to optimise supply to Nigerians by guaranteeing 5000mw of power.

On Wednesday, July 20th, the national grid crashed to zero megawatts at about 11:27a.m. and 12:00 noon, and was immediately restored negligibly to 4mw with only Omoku and Shiroro plants producing 3mw and 1mw respectively. At 12:48p.m., the grid reportedly rose to 40mw, which the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) supplied to only the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), leaving other DisCos with zero allocation. By 14:59p.m., the grid crashed again to zero megawatts.

Whereas TCN kept initial sealed lips on the grid collapse, DisCos notified customers of the incident. Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) issued a statement saying: “Dear customers, we regret to inform you of a system collapse on the national grid at precisely 11:27a.m. today, July 20. We are in talks with (TCN) to ascertain the cause of the collapse and possible restoration timeline.” Other DisCos issued similar statements in respective franchise area.

Much later, TCN issued a statement explaining that the grid experienced system disturbance at about 11:27a.m., but that its restoration was almost complete as at 11:00p.m. “The incident was a result of a sudden drop in system frequency from 49.94Hertz (Hz) to 47.36Hz, which created system instability,” spokesperson for the company, Ndidi Mbah, said. According to her, reports from the National Control Centre revealed that the collapse was precipitated by the tripping of a unit with a load of 106megawatts in one of the generating stations due to “exhaust over-temperature.” She said the tripping pulled out other grid-connected units in the plant, resulting in aggregated generation loss of 457mw. “A train of events ensued, culminating in the collapse of the national grid. As obtainable in all systems, when a component of the electric power system is defective, the entire configuration is vitiated,” Mbah added, assuring that investigation was underway to establish the cause of the failure.

Early in April, the grid recorded its third system failure within 25 days. It collapsed on Friday, 08th April, after it had earlier collapsed on 14th March and barely 24hours later on 15th March, plunging the nation into darkness. Power Minister Abubakar Aliyu blamed the collapses on vandalisation of power infrastructure and assured that efforts were ongoing to restore the grid to optimal operation. According to him, the grid was being fully re-energised by the System Operator, while other on-grid power plants had been deployed to bridge lost generation capacity. He assured that government was probing the immediate and remote causes of recurring grid failure.

That was in April. Before the 20th July collapse, the previous incident was on Nigeria’s Democracy Day, 12th June. Between 2013 when the power sector was  privatised and now, the national grid has collapsed more than 130 times and it is shocking that despites the high frequency, relevant authorities haven’t found a remedy to the to the ugly trend. There is a tendency in government to excuse the misnomer on the argument that it is not peculiar to Nigeria. In TCN’s statement following the 20th July collapse, Ndidi Mbah used the phrase “as obtainable in all systems,” just as Power Minister Aliyu once said it was a global phenomenon, even though we know public electricity rarely fails in Benin Republic next door, not to mention other places further afield. The recurrence of system failure is not acceptable and the argument of non-peculiarity to Nigeria does not wash. Government must find a solution – and fast – to repeated grid collapses. If centralisation of the grid is the challenge, it should be decentralised and farmed out to operators with proven competence. Enough of grid collapses!

Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari is an experienced public administrator. Apart from rising through the ranks in the old Kaduna State public service, he has been involved in running the Nigerian state at the highest level, having served as Speaker of the House of Representatives. And, since 2015, he has been the governor of Katsina State, President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state. Yet, he has had no respite. Nothing from his experience or knowledge of state craft has availed to ensure security of lives and property of the people who elected him.

It is no surprise that, recently, he appeared frustrated as he declared that the government of the land has failed the people. He did not seek to exonerate himself or other governors, despite his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) being in charge of the federal and 22 state governments.

Speaking while receiving Katsina State indigenes resident in the Federal Capital Territory, he blurted out that the security agencies saddled with the responsibility of warding off insurgency, terrorism, banditry and sundry violent crimes in the land have failed to live up to billing. Having tried a number of methods of curtailing the murderous acts of the criminals, Governor Masari appears to now be at his wit’s end.

He had engaged the merchants of death in dialogue, attempted to pacify them by offering them money and other incentives to drop their weapons. That only worked for a while. After tasting cheap money being raked in from ransom payment, the agents of darkness could not leave the trade. They resumed and continued to make living difficult for both the leaders and led in Katsina State.

Governor Masari is not the only leader crying out in distress. His neighbours in Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger in the North West and North Central are faced with the same predicament. Their people are slaughtered or held hostage for months on end, with governments and their agencies unable to do anything, thus emboldening the marauders to take further steps that bring agony to innocent people.

In May 2019, the governments of Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Kebbi and Niger states shut all markets and banned the use of motorcycles within their jurisdictions. The security forces were given strict instructions to apprehend anyone found to contravene the instruction. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a fundamental problem. It could not have lasted long. Thus, it had to be lifted when the people whose livelihood had been affected cried out, depicting the governments as lacking compassion. Yet, the problem has persisted. Orders by the Commander-in-Chief, promises by the National Security Council and purchase of sophisticated equipment by the military have yielded no fruit.

It is time tactics were changed. Every policy must be well thought out as the terrorists have become more daring and deadly. Just before the last Salah, an advance presidential convoy, including security men, was waylaid and given a bloody nose. The President’s men scampered into the bush to escape the assault. Thereafter, the battle was taken to the Federal Capital Territory with the Kuje jailbreak. And, just last Monday, men of the Presidential Brigade were ambushed and overpowered. Two officers and six soldiers were killed in that encounter.

It is unfortunate that terrorists had the temerity to threaten abduction of the President and Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai. This cannot be dismissed as an empty threat. The security system needs a shakeup. Lamentations by senior officials of the state like Governor Masari are unhelpful. If officials throw their hands in the air and whine, what is expected of the people holding the short end of the stick? If Nigeria needs foreign help, the government should not hesitate to ask. There must now be a change of direction to instill confidence in the people and save them from imminent starvation and economic strangulation.

Nigerian girl, Boubini Miyensinte Jones-Wonni, 22, was the youngest but best graduated medical student at the Howard University, USA, in May.

That stellar performance just earned her a scholarship into the Harvard University Medical School for residency (post-graduate training) in internal medicine — a feat she shared with only one of her fellow graduands. America had better brace itself for more scholastic feats!  Brilliance has been the lot of Jones-Wonni’ right from childhood in her native Nigeria.

Born on 23 October, 1999 — the year Nigeria returned to democracy — she is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Jones-Wonni from Arogbo, Ese-Odo local government area of Ondo State.  Since the very beginning of her education at Banky’s Private School, Apo, Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sheer brilliance has been her alter ego.

So acute was the young mind of Boubini that her teachers pushed her to sit for the common entrance examination into secondary school in primary three.  She passed — and brilliantly too — and earned admission into the Word of Faith Group of Schools, Abuja.  When she passed out of the school at 14 in 2014, she was the valedictorian and best graduate — and probably the youngest too.

In her final year, the school recognized her brilliance and rewarded her with free tuition.  Perhaps it was also grand recognition of the acuity of her mind that she was made library prefect.  Indeed, only the deep call to the deep!

However, Word of Faith Group of Schools would only be her platform to academic exploits abroad, albeit initially via a Nigerian-funded scholarship.  After virtually crushing another public test, she earned one of the slots in the Special Education Scholarship Programme for Niger Delta Students, under the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP).

She was to study medicine and surgery in the United States.  But she had to earn a degree in a relevant discipline prior to entering medical school, as is the practice in the United States.  She got admitted into Miles College, Alabama, to read for a degree in biological sciences.  As she did in her primary school when she spent three instead of six years, she made her degree requirements in just three years, instead of four.

The amazing thing about this feat was that she wasn’t even a book worm.  She fully participated in healthy student union politics, thus pointing to a well-rounded development of her mind.  She was secretary of finance at that college’s Student Government Association (SGA).  At the end of it all, she emerged best graduated student of the Department of Natural Science and Mathematics at 18.

Four years later, she repeated that umpteenth feat at Howard University, Washington DC, and on the strength of that, clinched a scholarship for post-graduate studies in internal medicine at the Harvard University Medical School.

This is a truly thrilling story of made-in-Nigeria, polished in America – just like Tobi Amusan in athletics, who set two world records in one night and gloriously became the first Nigerian  World Champion in track-and-field.

As Boubini was carefully nurtured in a private school in the FCT, Tobi found her running shoes in a Nigerian public school at Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State. As PAP gave Boubini’s minds the initial wings to soar in the USA, Tobi got adopted by Dapo Abiodun, governor of her home Ogun State, as part of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports adopt-an-athlete initiative, in her final push for her world title win. Indeed, these are two Nigerian stories worth crowing about, for they show there is no limit to excellence and greatness if the right things are done.

There is biting symbolism in Boubini’s story. Here was a child born in the same year Nigeria returned to democracy — and see how she has bloomed!  Yet, she’s nowhere near her peak.  How might Nigerian have been, had it made such progress in 22 years of democracy as Citizen Boubini!  That’s food for thought!

Still, the comfort — and it’s not just cold comfort: despite the present travails, all is not lost. Things can be better.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently alerted the international community that the monkey pox epidemic is now a global emergency. For a world that is currently battling a fifth wave of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, the news is depressing. Many economies have not recovered from the impact of the 2020 pandemic that has so far killed millions and still counting.

Many countries got very creative in trying to assist their citizens and by implication national economies to recover – even if not up to pre-pandemic buoyancy level, but at least to a sustainable level in the interim. Many countries including the developed nations are not totally out of the woods but progress is being made. Going by the spirit of global multilateralism, many developed nations and some global agencies have tried to send vaccines, funds and other medical requirements to less developed nations to either assuage the impact of the pandemic, assist in getting victims back to good health or prevent further spread and fatalities from the pandemic so as to get countries back to better economic and social standing.

Nigeria as a developing country has been a recipient of Covid-19 intervention funds and other materials meant to assist the people to be healthier and more productive, as the world almost ground to a halt two years ago. Sadly though, one of the hallmarks of the historic #ENDSARS protest at the peak of the lockdown  period were mob raids on some warehouses across the country stocked with what was then described as Covid-19 palliatives. In the usual mob mode, the warehouses were broken into and stacked palliatives looted, with most already decayed or expired.

There was national outrage. Some people had sinned by either negligence, omission or commission. What had passed as a typical Nigerian riddle is, however, now being investigated by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), which is probing some Ministries, Department and Agencies  for mishandling of Covid-19 intervention funds and other procurement abuses. We pray the Commission will take the road less travelled by getting to the root of the matter and letting Nigerians have the full details of its investigations.

The palliatives issue goes the way of most programmes and even budgetary allocations at all levels of governance where some  people in authority exploit misfortunes and sabotage the very people they are in office to protect. There have been cases of public officers exploiting the vulnerable. Stories about sad experiences of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the country, including alleged sexual exploitation and starvation, abound even when funds from national and international agencies was not lacking. In similar manner, at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown, Nigerians watched in horror as desperate citizens broke into warehouses stacked with items that should have been distributed to them in an orderly manner. Speculations were that politicians appropriated the items to share during festive seasons for political capital rather than help the needy through the lockdown period.

We commend ICPC for initiating the probe and hope this will not be for mere optics, or the agency barking without biting. It should come up with answers to spoken and unspoken questions by many Nigerians, home and abroad, who were shocked by the palliatives scandal and tacky handling of Covid-19 procurements by government departments. There is always a need to make public officers pay for dereliction of duty. The probe is only the first step, its outcome must be brought to public domain and persons found culpable made to face the law as deterrent to others. By getting violators of the law punished, others would learn to be conscientious and diligent in serving those who pay their salaries. That is the world best practice.