When Will Buhari Be Quizzed Over His Stewardship?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Clapping back at the former Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, who recently criticised former President Muhammadu Buhari for running “the most incompetent government we have ever seen in this country,” Mallam Garba Shehu dismissed him as corruption personified.

*Buhari and Tinubu
Adoke was scathing in his criticism, not only labelling Buhari the most incompetent president Nigeria ever had and will never have again, but also said his ruination of Nigeria was enabled by a set of political morons he personally assembled. That was a total take down.

Why Tinubu Must Pay For The Sins Of ECOWAS

 By Rotimi Fasan

This  column last week supported the overwhelming views of Nigerians that the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration should have nothing to do with any kind of direct military intervention in the affairs of Niger under the Abdourahamane Tchiani-led junta. That rejection of force in the restoration of democratic order in Niger was based on the pragmatic reason that Nigeria has more than enough of her own internal crises to contend with, and that adding the political crisis in Niger to all of these is the least of our problems, more so as Nigeria would likely bear the bulk of the financial burden that would come from the deployment of troops. 

*Tinubu

Since that time, enough had happened to make one have a slight but fundamental shift of position, all owing to the attitude of the junta in Niger and the manner some players and commentators in the Nigerian political space have chosen to misrepresent the crisis in Niger while attacking Abuja. But first before any elaboration of my adjusted take on Nigeria’s position in the Nigerien crisis, let’s turn attention to Nigeria’s critics of the supposed position of Abuja, which is the position of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, in the matter. 

Adamu’s Forced Exit: The Post-Power Humiliation Of Buhari

 By Olu Fasan

Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s immediate past president, had a post-power syndrome. He once said he would find life difficult if a president from another party succeeded him. He genuinely feared that a successor from another party would treat him and his allies the same way he treated his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, and his loyalists in 2015.

*Adamu and Buhari 
So, Buhari exploited his incumbency and pulled all the stops to secure “victory” for Bola Tinubu, saying “he will continue my legacy”. Indeed, in his last days in office, Buhari made several appointments and launched several initiatives as if saying: “they’re safe in Tinubu’s hands.”

Nigeria: A Government In Search Of Legitimacy

 By Sunny Ikhioya

Nigeria’s problem is not its people or what some will call the ‘curse of the Black man’. The problem is simply a leader that will put aside religious, ethnic and other primordial sentiments to build a unified nation of one purpose, goal and prosperity. In other words, to build a nation of patriotic Nigerians. You cannot say you love Nigeria and be destroying properties that belong to the commonwealth.

You cannot say you love Nigeria and be killing and kidnapping your fellow Nigerians. You cannot say you love Nigeria and be stealing what belongs to everyone. That is the dilemma the nation is facing; having a leader who can bring together all of these contending forces and project their combined strength to the whole world. That is basically our challenge.

Nigeria: Using Torchlight In Broad Daylight

 By Owei Lakemfa

There is a country called Nigeria. For three decades, its coffers were daily looted in the guise of fuel subsidy. The looters are known by name and some are known faces. The companies they use in looting are registered and have addresses. Rather than bring the criminals to book, government decided to remove the subsidy.

Thus, the people are forced to pay astronomical prices for fuel, while the subsidy looters keep their loot and are free to forage for other things to loot. This is the truth. There is also the lie; that fuel subsidy has now been removed. The truth is that it is impossible to remove fuel subsidy no matter how much the people are visited with high fuel prices.

Bye Buhari: Good And Timely Riddance…

 By Dele Sobowale

“In every community, there is a class of people, profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don’t mean criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably, the most dangerous people seek power” – Saul Bellow, 1915-2005.

*Buhari

Before revealing to you how dangerous a Nigerian leader can be, permit me to explain the title of the last column of the Buhari Presidency. We were asked to write a short story, maximum length ten pages, for our term paper at the university in 1965 for our English Literature course. Help would be provided as needed. I soon required assistance.

Goodbye To The Culture Of Impunity

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

One of the most significant factors that define and drive the engine of democratic processes is respect for the rule of law. That explains why constitutions are drafted and approved, with the aims and objectives to protect human rights and freedom of association and expression. In its full essence, the Constitution prevents the government and its officials from abusing power.

It also specifies the functions of the arms of government, be it the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. As for the 1999 constitution of Nigeria (as amended) it is predicated on promoting the principles, norms and ethos of democracy.

With it, Nigerians are supposed to be separated far from “The law of the jungle” which as an expression has come to describe a scenario where “anything goes”. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the Law of the Jungle as “the code of survival in jungle life, now usually with reference to the superiority of brute force or self-interest in the struggle for survival”.

Nigeria: Comma In The Caution From DSS

 By Emmanuel Aziken

The Department of State Services, DSS, trended this week after the internal police issued a statement of caution over an alleged plot by some political actors to install an interim government.

The DSS in the statement said it had identified the political actors involved and  went further to insinuate the stages that they had gone and the options that the assumed plotters have been weighing in their aspiration.

Avoidable Cash Crisis: Any Lessons Learnt?

 By Ayo Baje

Most important, the Central Bank must keep public opinion on its side, because the public is the ultimate source of its power and independence.” – International Monetary Fund (IMF) report titled: “Rethinking Monetary Policy in a Changing World”. 

On February 3, 2023, the media was awash with the report of an unidentified man who slumped and died after spending hours at a new generation bank in Agbor, Delta state in what turned out a fruitless effort to withdraw some money. 

Cash Squeeze: As Buhari Plays Pontius Pilate

 By Charles Okoh

Last week, Nigerians got some sort of relief as the Central Bank and Federal Government finally complied with the Supreme Court ruling on the lingering cash squeeze which practically squeezed life out of many Nigerians.

*Emefiele and Buhari 

I am not particularly interested in the debate as it concerns the independence of the CBN or otherwise or the right of the Supreme court to intervene in monetary policy administration. 

The arguments for or against, are neither here nor there, my pain is the unwarranted hardship which the federal government under president Muhammadu Buhari unconscionably subjected the people to. This level of hardship is unprecedented. 

A Nation Where Everyone Is Oppressed

 By Owei Lakemfa

Nigerians have the next 70 days to survive a regime that has chastised them with whips and is promising to further chastise them with scorpions. Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, last week not only renewed the Buhari regime’s threat to increase Nigerians heavy burden by piling far higher fuel prices, but also told the incoming administration to immediately raise the Value Added Tax from 7.5 per cent to 10 per cent.

While depleting all available resources and adding heavy local and foreign debts to the bargain, the regime seems determined to drain whatever finances are available. So, rather than wind down and start producing handover notes, it wants to conduct a census that promises to be controversial. But more importantly, the census will be used to legally take out N869 billion or $1.88 billion from our national coffers. It is like a retirement package.

Birthday Essay For Professor Akachi Ezeigbo

 By Tony Afejuku

Let me urgently make this open confession: the current condition of this land – this land, your land, my land, our land – has consigned me to nothing short of a pretty long time to dilemmas upon dilemmas – seriously speaking indeed. It would be unjust of me not to make this open confession to you my chief reader today (and readers) in order to escape an almost inevitable calamity.’

*Prof Ezeigbo

As my today’s reader-in-chief and priestess-in-chief to boot you should help me, after hearing this confession, to wean me from anything untoward that would impair my judgment and essential character and value of my thought relating to our Emefielenic monetary stamp of bewildering proportions that would be of selfish benefits to his fellow politicians, no, polifoolicians, and cabalistic cabals than to our nation. 

Naira Redesign: In Whose Interests Are These Politicians Fighting?

 By Charles Okoh

There can be no telling the measure of pressure faced by Nigerians at a time as this. What is not in doubt is whatever the intent of the presidency in pursuing the redesign of some currencies, the discomfort Nigerians suffer now, if nothing is done about it might as well get to a level where the people can no longer bear the pains and inconveniences any more. At that stage, nothing is predictable.

In spite of repeated denials by Godwin Emefiele, that the naira redesign is not political and not targeted at any politician, the reaction of the members of the National Assembly and governors, especially of the APC, suggest that, indeed, there may be more to it than meets the eye.

Tinubu Vs Atiku: A Cautionary Tale Of Self-Destruction

 By Dan Onwukwe

Like a broken family whose members would  prefer to destroy their father’s inheritance rather than share it, shame has become a passé to the managers of the Presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress and that of the Peoples Democratic Party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar. As the Feb 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections draw feverishly near, the desperation in the camps of these two presidential candidates seems to have reached a new low.

*Atiku and Tinubu 

With the many gaffes and seeming lack of tact by Tinubu on the campaign hustings, a sense of ennui has set in. His desperate efforts to be the next President of Nigeria appear to be bogging down. But he keeps blowing hot. As respected columnist Sonala Olumhense wrote in the SUNDAY PUNCH of January 29, if there’s one political party that ought not to be on the ballot in the February/March elections, it’s the ruling APC.  

But We Warned Tinubu About Buhari

 By Charles Okoh

There must be something about Abeokuta that makes the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to wait until his visit there to literally spit fire, like the legendary dragon. It was in Abeokuta on June 3, 2022 that Tinubu made his now famous emilokan cry.

*Buhari and Tinubu 

Before the June 3 outburst last year, Tinubu had survived a surreptitious plot to deny him the shot at the presidency in spite of his gentleman’s agreement with President Buhari before the 2015 presidential elections. An unwritten agreement which guaranteed that in the principle of one-turn-deserves-another, Tinubu had rallied his men and resources to ensure that Buhari, who had failed three times previously, was successful at the fourth time of asking.

Emefiele Versus The Politicians

 By Andy Ezeani

The full story of how Godwin Emefiele almost abandoned his prime position as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to join the giddy race for President of Nigeria via the overloaded rough vehicle of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is yet to be told.   

*Emefiele 

Was he nudged on into a caper and conned along the way? Or was the adventure a true expression of his ambition and spirit of adventure? Whichever one it was, does not really matter. The man is an adult and therefore, takes responsibility for his decisions and actions. In this case, it was his choice to try the APC gamble. For good measures, he gathered the whooping N100miliion purchase of form fee that he threw into the unforgiving APC machine that never returned any money that entered its vaults.

New ‘Currency’, New Census: Buhari’s Desperate Quest For A Legacy

 By Olu Fasan

For most of his seven-and-a-half years in office to date, President Muhammadu Buhari ran Nigeria with such insouciance that suggested he didn’t care about a legacy. However, as the inevitability of leaving office on May 29 next year hits home, Buhari has shown a minute-to-midnight desperation for “legacy projects.”

Two such “projects” are “redesigning” the naira notes and conducting a population census. But by politicising such issues, he undermines them. To start with, my view is that President Buhari has, so far, no legacy that can endure through time. Economists use the term “value for money” to refer to something that is well worth the money spent on it.

Why Adamu’s APC Is Afraid Of BVAS, E-Transmission Of Results

 By Charles Okoh

“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.” – Georg C. Lichtenburg

It is no longer debatable that the only problem keeping this nation down is the problem of fixing the governance jigsaw. We have been held down by the fact that rather than a democracy where the wishes of the people reign supreme; we have practiced neo-feudalism where a few people lord it over the rest of us and dictate who gets what or into any office in the land.

Adamu

This has never been as bad and brazen since independence as they have been since the turn of the fourth republic in 1999.The result being that there has been a steady and ever-increasing level of apathy towards elections in the country.

For instance, in the 2019 presidential elections that secured President Muhammadu Buhari, his second term, only 34.75 percent of registered voters actually voted in elections, according data released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Nigeria’s Dysfunctional Banks

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

On a Thursday I went to one of the branches of a Bank to carry out a transaction on one of the accounts of our law firm. This particular account was opened about 17 years. And since the opening of the account, our law firm has been successfully operating without any hitches or hiccups. 

But this day after presenting my cheque at the counter, I was informed that “Sir, this account needs reactivation.” “Why the reactivation?” I queried. “Because it has been rendered dormant. It is no longer active,” the lady responded. What will I do to reactivate it? She pulled out a sheet of paper containing some bank requirements and said: “Sir, these are the requirements for reopening the account. 

Buhari, APC And Freedom For The Abductees

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

It is obvious that securing the freedom of the abductees of the Abuja-Kaduna bombed-train is not the priority of the APC ruling party. Neither is it a priority of President Buhari nor former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi nor the APC Presidential aspirants. The only priority of President Buhari, the APC ruling party and APC Presidential aspirants at the moment is to re-capture political power in 2023. They have no human feeling for these abductees. I hate to address them as abductees.

*Buhari

They are not unknown abductees: they are our fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and, above all, our brothers and sisters who were victims of the Abuja-Kaduna-train bombing and abduction on March 28 2022 and who have been abandoned to be sorrowing and agonizing in the dungeon of their abductors. Had the Abuja-Kaduna train bombing and abduction occurred, say, anywhere in the western world or even Asia or other parts of the world, the CNN, BBC and the world media including the Nigerian media by now would have been bombarding us with the minute-by-minute analyses about the fate that had befallen the abductees and the efforts being made to secure their freedom. But this is Buhari’s Nigeria where life has become so cheap. This is Buhari’s government where the death and suffering of our fellow Nigerians do not matter to the government.