The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Trail blazer

    Trail blazer

    • Enugu becomes first state to want to generate, transmit and distribute own power

    With effect from today (May 1), Enugu State becomes the first state to benefit from the constitutional amendment signed into law by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in March, last year, on devolution of powers concerning the national grid system. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has also made at least two amendments to the law.

    With these amendments, Enugu State and other states that intend to take charge of power supply can now begin to generate, transmit and distribute electricity without recourse to the national grid.

    The process was kick-started on April 22 when the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) issued an order ceding its oversight of the electricity market in the state to the Enugu State Electricity Regulatory Commission (EERC). NERC said in a public notice on its X handle on April 22 that the decision complied with the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electricity Act 2023 (Amended).

    The document was cited as “The Order of Transfer of Regulatory Oversight of the Electricity Market in Enugu State from Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to the Enugu State Electricity Regulatory Commission (EERC).” It was signed by NERC Chairman, Sanusi Garba, and Commissioner, Legal, Licensing and Compliance, Dafe Akpeneye.

    Read Also: Five class of ‘94 players who have coached Super Eagles

    This is a significant step in the country’s step for solution to its seemingly intractable power crisis. Constant power supply is sine quanon for national development. Unfortunately, Nigeria has not been able to crack the nuts hobbling stable power supply due to a lot of reasons, including corruption.

    Until the return to democratic rule on May 29, 1999, the power sector suffered neglect in the hands of various military administrations. No new power plants were constructed even as the country’s population continued to increase and demand for electricity surged in response to increased industrial and other activities.

    It was in the quest for a more efficient power supply that the Federal Government transformed the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) that finally led to the privatisation of the sector in November 2013. Eleven electricity distribution companies (DisCos) and six generation companies (GenCos) were subsequently created. Hopes were high that the privatisation would significantly impact on power supply but the reality is that the situation has not improved sustainably, with power generation still below 5,000MW, compared to, say, South Africa’s over 40,000MW.

    Even with this inadequate generation, the transmission and distribution systems are too old and fragile to wheel the power generated, leading to incessant grid collapses. Indeed, the grid had collapsed 46 times from 2017 to 2023, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.

    Apparently the privatisation of the sector was improperly handled, with many of the DisCos unable to find their feet, having been sold to cronies of the government that privatised the sector. They lacked both the technical and financial capabilities to function and that explains, to a large extent, their inability to deliver in spite of the huge investments in trillions of Naira that the Federal Government had committed to shore up their activities.

    Today, the government is in search of buyers for many of the DisCos.

    Lagos State seemed to have realised early in this democratic dispensation that centralised generation and distribution of power would not take the country far. Hence, it went into agreement with Enron for generation of electricity supply to Lagosians but the then Olusegun Obasanjo government frustrated the move, citing constitutional provisions that the power sector was under the exclusive list, meaning only the Federal Government could perform such functions.

    In spite of its other imperfections, we commend the Buhari administration for the decentralisation of the power sector, a thing that has made it possible for Enugu State to have the power to generate, transmit and distribute its own power compared to the extant arrangement that compelled any entity that generates power to send it to the fragile national grid.

    With this, every state will now be the architect of its own fortune or misfortune with regard to power supply. Accusing fingers would no longer be pointed at the Federal Government for epileptic power supply and Nigerians should be able to put their state governments’ feet to fire if they cannot provide stable power supply for their residents.

    We urge other states to emulate Enugu State in this game changer with the potential to revolutionise power supply in the country.  

  • Not for self

    Not for self

    • Onakoya’s Guinness World Record in chess undertaken for the world’s children

    A champion with a vision and a mission, Nigerian chess master and promoter Tunde Onakoya, 29, pursued a Guinness World Record for reasons beyond self-promotion. For him, trying to beat the chess marathon world record of 56 hours, 9 minutes, and 37 seconds, set in 2018 by Norwegians Hallvard Haug Flatebø and Sjur Ferkingstad, was not an ego trip.

     He initially targeted 58 hours. Later, he announced on X that he was “pushing to 60 hours.” He said: “We have a fundraising goal to meet for the education of African children around the world. This is our why – the reason we are doing this.” His goal was to raise one million US dollars for the education of disadvantaged children.

    He became a chess celebrity on April 20 after playing against Shawn Martinez, a US chess champion, for a record-breaking 60 hours, in Times Square, New York City, USA. He won every game. The Guinness World Records (GWR) is expected to confirm the new record and announce him as a new world record holder. The British reference body lists world records “both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world.”

    His choice of America, a country recognised as a global power, for his record-chasing chess marathon, attracted international attention to his quest, and also spotlighted his country, Nigeria. For instance, Nigerian jollof rice and Afrobeats music got some good publicity during his chess marathon.

    In a congratulatory statement, President Bola Tinubu praised Onakoya for “sounding the gong of Nigeria’s resilience, self-belief, and ingenuity at the square of global acclaim.” Indeed, his story demonstrates these qualities. He was disadvantaged as a child, and his mother was forced to offer to work for a school as a cleaner in exchange for his secondary school fees, which his parents could not afford. He grew up in a slum in Ikorodu, Lagos, where he learned to play chess at a barber’s shop. It’s a striking irony that he was introduced to chess, regarded as an elitist game, in such difficult conditions.

    Read Also: Five class of ‘94 players who have coached Super Eagles

    Known as “the royal game,” chess brought him recognition that has been solidified by his marathon feat. He won a gold medal as a chess player at the Nigeria Polytechnic Games, representing Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, where he studied computer science. He also won the National Friends of Chess and the Chevron Chess Open. He is a board member of the New York-based non-profit The Gift of Chess, which plans to distribute one million chess sets to communities worldwide by 2030. It is a measure of his achievements that he was featured in CNN African Voices.

    He had shown his stuff, in February, with his viral performance at the Digital-Life-Design conference in Berlin, Germany where he played, and won, simultaneous matches against 10 players, including a well-known Bulgarian scientist and politician, Solomon Passy.

    His defining project, Chess in Slums Africa, which he started in September 2018, is a non-profit organisation committed to empowering underprivileged children. It collaborated with Chess.com in September 2020 for educational and chess promotion purposes. His organisation, as of 2021, had trained over 200 children and got scholarships for 20 of them.

    As a child education advocate, he seems driven by a sense of his own early years of disadvantage. He has organised notable interventions in slums in Lagos State, including Majidun, Makoko and Oshodi, training children in a two-week programme that involves chess, said to have the potential to develop the mind, as well as reading and writing.

    It is inspiring that he set a new chess marathon world record, painting a colourful picture of possibilities. He was appointed Ogun State Sports Ambassador and Chess Ambassador because of his inspirational value. He hails from Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State. Governor Dapo Abiodun said his administration “will begin an Ogun State Chess Competition” in his honour, which is to be designed by him, and sponsor the Tunde Onakoya Prize for the winner of the competition.

    His passionate focus on using chess to advance education of children, and their development, sets him apart from the increasing number of Nigerians whose pursuit of a Guinness World Record can be described as a vanity project.  

  • Tragedy reoccurs!

    Tragedy reoccurs!

    •Death of five children in Niger reenacts mishap in Lagos three years ago

    Five children, ages ranged between five and 13 years, suffocated to death in an abandoned vehicle in Niger State after locking themselves in for hours. The tragedy occurred last Sunday in Gurara Albishir suburb of Minna, the state capital.
    Reports said the five children were playing in a large compound before they got into the Honda Civic car that had been parked for over two years and apparently locked themselves inside unwittingly. Their parents and concerned neighbours reportedly began searching for them in the vicinity from about 11a.m. until they were eventually located in the shuttered car – dead – at about 4p.m. Victims involved were four females and a male, with three of them being siblings from the same parents and the two others from different parents, including the owner of the abandoned car.
    Community sources recounted that no one suspected that the children were trapped inside the car until it was too late. “This tragic incident came to us as a rude shock. Imagine losing five children within few hours! It is painful. They got locked up while playing in the car without knowing, and nobody knew they were there for hours,” one of the residents was cited saying. “They might have mistakenly locked themselves up from around 11a.m. while the parents were searching for them, only to discover their dead bodies in the car around 4p.m. after fruitlessly looking everywhere in the vicinity,” another community source narrated.
    Niger State Police Command confirmed the incident, saying the matter was under investigation and the vehicle owner had been invited for questioning. Command spokesman, Wasiu Abiodun, a Superintendent of Police, gave the official account in a statement he shared with the media thus: “On 21/4/2024 at about 6.30p.m., based on information received at Kpakungu division (of the police command), five children of about five to 13 years of age were found trapped in a Honda Civic vehicle with Reg. No. GO 778 ABC at Albishiri area of Minna. They were found to have suffocated in the vehicle, while their bodies were later removed by the various parents as the police visited the scene. However, the owner of the vehicle was invited for questioning, as the unfortunate incident is under investigation.”
    There is a chilling similarity between the Minna tragedy and a similar mishap in December 2021, in which eight children suffocated to death in a parked vehicle in a community on Badagry Expressway, Lagos State. In the Lagos incident, the eight children, ages ranged between four and six years, were suspected to have died from asphyxiation after locking themselves inside a parked Lexus Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) within a fenced premises for an uncertain length of time and were unable to get out. That the Minna tragedy occurred with such uncanny replication is indication that society didn’t learn much from the previous incident. For one, that children playing around a neighbourhood got access into a parked vehicle and locked themselves inside without being noticed early enough suggested gross inattention by elderly residents in the community.

    Read Also: Buga song: Kizz Daniel blasts Tekno over ‘degrading’ comment


    The tragedy also evidenced the individualistic nature of contemporary society where people watch over only their own narrow interests, leaving little ones untended once they’re out of the sight of their biological parents. In such circumstance, they do not get noticed when they embark on dangerous adventures such as resulted in the horrific Minna tragedy and the one in Lagos some three years before. Society must get more communalistic to ensure better watch care for, and safety of little ones.
    Another sore issue is poor implementation of child protection laws across the country. The hapless children in Minna were most likely on terminal break from school and were making the most of their vacation by catching fun from wild adventures because there is no systemic provision across most Nigerian societies for care of children on vacation. Negligence about care of little ones exposes them to avoidable danger and is making them an endangered species; hence there is need for vigorous implementation of child protection laws in the country.
    Unlike the Lagos incident, police findings on the Minna tragedy should be widely publicised and lessons to learn therefrom highlighted for instruction of society to avert a recurrence.

  • A game-changer?

    A game-changer?

    A N200 bn jab for MSMEs and big manufacturing is glad tidings for the economy

    Well into its conditional support grant of N50, 000 to one million nano-ventures nation-wide (it took off on March 9 without repayment obligations), the Federal Government just announced it is setting its sight on a N75 billion credit package each, for both medium and small-scale enterprises (MSMEs) and big manufacturers.
    While the grant for nano ventures is N50 million (spread among one million tiny businesses), no less than 75, 000 qualified MSMEs will share N75 billion at a maximum of N1 million each, while 75 manufacturers will access N1 billion each, either as working capital or for asset financing, with the terms and conditions tied to each.
    That makes up the N200 billion Presidential Intervention Fund, under the following sub-heads: Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme, FGN MSME Intervention Fund and FGN Manufacturing Sector Fund. The three were designed to cover every venture scale, after the removal of petrol subsidy, to give the economy a healthy jab in the arm.
    The operator of the scheme is the Bank of Industry (BOI), with Federal Government guarantees. The interest rate is nine per cent. The general repayment period is three years, though there is slight variation for manufacturers: a five-year repayment period (for asset financing); while working capital comes with a moratorium of six months on principal and interest, after which follows the repayment of both capital and interest in equal instalments, over 12 months.
    The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) defines nano ventures as employers of one or two workers, with a yearly turnover of N3 million. Beneficiary MSMEs must have operated for at least one year. Start-ups can also tap in, but with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) business registration papers, the chief promoter’s bank statement, projected monthly turnover, with sundry other BOI requirements.
    Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, allowed herself a crow, while making the announcement on her X page.

    Read Also: Court to rule on alleged terrorists’ negotiator, Mamu’s request for transfer to prison


    “The Federal Government is proud to announce the operational launch of the MSME and manufacturing segment under the prestigious Presidential N200 billion Naira Intervention Fund,” she declared. “With applications for the Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme now closed, we are excited to move forward with the loan disbursement process for the MSMEs and manufacturing sectors, aimed at boosting economic growth and industrial development.”
    This, indeed, is a welcome move. It should be both a boon and a boom to the economy, now that the stars appear re-aligning, after the storm of the immediate post-subsidy removal period, amplified by tear-away inflation and a free-tumbling Naira.
    Still, that the stars are aligning is no open sesame for success. So, the managers of the loans must adopt a rigorous process, to select the beneficiaries.
    On this score, BOI is in chartered territory. It has both the manpower, expertise and field infrastructure to choose the qualified ventures. It also boasts the checks and balances to enforce a rigorous repayment regime, so that many more other businesses can benefit from the facilities, well after the first set of beneficiaries.
    Even if that is not always iron-clad or fool-proof (after all, even the best of banks still provision for bad loans), the more glaring danger is government interference. The risk of that is the facilities getting into the hands of non-entrepreneurs — costly pork that could subvert the entire process. That must be avoided at all cost.
    Though it’s a very harsh operating environment, this fiscal intervention is a good start. The nine per cent interest rate is far lower than the prevailing market rates. Still, as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) continues to battle inflation from the monetary side, the government should not tire of further fiscal stimulation of the economy.
    That way, general inflation will continue heading south, thus freeing more disposable income for the beneficiary MSMEs and manufacturing giants to ease their choked warehouses, bursting with unsold goods. Another government intervention that could greatly help is the consumer credit scheme, just taking its first faltering steps, with a virtual pilot, which only involves civil servants in the public sector.
    But the greatest threat to using this intervention to achieve a re-jig and a reset of the real sector may well be shambolic power. With the virtually collapsed power sector since the turn of 2024, the Federal Government must adopt whatever tough reforms necessary to straighten out that perpetually sick sector. With power fixed, this may well be a game-changer.

  • Still high

    Still high

    So much for the sing-song by successive governments about improvements in the ease of doing business; it seems highly unlikely that Nigerians will find the report by Africa’s Pulse, a biannual survey of African economies by the World Bank, that the cost of trade is still five times higher than what obtains in the United States –surprising. Having long become the textbook stuff of which many generations have lamented with successive administrations offering what are at best promissory notes, the unflattering testimonials as captured in the report have become for Nigeria and Nigerians, a by-word for failed governance.

    Thus, it is no brainer that the survey puts market imperfections and institutional distortions – the same age-long structural issues – at the apex of the factors that have impeded Nigeria’s development.

    “Firms and farms”, it observed in its executive summary, “face pervasive credit constraints, with only about one in 10 firms with fewer than 19 workers relying on bank financing. Instead, most own-account workers and household enterprises rely on their own resources, resources from family and friends or informal sources to start up their businesses.

    “Similarly, access to product markets is constrained, which prevents firms and farms from scaling up their production. In particular, the lack of connectivity and market integration means that markets are segmented, allowing firms or farms with market power to capture benefits, contributing to income inequality.

    It further avers: “Trade costs, including costs of transportation are four to five times higher in Ethiopia and Nigeria than in the United States”.

    Again, it bears restating none of the findings in the report is either new to the government or to Nigerians. While the evidences abound across the board, many of the identified issues are somewhat historical. Today, they manifest in the decrepit transportation

    infrastructure of roads, rail and ports, the embarrassing state of the power infrastructure, the abject neglect of rural infrastructure as they are in the palpably inadequate credit infrastructure. 

    Ironically, whereas the colonial authorities appreciated not just the need to forge linkages and integration between the disparate parts of the emergent federation and thus invested

    Read Also:19 killed in road crash along Okene-Lokoja highway

    in those vital infrastructure to optimise their unequal, one-sided trade, the post-independence inheritors of the legacy neither saw wisdom in modernising let alone upgrading what was handed over to them for national development.

    Not even the oil boom era of the 70s and the 80s did much to alter the trajectory in terms of the requisite investment in those critical

    infrastructure that would have helped to jump-start the economy while at the same time deepening its integration. While the consequence is the so-called lost decades from which the nation is yet to recover, what is more startling is how successive administrations have done little to tackle them in any comprehensive manner.

    The report, more than a mere wake-up call, borders on emergency. The issues are quite easy and straightforward. No thanks to our utterly dysfunctional transportation infrastructure, the country today possesses neither a reliable logistics system to meet consumer needs; the same could be said of supply chain management system around which a reliable manufacturing system can be built. The same holds true for the other issue highlighted in the report: the absence of credit infrastructure. For, while our banks may have done well in churning impressive returns year-in year-out largely on forex deals and other non-core activities, overall, they are still light-years away from meeting the daily credit needs of individuals and businesses.

    This is where the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration deserves commendation if only for making a bold start in this direction. For, beyond its strategic intervention in providing relatively cheap credit to priority areas in the economy, one area that has since set it apart from administrations before it is its initiative on student loans and consumer credit. And while the onus is on those charged with their implementation to deliver on their promises, Nigerians can only look forward to such other strategic initiatives aimed at tackling the identified problems in a comprehensive manner.

  • CNG vs petrol

    CNG vs petrol

    • Competing autos, one powered by petrol, the other by CNG, could turn out the ultimate palliative

    By 2027, the Bola Tinubu administration would put “one million natural gas-propelled vehicles” on Nigerian roads, a presidential spokesperson just said. By May 29 — the government’s first anniversary — however, 200 units of compressed natural gas (CNG) buses would have hit the road, aside from 2, 500 tricycles.

    This entry fleet is barely half of 5, 500 CNG buses and tricycles projected to hit the transport market by December 31: 400 CNG buses in all, with the remainder made up of tricycles, and some of the stock even powered by electric batteries — designed for areas with limited access to gas: six out of Nigeria’s 36 states.

    “From the end of May, Nigeria will take some baby steps to join such nations that already have large fleets of CNG vehicles,” Bayo Onanuga, the president’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, announced on April 21.

    This is welcome news, even if it is still some four weeks to delivery time; and the healthy attitude would be rather wait-and-see, until the actual delivery time. 

    It is nonetheless very exciting because by that time, two major refineries — Dangote and NNPC Ltd’s Port Harcourt plant — should have been pushing out the premium motor spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol. So, perhaps for the very first time in Nigeria’s energy history, CNG and electric autos would compete with diesel and petrol in the transport and general auto market.

    Read Also: PCNGI gets price concession from NMPDRA

    That might be the ultimate palliative, since the far lower cost of CNG could help to push down transport cost — a core input to every business — thus driving down the current tear-away cost-push inflation. That at least should be good news for the many households struggling to stay afloat in these harsh economic times; and even some nano ventures, not discounting the small and medium-scale enterprises (SMSEs).

    The sustainability of CNG is even all the more exciting: Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPCL) data says Nigeria boasts 202 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in gas reserves, with recoverable gas from that trove put at 139.4 tcf. That dwarfs the country’s proven reserves in crude oil of 37.1 billion barrels. Therein again lies the strategic investment in CNG. If well managed, it is a good omen for the economy.

    Yet, it’s early days. The scope of CNG’s entry into the auto market is nothing but the proverbial drop in the ocean. It may be many years yet before CNG can become active competition for petrol.

    But if really the morning shows the day, the government and its partners must get this investment right. It must not be another crude oil story, which got so mismanaged it threw away its comparative advantage. The irony: it was that mismanagement, with barely no local refineries, that prompted CNG as a viable alternative, since subsidy on petroleum products had to go.

    Yet, that crash points to a CNG-aided economy of the future, if the right steps are taken now. For a start, it is good that the government and private sector partners have already invested over US$ 50 million on refuelling stations and conversion centres. But more of those investments are needed, if CNG must penetrate the market.

    Still, they all should start as entry point into a vastly expanded auto industry, leading local auto researchers and investors to exploit CNG for Nigerian indigenous auto brands that can compete with foreign and imported ones. 

    That way, CNG would not only boast short-term gains, it could also become a veritable strategy to provide future jobs for millions of Nigerian youths, in new CNG car lines, without prejudice to foreign assembly plants, which may take the earliest advantage to set up local shops here.

    In all of these, however, constant power is critical. So, while CNG-powered vehicles could offer short-term public transport solution aside from being the slayer of inflation, it offers an additional incentive to sort out the power problem once and for all.

    On electric autos — a sub-set of the new CNG intervention — the president just told the Dutch Prime Minister that Nigerian lithium — the crucial raw material for batteries that power electric cars — can light up the entire European Union (EU). The real deal, however, should be using Nigeria lithium to power new lines of Made-in Nigeria electric cars. 

    That’s doable with the right set of investments, using the CNG era as fresh start.

  • Charterhouse’s new imperialism

    Charterhouse’s new imperialism

    Govt must stop this school and its N44m school fees for primary school pupils in a country with 133m in multidimensional poverty

    In the last few weeks, amongst the trending news both in orthodox and social media platforms has been the unveiling of the West Africa branch of Charterhouse Group of Schools in Lagos, Nigeria. Charterhouse is one of United Kingdom’s leading independent boarding and day schools that is co-educational. The school was founded by Thomas Sutton in 1611 to provide education for boys and girls aged 13 to 18. It is one of Britain’s nine elite public schools.

    Curiously, rather than being excited, most Nigerians are outraged at the cost of enrollment and tuition in the school.  In the UK, Charterhouse charges full borders 44,220 British pounds. This makes it one of the most expensive schools in the UK. For their school in Lagos, however, the entrance form for the primary section which is expected  to resume in September is a non-refundable N2 million for admission forms and N42 million per annum for tuition.

    This almost N44 million fee for primary school pupils makes the new Charterhouse school the most expensive primary school in Nigeria, if not the world. The secondary arm is still under construction. The fees would definitely be more than that of the primary arm. Presently, another British school, Lekki British International School that provides pre-school, junior school, high school and advanced classes charges approximately N4.6million per annum for day students and about N6.8 million for boarders.

    Read Also: Simi discusses impact of motherhood on music, marriage

    American International School in Lagos is the most expensive secondary school in Nigeria with an annual fee of N5.5million. The primary school age in Nigeria is between 6-12.  This is the basic and formative education stage for all children. The state, parents and guardians have the constitutional compulsion to provide this basic education for children.

    However, Nigeria has one of the highest out-of-school children standing at about 20 million. So, invariably, Nigeria needs to do more to get more of the children into school to acquire basic education. In a way therefore, it is a welcome development to have more individuals and organisations commission more schools to take in more children and provide more jobs.

    However, in the case of Charterhouse British School in Lagos, most Nigerians are outraged at the prospective cost to parents just to provide their children with primary school education. Most are questioning why a British school would choose to run such an exorbitant tuition in a country that has dire economic challenges with more than 133 million living in multi-dimensional poverty. These questions are raised without prejudice to the freedom of individuals to either invest in a school or for parents to choose to pay any amount they can afford for their children’s education at any level.

    The paradox is that the best West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) results in the last 10 years in Nigeria have never come from the high-brow international schools despite their high cost and drain on the resources of parents that patronise them. Most of the best results have come from Catholic mission schools, Deeper Life schools and other moderately priced public and some other private schools.

    We believe that even though parents are free to choose schools for their children, governments must protect citizens from unnecessary exploitation in the guise of tuition fees. The question is, what value can parents get from paying N42 million for primary school children? What we feel the British people want to do through the school is to tap into elite vanity of Nigerians who often do not bat an eyelid about spending money on needless luxury items.

    If the government allows this imperialist pricing to go on, other schools that  are already highly priced can take liberty and increase their fees, citing the benchmark set by the Charterhouse school. Even when there is freedom, there must be decency in pricing of goods and services. For a third world country that does not have a lot of institutionalised productive industries that generate a lot of money, some parents’ aspiration to send their children to that school can only deepen corruption in the country, as some political elite would want to pilfer public funds so as to fund their children’s education in a school that would seemingly be removed from Nigerian environmental reality in terms of their curriculum.

    The school has indicated its intention to run a British curriculum which obviously would mean indoctrinating Nigerian children with British educational curriculum, culture and history. We believe that the global community has since shed the core vestiges of colonial past. There must be intentionally taught indigenous content in the education sector. We believe culture and tradition must be passed down through the formative period of our children’s lives for better grounding and cultural identity that empowers.

    It is unconscionable to charge Nigerians almost what the school charges in British Pound sterling equivalent even when the situational variables differ remarkably. We don’t operate in the same economy. The British have aristocrats and generational industry owners with global investments. Nigeria does not have their equivalents. Nigerians that can afford to put their children in that school might just be those with their hands in the public till. To pay that much for one child at the primary level means that individual must be some billionaire. Nigeria does not have too many productive billionaires to populate the school with their primary school age children.

    This British school charges is reminiscent of what some British airlines like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have been doing in the aviation sector. Their exploitative fares were just recently brought to a halt by the entrance of Air Peace into the Lagos –London route. It is amazing that they immediately slashed their own fares from about N13-15million for business class to about N5 million after Air Peace started with N4 million.

    We are surprised that there seems to be no regulatory body that is actively in charge to possibly have scrutinised the fee proposals before it became public. For some years now, the Nigerian economy has come under serious strain. The renewed vigour of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in chasing those spraying naira at parties should equally be directed at issues like the hyped amount of the Charterhouse school with the potential for luring citizens into economic and financial crimes.

    We must also point out that governments at all levels must invest in education and return the standard and allure of public schools to make private schools less attractive, and abolish imperialistic exploitation from other countries.  Ironically, most of the political elite that look the other way while foreigners exploit and poach Nigerian talents to their own economies attended well-run public and cheap schools.

    Most Nigerians are ready to trace those who would send their children to the Charterhouse school with a view to tracing their sources of wealth.  Nigeria cannot continue to be paying for the profligacy of public servants at all levels. We feel Charterhouse, no matter what the investors say or how much the government expects to get through taxes from it, must be forced to bring down their very obscene fees for pupils whose parents might be interested in paying. For sure, no Nigerian investor would be allowed to replicate the Charterhouse experience in the United Kingdom.

  • No to bully in schools

    No to bully in schools

    It’s high time the government and society took drastic action against perpetrators

    The Lead British International School, Abuja, recently set the social media agog. Not for any remarkable academic feat, but for the wrong reasons. The internet went aglow with two separate videos of its students engaging in what will definitely not make the school and their parents proud.

    Nigerians watched videos of students of the school bullying fellow school mates in broad daylight. In one of the videos, a male student was seated on bare floor and pummelled another with punches. A despicable bullying act.

    The more pathetic video was another in which a female student was inflicted with brutal slaps after slaps by a fellow female student, with surrounding conspirators applauding the dastardly act. And the female and may bullies knew they were being pictured in the acts.

    We wonder why a female student could be so heartless in inflicting eye-popping slaps on an innocently vulnerable mate, with surrounding mates urging her to continue with such a condemnable conduct.

    More distasteful is the vulnerable environment to which the school exposed the students who are mostly boarders. Until the videos trended on social media, with expected public outrage, the management of the school feigned ignorance of such a serious act being committed within its jurisdiction.

    This is abhorrent to good education in such a supposedly high-paying school that runs day and boarding school systems not to have a firm grip on what happens within its environment where juveniles are being nurtured. Does it mean if something more heinous bordering on fatal had happened to their students, the management of the school would claim not to be aware?

    This last incident is one too many. The bullying act is becoming a bourgeoning one, especially in secondary schools across the country. And this is so because school managements are complicit in providing cover for aberrant students to escape justice when caught, in conjunction with over-indulgent parents.

    We are aware of the litany of cases of student bullying with questionable conclusions in recent times. This apparent lack of denouement to these avoidable cases has shown the inefficient grip of relevant authorities in charge of regulating standards in schools where well-behaved students are expected to be groomed.

    We recollect the case of Sylvester Oromoni, a student of Dowen College, Lagos, and the only son of his parents. He reportedly died on November 30, 2021, after nursing multiple internal injuries he purportedly sustained after being beaten by fellow students who were bullying him at his school’s boarding house. The young boy is said to have refused to succumb to pressures from fellow students to join a cult group. Moments before he died, he confessed to his parents that five boys stormed his room, put off the lights, and beat him up in the presence of other students before feeding him with a chemical for refusing to join the “cult group.” His case ended in a highly contentious manner. The matter is still festering in the public consciousness and conscience.

    Another is Karen-Happuch Akpagher, a 14-year-old boarding student of Premiere Academy, Lugbe, Abuja, who also died of sexual assault complications in June, 2021. A condom was said to have been left in her private part.

    Karen’s mother, Vivien Akpagher, accused her school of shielding a suspected paedophile with a blistering media stunt to save their face. Nothing concrete was done to the demonic kids of that school that killed Karen simply because the school and the relevant authorities compromised at the expense of justice for Karen.

    Also, Don Davis, an 11-year-old student of Deeper Life High School, Uyo, reportedly died from physical and sexual molestation from his seniors. He was also allegedly starved by the school authority for bedwetting until his death in December 2020. The gruesome torture he went through was revealed in a video posted by his mother, Deborah Okezie, on the social media. To date, his soul is still crying for justice from a complicit school and a weak system in the country.

    Read Also: Bullying: Tacha blasts Nigerians over ‘selective outrage’

    Yahaya Aliyu, a 13-year-old JSS2 student of Government Secondary School, Kwali, Abuja, was equally allegedly beaten to death by his teacher in August 2021. We doubt if the end of justice has been served till now despite the case being taken up by the FCT Police Command as well as the school’s old students association.

    It may be true that bullies and bullying have always been a horrid part of our educational system. Technology and social media have made it possible to expose them and put a spotlight on erring individuals and institutions, These educational maladies cannot continue if truly the country is serious about using schools to groom good character and uphold desired values in children as its future trustees. Bullying, no matter how highly placed the parents of these children, should not be tolerated in schools.

    We are happy that the relevant authorities have stepped into this last incident. The school was reportedly closed for some days, with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs now directly involved. We can only hope the latest incident would not end like several similar cases in the past, without consequences for the perpetrators.

    Henceforth, parents must play role in stopping this trend. The criminal misconduct of their kids must stop. The system of welfare homes should be revived while affected schools and parents should be made to pay heavy compensation for the criminal misdeeds of their wards.

    For us, it is important that our schools should not be turned into undesirable abodes by aberrant kids.

  • The answer

    The answer

    • It’s time to enhance non-oil exports for a better tomorrow

    There is no better time to pay quality attention to the structure of the Nigerian economy than now. The situation is so chaotic that even many educated people, including economists, are at a loss about the state of the national financial system. Despite having the largest population in Africa, the largest concentration of black people, and being one of the most endowed countries, Nigeria is identified as about the poorest in the world. The most recent survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) famously puts multidimensional poverty in the country at 133 million people.

    This is not worrisome to only the government, but the people who bear the brunt. Many in the international community are surprised that a country could be so rich and yet so poor. Rich in human resources, the hydrocarbons, solid minerals and so vast arable land. Experts in the oil sector have cried out that the days of petroleum products commanding so much attention and dictating the economic pace would soon be over. Alternative sources of energy are rapidly attracting the attention of developed countries that consume much of the products. And, even before then, owing to carelessness and criminality, Nigeria has been unable to meet up its OPEC quota in recent years. Production of crude oil stood at barely 1.2 million barrels by the end of 2023. Theft of the product that is so central to national revenue has hardly abated since then, with the security forces daily announcing discovery and destruction of illegal refinery.

    It would not have had so grave an effect on the economy if the oil boom of the 1970s and 1980s had not proved to be so great a doom as successive governments abandoned the agriculture sector that had been the mainstay of the economy in the preceding decade. The four main lines of agriculture, crop production, fishery, livestock and forestry had, in the pre-independence and the ‘60s spurred the engine of development, with the Western Region deriving so much from cocoa, cotton and groundnuts in the North and palm oil with timber in the East.

    In the 1960s, agriculture contributed more than 50 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Today, despite about half the population are still engaged in agriculture, it only contributes a little less than one-quarter to the GDP. Nigeria has more than 70 million hectares of arable land, much of it still fallow, but it depends on importation of critical inputs. The younger population that constitutes more than two-thirds of the demographics has no interest in tilling the soil, leaving only the old and bent in the rural areas to feed the nation through subsistence farming. Herders still roam the forests in the 21st Century.

    Thus, the little products exported are sent raw, no value added.

    Read Also: ‘Provide answers to alleged forgery’

    It is not only in agriculture that little progress has been made. In industry, we lag behind many other countries, even in Africa, as households and firms compete for the less than 4,000MW of electricity being generated, while South Africa is already supplying about 50,000MW to the people. Successive Nigerian administrations have been promising to ramp up production and distribution to 10,000MW since the  inception of the Fourth Republic in 1999. The resultant reliance on imported diesel to power imported generating sets made Nigeria- produced goods too expensive to compete with the imported ones.

    Another impediment to non-oil exports is failure to meet international standards. Whether in Europe, United States or Asia, there are minimum standards for all imports, agricultural or manufactured goods.

    Unlike in the 1950s and ‘70s when the regions had marketing boards that assured standards of the products as well as assisted exporters in packaging, finance and inputs, very little is available today despite having such bodies as the Nigerian Export Promotion Council  (NEPC) and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria  (SON).

    The Tinubu administration that has promised to raise non-oil exports should ensure that these organisations work in Nigeria’s interest.

    We watch the solid minerals sector with cautious optimism as the minister in charge has pledged to ensure that it is given a pride of place. He deserves all the backing he needs in a bid to catch up with the likes of South Africa,  Canada, Russia, Australia and Japan where solid minerals contribute a huge percentage of their revenue and generate employment. Nigeria’s gold, uranium, iron ore, bauxite, among others, should be officially exploited and sold to boost the economy.

    As the Tinubu administration approaches its first year anniversary, it owes Nigerians a duty of reviewing its plans and reevaluating moves to lift the nation out of the woods, even if it has to jettison prescriptions by the Bretton Woods institutions.

  • Going, going!!

    Going, going!!

    • We welcome government’s plan to sell five DisCos

    Eleven years after the privatisation of the power sector and the handing over of major facilities of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) and six Generating Companies (GenCos), the power supply situation in the country remains epileptic and dysfunctional. Yet, without adequate power supply, no efforts to revive the economy and achieve accelerated growth and productivity can yield concrete results. It has become obvious that most of the private entities that bought the former PHCN facilities lack either the technical or financial capacity to operate them efficiently and effectively. Thus, the sector has witnessed no meaningful improvement even after privatisation.
    From the beginning of this year, the power supply situation has worsened considerably even as the authorities have had to increase cost of supply to customers who presumably enjoy an average of 20 hours of electricity a day. Most consumers are given estimated bills which they find suspicious and fraudulent because no progress has been made towards providing meters for most users of electricity. It is obvious that the status quo is no longer sustainable and drastic actions must be taken if the country is to break out of this debilitating power conundrum.
    It is against this background that the Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu, this week told members of the Senate Committee on Power, who visited him in his office, of government’s decision to sell DisCos being run by commercial banks or the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to technical power operators with good reputation in utility management within the next three months. According to him, “We can no longer afford AMCON to run our DisCos. We can no longer afford the banks to run our DisCos. This is a technical industry and it must be run by technical experts”.
    The DisCos which fall into this category are the Abuja, Ibadan, Benin, Kaduna and Kano distribution companies. The minister also announced plans to unbundle the distribution companies along state lines. In his words, “Some of the DisCos are too big for efficiency. They are too big for effectiveness…So we are rearranging and restructuring the DisCos along state lines so that each state government will know the responsible DisCos for their states”. He revealed that the Oyo State government, for instance, had written the Federal Government stating its desire to exercise its right in the running of Ibadan DisCo. This is a request the Federal Government is apparently not averse to.
    However, the impression must not be created that the DisCos are the sole problems with the power sector, even though they owe the generating companies humongous amounts. The GenCos too complain of inadequate supply of gas and thus are unable to maximally upload power from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which is a Federal Government monopoly. The TCN laments incessant vandalisation of its facilities while over 120 of its projects across the country have reportedly remained uncompleted since 2001.

    Read Also: Govt to sell Abuja, Ibadan, Benin, Kaduna, Kano DisCos


    Experts are agreed that a far-reaching decentralisation of the power sector is key to unlocking its potential as a stimulant of accelerated economic growth. To its credit the President Muhammadu Buhari administration had set in motion the legal framework for such decentralisation and this has been further consolidated by the Tinubu administration. States have now been legally empowered to invest in and participate in the supply of electricity. Reports that there are steps towards the elimination of the artificial demarcation between generation and distribution of power such that entities perform both functions seamlessly are welcome and should have a positive impact.
    The challenge of transiting the country from the current power conundrum to a new era of uninterrupted power supply cannot be attained by one magical policy wand. It will be a learning process as tentative steps are taken towards the ultimate objective. For instance, governor Chukuma Soludo has suggested that along with the legal power accorded states to generate power, control over gas should be moved from the exclusive to the concurrent list. His suggestion should be given due consideration.
    Again, with the decentralisation of key aspects of the power supply chain, the continued existence of centralised transmission and a concomitant centralised national grid has become obsolete. It has become inevitable that mechanisms be devised to break the centre’s monopoly in these critical spheres.