The Nation Newspaper

Tag: dealers

  • Dealers seek stable, liquid market

    Financial market dealers have said a stable and liquid money market is crucial to achieving market stability.

    In a communique issued at the end of a seminar organised by the Financial Markets Dealers Association (FMDA) Money Market Workgroup, in Lagos, the dealers said the money market is the bedrock of banking and economic activities.

    They also said monetary policy rate ought to be used as an effective anchor for the money market.

    “The need for a more stable and predictable money market in Nigeria, developing framework, product, and layers that will allow its intermediary role as well as de-risking and improving perception of the banking industry is crucial in building confidence in the sector,” they said.

    They also called for more market participation by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and proper credit instruments and products offering by financial institutions.

    The dealers canvassed “a balancing mechanism to even out the demand for and supply of funds, private partnership legal framework for derelict infrastructure -power, rail, health, education, as well as encouraging collective will to leave everywhere we go a bit better than we met it”.

    The seminar’s theme was: “Developing a vibrant and liquid money market as an effective catalyst to spur economic growth – Focus on the Interbank Market”.

    The welcome address was delivered by CBN Director, Financial Markets Department, Mrs. Angela Sere-Ejembi, and the keynote speaker was the Managing Director/CEO, Citibank Nigeria, Akinsowon Dawodu, who  shared perspectives on the Role of Money Market in Financial Market Development.

    Other speakers were Managing Director/CEO, SunTrust Bank, Ayo Babatunde, who spoke on the “Balance Sheet, The Market and Optimal Impact”.  Chairman, Money Market Workgroup Olufemi Adaramola gave an overview of the “Liquid Money Market with Impact on Derivatives Products Pricing and Development”.

    In his presentation, Babatunde highlighted the challenges banks are facing, noting that the CBN policy, mandating banks to lend 60 per cent of their deposits by September 30, may push some of them to increase lending to high risk-borrowers with the potential of incurring heavy losses.

    The guideline, he said, directed banks to improve lending to the real sector and maintain a minimum loan to deposit ratio (LDR) of 60 per cent (compared to the sector’s LDR of 58.5 per  cent as at May and regulatory maximum of 80 per cent), subject to quarterly review.

    To ensure lending to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), retail, mortgage, and consumers, Babatunde said the CBN assigned a weight of 150 per cent to them in the computation of LDR.

    “Failure to meet the minimum LDR of 60 per cent by the specified date will result in a levy of additional Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR) equal to 50 per cent of the lending shortfall of the target,” he said.

    Babatunde said specific guidelines were required to clarify whether the LDR computation would  be based on gross or net loan position.

    The event attracted participants from both local and international banks, regulatory organisations, non-bank financial institutions, Small and  Medium Scale Enterprises and other stake-holders.

  • SON chief urges electrical dealers to embrace self-regulation

    SON chief urges electrical dealers to embrace self-regulation

    Newly elected executives of the Electrical Dealers Association of Nigeria (EDAN), Alaba International Market, have been challenged to embrace self regulation as part of the fight against the dangers posed by substandard products to the nation.

    Standards Organisation of Nigeria Directo-General Osita Aboloma, who gave the challenge while receiving the executives in his office in Lagos, stated that over 70 per cent of cables traded in Nigeria pass through the Alaba International Market.

    According to him, if the traders chose to stock and sell only quality cables and other electrical appliances, importers of substandard products would have no market for their nefarious activities.

    The SON DG urged the Alaba electrical dealers to be more patriotic by patronising certified made- in- Nigeria cables that have been attested among the best in the world and shun the stocking of imported substandard and cloned cables.

    He advised the EDAN executives to guide their members on the need to register all products with SON for traceability and confirmation of quality status in the overall interest of the nation and its citizens.

    Aboloma insisted that all electrical cables coming into the country must have the SON certificate of assessment programme known as SONCAP while locally manufactured products must have MANCAP certification, which is Manufacturers Assessment Programme, for standard quality and traceability.

    He pledged to support businesses  in all material ways possible to make them thrive and add their quota in the development of the economy.

    Also speaking at the occasion, SON Director of Compliance, Bede Obayi, an engineer, charged the electrical dealers to consciously work at developing a positive reputation for Alaba

    International Market.

    He warned that Nigerians are becoming better informed by the day as many other outlets are providing healthy competition to the Alaba International Market on cables and other electrical appliances.

    SON Head of Electrical Laboratory, Mr. Richard Adewumi, advised EDAN members to pay greater attention to issues like ratings, labels and product manuals in order to be in a better position to guide their customers rightly.

    Earlier, the President of  EDAN, Chief Fabian Ezeorjika, commended the SON DG for the renewed fight against substandard products in the Nigerian market and pledged the commitment of his executives to SON in that regard.

    He invited the SON DG and his management to bring the message of standardisation and quality assurance to EDAN members at the Alaba International Market in order to broaden their knowledge on electrical cables and appliances.

  • Southern dealers?

    On June 19, some “Southern leaders” gathered in Lagos.

    The group comprised eminent South West, South East and South-South personages; and their business was to react to the Arewa “Northern Youths’” ultimatum to the Igbo living in the North to vacate that region by October 1, on account of Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB’s clamour for Igbo secession from Nigeria — a most unfortunate diktat.

    But no less unfortunate was the sabre-rattling by these “elders”, gathered in Lagos.  Any attack against the Igbo in the North, they declared, would be taken as an attack against all “southerners”.  Really?

    And if any attack indeed took place, as that riposte seemed to suggest, would these “elders” ensure a tit-for-tat?  And if it came to that, how many “southern youths” could they press into service, against the so-called “northern youths”, in the emotive-driven belligerency to come?

    If the mythical “youths” lose their heads, must the elders do too?

    First, to the Igbo leaders in the assemblage: which of them was publicly quoted to have warned Nnamdi Kanu for his explosive hate messages and threats against other Nigerians, in his Biafra project?

    If they didn’t — and silence could be presumed to be consent, even if it could also indicate neutrality — how can Kanu be right and the equally rascally “northern youths”, reacting to his hostility, be wrong?  So, they were either complicit or indifferent, until a counter-threat hit their own kith-and-kin? What sort of elders are those!

    As for their Yoruba ensemble, what was the basis of their gamely declaration that “an attack on the Igbo is an attack on all of the South”?  To be sure, an attack on any citizen, in a country run by law, and supposed to guarantee the security of all, is something to be decried.

    But that principle runs from the premise that everyone submits himself  or herself to due process: and part of due process is not to threaten others with hate speeches and torrential curses, no matter the provocation.  So, on what basis were these Yoruba leaders grandstanding over attacks?

    Could they have been privy to Kanu’s hate messages?  And if they were not — and they couldn’t have been, for the Yoruba are among the victims of Kanu’s scalding hate — why this comical southern pseudo-column against Arewa attack, using mythical “Yoruba youths” as shield, when they were never party to the original provocation?

    Elders should be wise.  That is why they are elders.  At least African custom and tradition decrees it so.

    So, instead of this needless media grandstanding, which could further worsen an explosive situation, they should join Acting President Yemi Osinbajo in his consultations to lower the political thermometer and roll back the discourse from combustible emotions to clinical reason.

    The acting president could be doing his chore by law.  But such chores could have been averted had South East elders done what elders should do: warn their youths against unbridled rascality.  Clearly if the South East elders had done that, millions of innocent, peaceful and law-abiding Igbo in the North would not face this avoidable peril?

    Elders should do their traditional duty: talk sense into rash youths.  Following youth to issue own version of threat is not elderly at all.  It is rather elders doubling as leaders dealing in avoidable chaos.

    That would be a wide and merry way that drives all to perdition.

  • Dealers pick $85.69m out of $100m offered by CBN

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said yesterday that authorized dealers were only able to pick $85.69 million out of the $100 million offered by the Bank offered at Thursday’s Forex wholesale auction in the inter-bank market.

    Speaking on the development, the Acting Director of Corporate Communications at the CBN, Isaac Okorafor, said the inability of authorised dealers to pick up the whole amount offered by the CBN was a pointer to the fact that there was enough foreign exchange to meet legitimate forex demands within the system.

    While stressing that the CBN had the capacity to sustain the current levels of liquidity in the forex market, he said the bank was committed and was indeed working to achieve convergence in the forex rates between the Interbank and the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment.

  • Healers or dealers? (2)

    •Bedside hostility, forced circumcision and criminal extortion at General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, Lagos

    Few Lagos tragedies fully measure to the grotesque proceedings at the General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, Lagos. Even as you read, the travesty of healthcare and humaneness persists like the tragic nuance in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The tragedy at the hospital is hardly the finale to the morbid serials staged across the coastal city’s General Hospitals but it unarguably represents an obscene, poignant burlesque characteristic of the incumbent administration’s health policy.

    Is the state’s Commissioner for Health, Jide Idris, aware of the organised fraud being perpetrated at the General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, among other state hospitals? Is he aware of the bestial treatment meted to pregnant women and other patients calling in at the public health centre? Does he know of the subtle and brazen extortion methods perpetrated by the clinic’s authorities, like ‘over-prescription’ of drugs and medical provisions? Too many husbands are often forced to purchase more than the drugs and medical provisions they need for their pregnant wives’ treatment at the hospital’s dispensary. At the end of their ordeal, clinic staff persuade husbands of newly delivered mothers and relatives of convalescing patients who are about to be discharged, to give up the excess drugs and supplies. Then they sell to new patients at prices too close or similar to the dispensary’s.

    Is Jide Idris aware of ‘Megalek,’ an agency within the state’s General Hospital, forcefully recommended by the hospital authorities to perform circumcision on newborn sons, against their mother’s wishes. For the unsolicited service, mothers are forced to pay N4, 000. And no mother’s heartfelt complaint to the hospital’s Medical Director could protect her from the insolent tentacles of the internal extortion ring.

    Does Jide Idris know that, after reading the first part of this article, the Medical Director, General Hospital, Oke Odo, summoned an emergency meeting whereby the fraudulent charges on circumcision and other deceptive fees were promptly cancelled – at least till the noise blows over?

    The Lagos health commissioner is probably aware that there aren’t enough beds for pregnant women and other patients in the hospital’s crowded wards. And he probably knows of the several travesties being perpetrated in the hospital’s wards, he is simply too busy to care. Perhaps because the victims are far removed from the elite segment of Lagos’ high society.

    In fairness to the personnel of General Hospital, Oke Odo, Agege, they, like their colleagues across the state’s General Hospitals, have to function in parlous conditions. They are forced to ration fuel for electricity power generators because the state refuses to provide adequate budget for electricity supply. The hospital, like all others, is understaffed, and plagued by boorish staff with atrocious bedside manners. The medical staff  and auxiliary teams are overrun by a flippant, disgruntled, desperate breed. Save a very few whose respect for life and human dignity is borne of good breeding from childhood, self taught or acquired under the tutelage of Nigeria’s vanishing league of true health practitioners – zealots of a golden medical era –  the General Hospital, Oke Odo and so many others would become too hellish for comfort.

    Notwithstanding, a visit to the medical facility is like a journey to hell. Besides the inadequate medical facilities, staff shortages and its tiny car park, a dark pall of fear and uncertainty settles on patients and their relatives every time they call in at the hospital. Ask Citizen Afolake who had to wait 24 hours, in painful labour, on a wooden chair, to get a bed space that she lost as soon as she was wheeled into the hospital’s labour room. Ask Citizen Mo who was almost killed by the hospital’s medical staff because her vitals were taken by hospital cleaners posing as nurses while she attended antenatal clinic. Ask those who have lost loved ones to the hospital’s dysfunctional system but whose miseries are too inconsequential for the state to care about.

    Governor Akinwumi Ambode has definitely got his work cut out for him. He should know that budgeting N46.9 billion to the health sector in the state’s 2016 budget is never enough to emphasise his commitment to the alleviation of the citizenry’s health problems and elevation of the state’s cancerous health system.

    “The Y2016 budget of N662.588bn will enable our government focus on the present challenges of security, traffic gridlock resolution including physical and social infrastructural developments which have thrown up new challenges quite different from our past experience,” said Ambode while presenting the budget at a brief but impressive ceremony at banquet hall of the Lagos House.

    He called it his administration’s article of faith with Lagosians and promised that the budget would be faithfully implemented in line with his determination to make Lagos work for all, irrespective of age, gender, tribe or status.

    It is about time Ambode made Lagos truly work for Lagosians. It is about time he heeded the birth and death cries of mothers and underprivileged Lagosians respectively, who are persistently subjected to the serrated blades of the coastal city’s dysfunctional anti-citizenry health system.

    Of course, overzealous aides and cronies would readily tell Governor Ambode to dismiss this piece as yet another rant by a journalist seeking to make a noise like thunder over the city’s calm waters, but the Lagos governor would be doing himself a lot of good by paying good mind to the issues raised by the first and second installment of this piece.

    The Lagos health sector is comatose and in great deal of financial and administrative aid. Governor Ambode should rededicate himself to the sanitation of the state’s health facilities. Given that a greater segment of the state’s citizenry fall within the bracket too poor and unable to patronise the overpriced health services of the state’s boutique specialist hospitals, Governor Ambode should endeavour to take more active interest in the state’s health sector.

    Currently, tragedy plays a desperate game across the state’s public health centres – a game invented by the government’s administrative clumsiness thus blunting the incumbent governor’s overhyped competence and devotion to the state’s vulnerable divide.

    The battle for the soul of the state’s floundering health system can only be won by a governor who is ready to march in virtual lockstep to his claims of competence and empathy without airs. Nigeria is currently afflicted by the scourge of turncoat governors and other public officers who have betrayed the trust and exhausted the hopes of the electorate whose goodwill and votes earned them their cozy seats and mansions across the country’s political landscape.

    It would be really nice and refreshing to see Governor Ambode truly rise up as a man and defender of the rights of the poor, helpless folk whose votes, goodwill and passion for real ‘Change’ got him into power.

    Let him not act like his peer who got too drunk and blinded by power soon after their ascent the seat of power. Too many of Ambode’s peers skew stewardship by their disruptive relation with power and the citizenry’s trust. These are the tragic freaks and hostages to power. They are less moral and humane than the quintessential statesman. Their will to power is naked. Their actions are mired in chthonian cloud. They are a conduit of the irrational, exposing governance to mutations of the barbarism that the All Progressives Congress (APC) swore to shut out at its birth.

    Let the case of the General Hospital, Oke Odo, Agege and other state public health centres become Governor Ambode’s vehicle for testing and purifying his mettle and much hyped competence, before it renders his government yet another tragedy that Nigeria is trying to correct.

  • Healers or dealers? (1)

    •Bedside hostility, forced circumcision and criminal extortion at General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, Lagos

    The depravity of its ‘excellent’ nature is coastal Lagos’ dirty secret. Despite its haughty  claim as Nigeria’s “Centre of Excellence,” Lagos groans under the tedious weight of mediocrity and its tragic sense of life. There is no gainsaying the commercial hub of Nigeria profits by a hard-worn, romanticised imagery of brilliance, bracing industry and entertainment. At the backdrop of this fantasy and specious proceedings however, Lagos pulsates in hazardous ugliness.

    This ugliness resonates across the coastal city’s landscape; it subsists in its neglected bad roads, cratered by-passes, hostile state agencies, infinitely devious and overzealous staff. It seeps through the mediocrity and crass inhumaneness of establishments like the General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, Lagos.

    At the hospital, bestiality dons a joyful sneer and saunters through its hostile wards and administrative offices, every day. The General Hospital, Oke Odo, sets itself up against the true nature and essence of the Hippocratic Oath, by descending into infamy and organised extortion. Medical and administrative staff of the hospital seem driven by bile and institutionalised aggression. Thus every patient suffers a cruel and unusual form of punishment simply by calling in sick, appearing for consultation or birthing a newborn within the cold ambience of the public health centre.

    As you read, Citizen Afolake, a teacher, is still traumatised following her nasty experience in  the hands of the hospital’s insouciant staff. On her first day in the hospital, Afolake suffered a gruesome birthing process; she was made to labour in extremity. She experienced no reprieve from pain. No medical staff came around to offer kind words to her and fellow pregnant women even as they were forced to sit through the night on a hard wooden chair while they queued for ‘bed space.’

    When the pain became unbearable at midnight, Afolake, like her peers, had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. She could not leave the hospital because it was dark and she could not stand from her seat lest she loses it to another pregnant woman craving a seat while waiting for the ever elusive ‘bed space.’

    Impatiently but with calm resolve, Afolake braved through the night, praying that a ‘bed space’ became available to her by daybreak. But none would be available to her at dawn. Thus she writhed in agony from 9 am on Monday, October 10, 2016 to 9 pm on Tuesday, October 11, 2016 when she eventually found ‘bed space.’ It is instructive to note that Afolake, like her pregnant mates, waited on the hard wooden chair for 24 hours.

    After she put to bed, she had to wait on a long queue to bath herself and her baby. She also had to put up with very hostile nurses and flippant cleaners. Thus after delivery, Afolake could hardly wait to escape the hospital’s human and structural extremities. But Afolake would experience more misery by the hospital’s staff as they insisted that she let ‘Megalek,’ an agency within the hospital, perform circumcision on her newborn son, against her wish. For the unsolicited service, they forced her to pay N4, 000.

    Predictably, Afolake protested; “I told them I didn’t need them to circumcise my son. I told them we have a family doctor who does the circumcision on male children in my family but they ignored my explanation,” she lamented.

    Thus Afolake sought the hospital’s Medical Director (MD) and complained to her but to her chagrin, the MD said she (Afolake) must pay the N4, 000 even though she did not want the circumcision done on her son. “I had already paid N29, 200 as medical bill but she said I must pay an additional N4, 000 for an unsolicited circumcision which I declined,” said Afolake.

    The hospital staff made her understand that, if she failed to pay the N4,000, she would not be discharged. But Afolake was too eager to leave the hospital. Before she put to bed, she had been sleeping on a chair and immediately after delivery, she was forced to share a narrow bed with a heavily pregnant woman because she lost her ‘bed space’ immediately she was wheeled into the labour room.

    Eventually, Afolake paid N4, 000 for a circumcision that was never performed on her son. A separate receipt was issued for the unsolicited service while another was issued for her medical bill. Both receipts bore the logo and name of the General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, Lagos.

    With a heavy heart, Afolake left the hospital ruing the complex yet methodical network of extortion foisted on her by the hospital. She lamented the hell she went through birthing her son at the public health centre and wondered how the hospital’s medical and administrative staff mutated into such pitiless characters.

    No doubt, Afolake is luckier than Citizen Mo. In 2011, the latter almost lost her life even after losing her child due to the negligence of the medical staff at the General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, Lagos. Citizen Mo, a journalist, was rushed to the clinic after her blood sugar level hit the roof. She had been attending antenatal clinic at the hospital but all along, the hospital assigned cleaners to attend to her and her pregnant peer. Unknown to her, the menial workers who had been taking her medical records, had virtually no knowledge and training about how to run an antenatal clinic, yet they attended to her and other pregnant women. Eventually, they committed serious blunder recording wrong details of Citizen Mo’s health vitals. Consequently, she didn’t get the treatment that she actually deserved.

    Citizen Mo was rushed to the hospital when her blood sugar level skyrocketed with devastating impact on her health. She was seven months pregnant. At the hospital, the doctors did not discover that she was having contractions until dusk. Even so, there was little they could do; they wheeled her into the theatre and delivered her of her child prematurely. Subsequently, discrepancies caused by wrong administration of drugs and medical aid caused Citizen Mo to slip into coma. She was in coma for two days because the doctors treated her based on wrong vitals (medical information) taken of her, by the hospital’s cleaners and other menial workers. Sadly, Citizen Mo stirred from coma to a tragic reality: her child died because there was no functional incubator in the hospital’s labour room. There was no incubator at the General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege, Lagos.

    More severe cases abound of unpardonable acts committed by the hospital’s medical staff. But the fault is never entirely the fault of the hospital’s medical personnel. Like several other health facilities across Lagos, they are forced to function with a lean team and mean resources. Thus the hospital’s ‘bed spaces’ are never enough among other inadequacies.

    But that is no excuse for the hospital staff to mortgage patients’ health and risk their lives on a whim. For a state allegedly presided over by a ‘no-nonsense’ governor, the state of the General Hospital, Oke-Odo, Agege is an eyesore. Governor Akinwumi Ambode projects himself as a revolutionary in the saddle. His media team works assiduously to establish him as a grassroots politician and statesman with a heart that skips for the interest of Lagos’ poor, vulnerable divide. Yeah, he is rehabilitating bad roads and building new ones but does he have the courage, and administrative will to save lives?

  • Pharmacists Council insists on licensing patent medicine dealers

    •’We ‘re not against regulations but patent dealers’

    The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) has insisted that the patent medicine dealers, also known as “chemists”, must come under its regulations. The Council said those without its licence would be treated as criminal.

    But the patent medicine dealers under the umbrella body of the Nigerian Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers (NAPPMED) said it was not against regulation; rather, that PCN’s scope of operation should be expanded to reflect their relevance.

    At its First National Summit, NAPPMED National President, Prince Joel Odoh, said what his members wanted from the government and its regulatory body is a dialogue on the expansion of work that the group should be allowed to do, “for instance, the current PCN regulation guiding the operations of NAPPMED does not allow members to treat certain diseases like diarrhoea. This is a big shortcoming that must be addressed”.

    Odoh said: “Some of the issues we are dealing with have to do with licensing. We don’t have to deceive ourselves- the license PCN is giving the patent dealers does not cover all our operations. That license does not cover treatment of diarrhoea and headache, even for those in the rural areas where serious medical care is urgently required, we can’t give First Aid. NAPPMED is not afraid of regulation but is averse to limiting of its operation, is inimical to its members’ existence.”

    Odoh called for a discussion with the regulatory body.

    He stressed that with over 950,000 members, the group should be given some recognition.

    “Our request is not out of place, we need to be recognised more than before as the first point of contact by patient especially in the rural areas of the country. Our members need to be encouraged to attend continuous educational trainings that will enhance their knowledge in drugs and patient handling.

    “In the area of finance, I plead with the Federal Government to deliberately structure financial assistance to us to enable us increase our purchasing capital which will also be beneficial to the less privileged among us, so we can serve Nigerians better, as we would now be able to take more stock.” he said.

  • Dealers as leaders: The Putin example

    Blackmail is the new game for the ‘dealers as leaders’ in Abuja. It is a new tool for those haunted by their past. It is a weapon freely deployed by those who have been challenged to prove their loyalty to the nation. Those accused of betraying the trust of the people resort to it rather than defend their honour. Confronted over the misapplication of $2.1b loan for military hardware, Sambo Dasuki saw the hands of Muhammadu Buhari in his travails. If such antics fail to fool anyone, his alleged confederates remind the people that Buhari has spent close to a year in office fighting only corruption. And while they engaged in profligacy spending N300m to buy toys before the passage of the budget, some self-conceitedly declare: ‘It is time Buhari delivers on his campaign promises and stop blaming GEJ’.

    Or how about hilarious resolution shortly after its inauguration calling on Buhari to start implementing his N5, 000 social welfare campaign promise for the unemployed with immediate effect.

    Blackmail is also often used as a pre-emptive measure. Following the invitation of Bukola Saraki’s wife by EFCC, the House of Representatives swiftly produced a Dr. George Uboh who alleged that Ibrahim Lamorde, the then EFCC boss diverted over N1trillion the anti-graft agency recovered from treasury looters. When the Code of Conduct Tribunal, (CCT) insisted on trying Saraki, the senate president for alleged false asset declaration, his 84 ‘like-minds’ senators provided evidence to show that Danladi Umar’s personal assistant, Ali Abdullai Gambo, was docked by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) sometime in August, 2013 in Abuja for receiving N1.8m from one Taiwo Rasheed allegedly on behalf of the tribunal chairman.  And when Obasanjo accused the upper house of corruption, there was a ready defence. They were merely following the footsteps of their father who they alleged bribed them back in 2007 during his third term debacle. For maximum effect they revealed that Obasanjo, nine years after leaving office, signed the Abuja Rail contract without an MOU or a design.

    The purpose of the subtle blackmail according to Lai Mohammed, the Minister for Information and Culture was to delay prosecution which for the high profile politician takes between seven years and infinity. The sad thing is not the resort to subtle blackmail to delay prosecution but the real tragedy is that Buhari is yet to start the war on corruption. All he has done so far is attacking the symptoms of a deep rooted malaise unleashed on our nation through Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and Obasanjo mismanaged privatisation programme. The former allowed Babangida’s ‘army of anything is possible’ to pillage our land like a conquered territory resulting in the betrayal of the vision of our founding fathers. Part of the fallout is the depreciation of our naira from Babangida’s pre-structural adjustment programme value of N1 to US$1 to today’s over N300 to the US$1. With the latter, Obasanjo presided over the sales of  N100b assets acquired over 50 years (1958 and 2008) for a paltry $1.6b to dealers and wheelers who embarked on asset stripping to buy private jets and build skyscrapers instead of running the industries they bought at next to nothing, efficiently.

    The scandals surrounding the sales of Cocoa Industries Limited under the Babangida liberalisation policy and the Ajaokuta steel complex during Obasanjo privatisation drive easily call to question the loyalty of the two leaders to our nation. Ikeja Cocoa Industries was established by Western Region’s visionary leaders. It was a product of sweat and blood of Western Region’s cocoa farmers whose farm produce were heavily taxed through the marketing boards to raise funds for executing the ‘free education’ programme of the region as well as build a solid economic base to absorb its products. Unfortunately, Bode George, Sasaenia Oresanya and Mohammed Lawal, as Oodua military governors sold 60% of the then 24 years old company valued at N97, 958,000 by Messrs Onakanmi and Partners to Emerald Packaging Limited, owned by an investor from Kaduna State for N9m. Some other Oodua owned companies suffered similar fate.

    Nothing demonstrates the betrayal of our nation than the total lack of transparency in the purported sale of Ajaokuta steel complex to an unknown Indian company. Part of the BPE report on negotiation with the preferred Indian investor who was undoubtedly fronting for our politicians read as follows: “This concession which saw the taking over of ASCL undervalued to the tune of about $300m and Itakpe was one of the biggest scams’. GSH was to pay nothing to the government but expected to inject its funds to revive the plant with some of the following conditions:  the Federal Government should give GSHL two oil blocks; that GSHL be allowed to be lifting crude oil from Nigeria; that the Sapele Power Plant be given to GSHL to operate; the Concession of Delta and Warri Ports to GSHL to operate and that the supply of Natural Gas to GSHL must be at “competitive and reasonable tariff”. GSHL offered to pay N5.00 per cubic meter of gas as against the market price of N30.00). It also inserted in its conditions that “gas price should be kept reasonable and consistent.”

    Britain sold the idea of privatization to us. But unlike Britain where all segments of British society theoretically benefitted from Thatcher’s privatization programme, our people suffered double jeopardy.  At the regional level, youths were robbed of the wealth built through the sweats of their grandfathers. At the national level, inherited national patrimony which was to be held in trust for our children was shared by the military, their fronts and their groomed ‘new breed’ PDP politicians that bred nothing but corruption.

    And what is the way forward? I think the starting point is resorting to subtle blackmail – the tool those who have stolen our nation blind now find very effective. In this regard, to take the war to those who have mortgaged the future of our children. Buhari who has so far been restricted to fighting symptoms should start by setting up a body to investigate what has become of our assets confiscated under the reign of one-eyed kings- Babangida and Obasanjo. Assets of those who engaged in asset stripping to buy private jets and build skyscrapers can be auctioned with the proceeds deployed back to rebuilding the industries so as to create jobs for our teaming youths. Let me confess, I don’t own the patent to the above recommendation. Russia does.

    Russia under Gorbachev and Yeltsin went through our recent experience when she was forced by the West to embark on uncontrolled privatization in spite of her weak institutions. Few unpatriotic criminals cornered the wealth of Russia. Russia became a candidate for aids from the West.  Putin adopted the above subtle blackmail. He was maligned and accused by the West of human rights abuses and of tampering with freedom of the press. Putin will not allow those who do not believe in rule of law hide under same to continue the rape of Russia. Today, with millions of Russians youth back at work, Putin is not only immensely popular at home, he has moved on to reestablish yesterday’s candidate for western aid as an undisputed world power.

    We have no alternative than take control of our economy from dealers as leaders, importers of toothpicks, Morocco ‘Titus’ fish, South African chicken, Vietnamese rice, Italian ceramics, and US junks manufactured in Taiwan.

  • Local gin dealers, consumers lament police ‘harassment’

    Dealers and consumers of locally brewed gin, popularly known as ‘Ogogoro’ or ‘kai-kai’ have lamented what they described as ‘continued harassment and arrest’ of their members and customers by the police in Aba, Abia State.

    Sources alleged that security agents, after the Rivers State incident, have been going about arresting dealers and consumers.

    They complained that the continued arrest of their customers would affect their business negatively.

    A dealer, Boniface Kalu said that since the Rivers State episode, the police in Aba have been arresting their members and customers alike, only to release them on bail after they pay.

  • Dealers halt trading as naira value falls

    Dealers halt trading as naira value falls

    Dealers yesterday pulled the plug on electronic trading in the naira after it slid past the key level of 200 to the dollar on fears the postponement of this week’s election could trigger a constitutional crisis.

    Deploying for the first time a ‘circuit-breaker’ agreed among themselves last month, leading banks in Lagos halted trade after the naira dropped more than two per cent. At its weakest, it was quoted at a record low of 204.25 to the dollar, a decline of 20 per cent since the start of November.

    The rout has been driven by the combination of a tumbling oil price and a rise in political risk, highlighted by last Saturday when authorities pushed back the February 14 presidential election by six weeks, blaming it on insurgency accentuated by Boko Haram militants.

    It was not clear when normal naira trading in might resume. Although the halt is meant to calm nerves, it undermines Nigeria’s credibility as a smoothly operating capital market and could trigger its ejection from a key JP Morgan emerging market bond index.

    In the year after Nigeria joined the index in October 2012, foreign bond-holdings jumped from $1.2 billion to $5.4 billion, but JP Morgan said last month Nigeria’s inclusion was under review because of a lack of market liquidity.

    Ejection from the index would trigger major capital outflows because investors who track it would have to sell Nigerian bonds. That would exacerbate a budget crunch in Abuja by removing an important source of funding and further hammer the currency.

    In another sign of strain on the financial system, the rate banks charge each other for overnight lending spiked to 100 percent this week as the central bank sucked up naira to support the currency rather than continuing to leak foreign reserves.