Category: Editorial

The lives of our senior citizens have always won on rhetoric. When implementation beckons, words do not translate into action. So, millions of men and women who have toiled in the precious years of their lives to improve this country face the reality of hunger, ill-funded health care, poor housing, deprivation, and they see death coming like the ticking of a clock.

Their fate is no encouragement to the young and vibrant. They face the prospect of a dire old age. The pension schemes that should serve as relief have been failing. According to the report on the first quarter of this year, only five states of the federation have been faithful in remittances under the 2014 Pensions Reform Act. It requires states that have signed on to pay 10 percent of the salaries to the scheme while deducting 7.5 percent of the salaries.

Of the 36 states in the federation, only 25 have even signed on to the arrangement. But 20 do not apply their hearts to it. The five that have been conscientious are Lagos, Osun, Kaduna and Delta, as well as the Federal Capital Territory.

According to the executive director of the Centre for Pension Right Advocacy (CPRA), Mr. Ivor Takor, “The governors, past and present of the affected states, have demonstrably shown that they have no regard for the provisions of extant labour laws.

“Moreover, they ran, and continue to run, their states in grave violation or breach of the provisions of the constitution of the country, which they swore to uphold.”

If only five states adhere, it portends great suffering for millions who now live their hoary years waiting for Godot. The PenCom records show that some states pay the ten percent but do not remit the 7.5 percent. Some remit 7.5 percent but do not pay the 10 percent. Others do neither. Some other states have amended their schemes but have fallen short of implementing them.

A few states have not had the fortitude to move the project from the bill stage, and are temporizing to save money or tease their old citizens. They include Kwara, Plateau, Cross River, Borno, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Katsina and Yobe. But Kebbi and Rivers States only remit employees’ contributions. States like Kano, Jigawa, Gombe and Zamfara have their own schemes, and although they are accountable to themselves, they do not account.

Former head of corporate affairs of PenCom, Peter Aghaghowa, said: “The implementation of pension in states is a different kettle of fish because of the autonomy they have over it. This is unlike what is obtainable in the federal pension scheme where we have a tight grip on.”

Month after month, headlines sully newspapers with reports of pensioners either fainting on long queues or waiting on end for money that they are not sure to receive.

But it will not be simplistic to say the governors are indifferent and do not want to pay. They have other priorities owing to scarce resources. But that is not an excuse. It is a failure of imagination and inability to prioritise.

The larger society, too, has done little to mount pressure on state executives. Some of the states are struggling to pay their salaries and believe that it is better to pay workers than former workers. It is a cynical policy to ignore the older ones.

Many believe that lack of prospect of old age security is partly responsible for massive corruption. Hence, as a nation, we cannot ignore the consequences of leaving senior citizens in the lurch.

The 2014 reform failures demonstrate that laws are not often enough, but committed persons make the difference.

One sector mostly affected by the international energy crisis is aviation. It is one sector that is yet to fully recover from the COVID-19 crisis that crippled the economies of many countries, including the developed nations. For months in 2020, the airlines were grounded as restrictions were imposed to curb the spread of the pandemic.

A new twist came with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, which spurred an energy crisis and food scarcity in most parts of the world. Africa is one of the hardest hit as it is dependent on other countries and regions for its supplies. In Nigeria, inflation in the energy sector has affected the Premium Motor Spirit supply chain, diesel, and Jet A1 that negatively impacts the cost of air transportation.

High cost of flying has resulted in high cost of goods and services, as airlines have served notice that the surge in price of the fuel would inevitably lead to introduction of surcharges. The airlines indicate that fuel accounts for 40 per cent of their operational cost. Already, prices have been adjusted upwards internationally by about 52 percent.

Nigeria is not being spared. Not even meetings between airline operators and federal legislators have helped. Passengers are made to pay almost 100 per cent higher in some cases. And as the economy is yet to recover from economic recession and the COVID pandemic, the volume of passengers has dropped. As a consequence, the oldest airline in the country, Aero Contractors, has suspended operations. Others have indicated that they may soon follow suit.

It is obvious that they did not manage the crisis well. Knowing that the transport sector in the country, be it air or land, remains vulnerable to the vagaries of the international crisis, operators should have worked together with other stakeholders to find immediate as well as lasting solutions. Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari said Nigerians would express gratitude to him for expertly managing the economy if they knew what was happening in other African countries. It is a shame that Nigeria is being compared to countries that are resource-strapped. Crude oil that is the main source of the various fuels is available abundantly in this country. In addition, we have four refineries that are all down owing to mismanagement by government.

The Buhari administration had blamed the comatose state of the refineries on previous governments, but what has it done in the past seven years? At first, former Petroleum Resources Minister, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, pledged that the refineries would be sold to the private sector. That was not done. At another point, it was said a number of modular refineries would be established in many parts of the country, which again did not materialise. At this point, the Port-Harcourt refinery is being rehabilitated at the cost of a whopping $1.5 billion. The policy summersaults made the country unprepared for the current crisis.

As we have previously argued, the solution to perennial crisis in the energy sector and spill-on effects on the economy is to locally refine our crude. Otherwise, we will continue to depend on other countries and import their inflation. There can be no local solution to a global crisis when we are not in control of inputs. The challenge would weigh more on Nigerians as transport by road has become too hazardous with terrorists and kidnappers operating at will on our highways. Yet the waterways are not developed for transportation and the railway is just being revived.

The Federal Government has a duty to quickly find a solution to the problem. Excuses would not hold as government isn’t elected to pass the buck. If nothing is done urgently, the country’s airlines could all pack up.

After prevarication over ransom motives, terrorists who bombed the Kaduna-bound rail service from Abuja on March 28 have demanded 4.3billion naira to free hostages remaining in their captivity. This could be said to represent another phase of their terrorism – this time psychological and economic. Such demand in exchange for the lives of the 43 victims still in the terrorists’ custody subjects the families of the victims to fresh round of emotional distress and trauma. Sadly, government has so far been unable to free the victims from captivity and left the families in agitation for continuing safety of their loved ones.

In the face of seeming helplessness by the state, the terrorists have mustered the courage to demand a huge ransom from relations of the hostages who have been in captivity for more than 100 days now. Should the families raise such humongous ransom to free their loved ones, the terrorists would likely be emboldened to strike some other time for another round of extortion. Besides, with such enormous sum in their kitty, the terrorists would obviously be economically empowered to buy lethal weapons to further tyrannise the country. As it were, some 800 million naira was reported paid to them before the recent batch of hostages released.

Under the circumstance, the nation is feeding a monster, and that monster’s appetite cannot be satiated if it is not altogether stopped. So, the Federal Government that controls the national security apparatus would need to wake up to the responsibility of breaking the vicious cycle of insecurity that feeds further insecurity. It was audacious that terrorists, while holding many Nigerians hostage, recently stormed the prison facility in Kuje with the apparent aim of freeing their own colleagues in government custody. And they got their way.

To make matters more galling, there were reports that security agencies had advance intelligence about likely attack on the correctional centre. Besides, there were suspicions of grave system breaches, such that Senate President Ahmad Lawan during his visit to the correctional centre alleged the likelihood of insider collusion in the attack. If such allegations are true, it means national security is severely compromised and the state in grave danger.

We urge the federal authorities to wake up to their constitutional responsibilities. In case they need to be reminded, Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) clearly states: “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” The Federal Government has so far failed the victims of the Kaduna train attack and their families, just as it has failed hundreds of victims of gruesome murders and kidnappings across the country. Government should hold security agencies to the task of flushing out criminals terrorising the citizenry. It has the capacity to do so, if there is matching will power on its part. And if this isn’t done, the claim to state sovereignty becomes specious because we are faced with persisting situation whereby terrorists capture citizens and batter their lives for ransoms that they apparently use in further arming up for wilder exploits – all under the jurisdiction of the state.

As Commander-in-Chief, President Muhammadu Buhari should see the trend as personal affront to his authority that should not be tolerated and must be tackled down by all means. Beyond the conventional mode of security operations, modern technology should be maximally deployed to rout the terrorists who have given this country a black eye. History would not be kind to Mr. President if the country remains overwhelmed by terrorists as he concludes his tenure.

When he received some governors, legislators and other political leaders in Daura during the last Sallah holidays, President Muhammadu Buhari appealed to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to call off its ongoing prolonged strike, saying “Enough is enough of keeping students at home.” The President urged ASUU to sympathize with the people as well as consider the future of the students and allow classes to resume even as negotiations continue.

Nigerians had expected the President to have spoken out much earlier and expressed his exasperation at a strike action that commenced on February 14, which was over five months ago. He was indeed right in stating that keeping the universities shut for so long had serious negative implications for the institutions, students, parents and even the society as a whole with the likely tendency for a rise in social vices among the idle youth.

But that is exactly why beyond his rather plaintive and seemingly irresolute ‘enough is enough’ plea, much more positive, focused and decisive action is required from President Buhari in order to find a lasting solution to this crisis. In the same vein, his call on well-meaning Nigerians, particularly those close to leaders and members of ASUU, to intervene in persuading the lecturers to resume work is not out of place. But it cannot substitute for the responsibility of his office to be at the forefront of resolving the impasse.

We see no reason why the President had not taken a more active and personal role in the negotiations between the union and representatives of government long before now, especially as the strike had dragged on interminably. It is certainly not too late for him to do so now; indeed it has become imperative. For one, there is the looming threat by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to declare a nationwide strike in support of the university workers. The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) has strongly stated its readiness to join the NLC in such an action and this will most likely be the stance of other unions. The implications of such a degeneration in the industrial relations climate in the country at this time of severe economic hardship and large-scale insecurity can best be imagined.

Again, the President cannot afford to take a passive stance in this matter because it is not only ASUU members that are on strike; other unions in the academic sector such as the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) have also downed tools rendering the entire system prostrate. It is only the Office of the President that can oversee and help bring about a wholistic solution to such a pervasive crisis in the higher education sector. Personal involvement of the President will assure the striking workers that agreements reached have the imprimatur of the highest authority in the land and further assure them that they are held in high esteem and not being taken for granted by government. This will brighten the psychological climate for a quick resolution of issues at stake.

Another reason why the ball lies in the court of the President is that, as ASUU has pointed out in response to his plea, the Professor Nimi Briggs-led Committee set up on June 7 to renegotiate the contentious 2009 Agreement with ASUU and submit its report to the Education Minister, Mallam Adamu Adamu within three months, has reportedly done so. We expect that the Minister ought to have speedily forwarded the report to the President to enable him take necessary decisions for further negotiations and a quick closure to the logjam. In this regard, we agree with the leadership of the National Parents Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) that it is only when the President has considered and taken action on the Professor Briggs Committee’s report that members of the public can have a firm basis to seek to prevail on the striking workers to go back to work.

However, even though ASUU’s position and grievances on poor funding of public universities is justified and understandable, the union and others also on strike in the university system cannot be insensitive to the grave economic crisis  and severe financial crunch the country currently faces. While this calls for urgent measures by government to plug sources of wastage, tackle corruption and reorder its priorities, ASUU too cannot afford to be rigid and inflexible in its demands. Both parties must shift grounds in order to reach an accommodation urgently and allow the universities reopen.

There’s need for creative thinking in the search for better and sustainable funding for public universities. For instance, government could consider selling its property lying fallow across the country to raise money. Another striking option was the crowd funding private initiative mooted by human rights broadcaster of ‘Berekete family’ fame, Isah Ahmed, but which ASUU preemptively turned down. Innovative ideas to improve varsity funding should be welcome.

Nigeria’s bourgeoning population need not be a burden.  But it must be serviced by sound social and physical infrastructure

According to the United Nations population observatory, the global population would hit eight billion by 15th November 2022.  It would rise to 8.5 billion by 2030, nudge 9.7 billion in 2050, crest at 9.7 billion by the 2080s and thereafter start plateauing well into the 2100s.

The good news for those who fear that a booming population is a curse: global population might be growing, but it is growing at a declining rate — the slowest since the 1950s.  That is why it would start leveling out by the 2100s. Besides, a booming population need not lead to social Armageddon. China has changed its state policy of one woman-one-child to two because the country needs more hands to power her sprawling economy.  That also explains why India is on the cusp of overtaking China as the world’s most populous country, though India has chalked up less victories against mass poverty than China.

But it is in view booming population cohabiting with mass poverty that Nigeria must worry.  For starters, Nigeria is named among eight countries that would account for more than 50 percent of global population growth between now and 2050. The other seven countries are Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Tanzania and the Philippines.  But even among these countries, the most fecund would be from sub-Saharan Africa where Nigeria lies.

Other danger beeps, on this score, are from DRC  with perennial tension arising from cross-border wars, and Ethiopia, at the Horn of Africa region, which at the best of times boasts a record in cruel famine and drought.

All of these should worry demographers in Nigeria, as policy makers plot a winning strategy.  The population booms while social services depreciate. Besides, a neo-Hobbesian state of acute insecurity stares everyone in the face.

A booming population per se is no curse.  Nigeria is a vast country just like the United States that is a near-continent, and there are others like India, Pakistan and China. These countries need fitting population spread to drive their respective economies.  That same imperative led the late Muammar Gaddafi of Libya onto “importing” honorary Libyans to cope with the demands of his vast territory sparsely inhabited by people. The challenge for Nigeria is that besides the boom in population, demographic breakdown shows a disproportionate percentage of youths with multifarious demands, whereas facilities are vanishing. The consequence is the crushing pressure on economic centres such as Lagos.

What to do? Birth control, if policy makers have the mindset of accountants and shrewd managers  of the nation’s lean treasury. Not that the suggestion is novel, being the thrust of family planning advocacy since the 1980s.  But with religious sensibilities so acute and low mass literacy level, the success of the campaign has been extremely limited.

The alternative is to radically expand facilities to cope with rapidly growing demands.  That would gel with policy makers with marketer mindset, as it entails deploying more resources to engender higher productivity, development and ultimate prosperity.

On this score, it isn’t as if Nigeria has not made any effort.  As at now, there is a policy of free and compulsory public education in place for the first nine years of formal education (up to JS 3 level).  Even the perennial strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is partly a function of the dissonance over whether or not to continue with the huge subsidy on tertiary education, by which Nigerian graduates  are trained at dirt cheap rates in public universities and allied tertiary schools. The downside, however, is that everything is progressively collapsing under intense pressure from increasing population demands.  The collapse of the tightly controlled scholarship schemes of pre-free education Nigeria, and the near-collapse presently of the education sector has engendered a feeling of listlessness and hopelessness.

That sinking feeling could be found on almost every other front: health, formal elders’ support (if any), and even in the core private sector where the manufacturing that holds the key to employment opportunities is comatose. This doesn’t bode well for Nigeria’s booming population.  Add the phenomenon of corruption and the situation becomes more dire.

That is why government must open fresh and urgent dialogues on the present reality.  The focus should be on what social subsidies to keep and what to let go; and, of course, to demonstrate an iron will to crush corruption.

In an environment traditionally famed for its lack of competitiveness, the plaintive cries of the micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs) in the face of persistent rise in the price of Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) and its negative impact on cost of operations in general have come under renewed focus. The cries are difficult to ignore. Reports suggest that the MSME operators have not only asked the Federal Government to intervene in tax holidays and regulatory forbearance to enable them to tide over the current headwinds, they also argue for innovative measures to drive the growth of the sector, as well  stimulate business expansion, job creation and poverty alleviation.

The issues involved are no mere abstractions. There can be no denying that these are extremely difficult times for this class of operators. Aside their relatively small sizes that tend to deny them the manifold benefits of economies of scale, they are buffeted by those other traditional factors as cost and access to cheap loanable funds, ill-developed logistics and then the old plague of epileptic power supply. That is not mentioning the chaotic regime of multiple taxations that tend to render business operations a nightmare. And this is a sector that has only begun to crawl out of the lull imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

To these traditional headaches have now been added the burden of continuous rise in the price of diesel with which they are expected to run their power plants, and also to move their raw materials and finished products to their end users. We refer here to the astronomic rise in the price of the fuel from N300 at the beginning of the year to over N900 per litre, with the effects currently cascading through the entire economy.

Talking of the place of MSMEs in the nation’s economic matrix, they are known to contribute 48 percent of national GDP, account for 96 percent of businesses and 84 percent of employment, and based on the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figures, number 17.4 million. They also account for about 50 percent of industrial jobs and nearly 90 percent of the manufacturing sector. Such are their contributions that should make their legitimate concerns deserving of urgent national attention.

Yet, a notorious fact is that the MSMEs receive approximately 0.3 percent of total credits administered in the country.

Good thing: they are not asking for anything that has never been asked before. Among these are improved access to funding, and this at reasonable interest rates, an end to the stifling regime of multiple taxation, easing of the current procedures on registration and approvals, particularly from such agencies as National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

To help bring down the cost of diesel, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has suggested removal of the Value Added Tax (VAT). These proposals, which underscore the current exigencies, cannot even be described as extraordinary given the dire emergency the operators currently face and one under which the larger economy reels. In broad terms, they are in line with what the presidential committee on Ease of Doing Business has sought to achieve in alleviating the problems of the sector, but with limited success. The present emergency can only be said to have introduced a new urgency to the quest. To that extent, the broad proposals are in every respect, deserving of the Federal Government’s consideration and immediate action.

Four of the last eight waiting to grab Boris Johnson’s job are racial minorities.  One of them is Kemi Badenoch of Nigerian descent

Perhaps the most disruptive phenomenon in modern global history is the British Empire.  From the British Raj of India, Pakistan and allied Asian dominions (on which it was said the sun would never set), to the African colonies, to the so-called new world of the United States and Canada, and the Oceania wing of Australia and New Zealand, British colonization plagued almost every part of the world.

But now, that global disruption is homing in on British home politics, with developments leading to the ouster of Boris Johnson, the embattled Prime Minister who just resigned in a froth of scandals.  It promises to be culturally disruptive to the British homers as British colonialism was to the British dominated races and peoples.

Still, that in itself is not a bad thing.  Indeed, it would appear quite positive: for Britain appears shaping up well to its historic burden and responsibilities, much more than the United States, after White hate and bitterness that four years of Donald Trump unleashed on ‘Uncle Sam’.  Yet, the United States is the supposed liberal one, in comparison to a culturally conservative Britain.

True, the United Kingdom remains a dominantly white country.  By its latest demographic spread, the White are 87 percent, Asian, six percent and Black, three percent, according to data from the British Office of National Statistics.  Indeed, these racial minorities are lumped together in that not-so-elegant acronym, BAME: Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic.

Yet, from this BAME racial bloc has come four of the last eight eyeing Mr. Johnson’s job.  What’s more?  Presently leading the pack is Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance minister).  The other three are Suella Braverman (female, Attorney General for England and Wales, of Indian descent like Sunak), Kemi Badenoch, of Nigerian roots and Nadham Zahawi (an ethnic Iraqi-Arab and Chancellor of the Exchequer since July 5).

But that was even after two other BAMEs: Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and former Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, both of Asian descent, pulled out from the race at the last minute.  Of even more significant ripples were the withdrawals of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, highly regarded ministers who drove the ministerial resignations that doomed Boris Johnson’s position as Prime Minister.

The other four traditional Brits in the race for the PM job are Liz Truss, Foreign Secretary and Penny Mordaunt, Defence Secretary (both female); and Tom Tungedhat, chair of Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons and Jeremy Hunt, former Health and Foreign Secretary.

This is not the first time well-heeled offspring of British immigrants would bid for party leadership under the Tories.  In 2019, when Mr. Johnson triumphed as party leader, one minority popped up in a field of 10, the remaining nine being Whites.

Neither is Kemi Badenoch the first of Nigerian descent to bid for the leadership of a major British party.  That honour belonged to Chuka Harrison Ummunna, who vied for Labour Party leadership.  He made his bid on 12th May 2015 to replace Ed Miliband, who just resigned after a Labour election rout.  But three days later he withdrew his bid, instead backing Liz Kendall, who eventually lost the contest.

Even then, Ms. Badenoch’s push generates more sensation because such minority moves are usually more associated with Labour, the ideologically progressive party that is more liberal on racial matters, rather than the conservative Tories.

Indeed, in the 2019 elections, Labour fared much better among minorities, grabbing 64 percent of their votes as against Tories’ 20 percent and Liberal Democrats’ 12 percent.  Still, the current strong minority push for Tory leadership dates back to a deliberate project in 2005.  In a policy speech, David Cameron, then PM and Tory Leader, pledged to “change the face of the Conservative Party by changing the faces of the Conservative party.”

That project led to Tory “poaching” of Badenoch and other racial minorities, so much so that when Boris Johnson quit (though he remains caretaker PM till September 5), his cabinet had become the most diverse ever in British history.  If Badenoch (among the last eight) or Sunak (the present leader of the pack) prevails, it would be an ode to the memories of Benjamin Disraeli, the distinguished ethnic Jew that became British PM (first in 1868; then from 1874-1880).  He was a Tory too.

The Badenoch British story is rich in moral for her Nigerian homeland.  For starters, she is one of four women of diverse races chasing the British pinnacle of power.  Yet, no one seems bothered by her gender,  nor are they worried about her racial root.  The common sentiment appears to be that if these ladies are good enough for the British Parliament, they are certainly good enough for leadership — based on their rich minds and what they can offer, not on gender and racial considerations. That is a big lesson for Nigeria where citizens still split hairs on religious pseudo-explosives as a Muslim-Muslim/Christian-Christian presidential or gubernatorial ticket; or even the Hijab poisoning of the minds of minors and teens.  Shouldn’t citizenship come first?  And should that not trump other individual differences, without not being insensitive to these differences?

Badenoch’s British story again underscores the imperative to make merit the pillar of the Nigerian fabric.  With merit and fairness, its handmaiden, it would be far easier not to glory and grovel in religious and ethnic bigotry, and sundry base distractions.  The British have been at theirs for some 700 years.  But it’s never too early for Nigeria to imbibe and mainstream such positive ethos.