Nigerians Caught Between New Tax Regime And High Petrol Cost

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Happy New Year to all Nigerians, especially those who read this newspaper and this column. The year that ended about 48 hours ago was one hell of a year, by way of experience, particularly for those of us in Nigeria. On the political front, it was as interesting as ever, what with shameless defections from opposition parties to the ruling party especially by governors and legislators in opposition-controlled states.

*Tinubu and Shettima 

Economically, it was only towards the end of the year that some relief, however palpable, began to manifest, with the price of rice, which is the staple most consumed by Nigerians, coming down. The downside on the dining table was that the cost of protein — eggs, fish and meat — refused to follow rice in the downward journey, thus posing a stiff challenge to many households, majority of whom just cooked the staples, mainly carbohydrates, without the protein to make the diet meaningful for the body. Nevertheless, we survived that.

Between Farouk Ahmed And Bello Matawalle

By Adekunle Adekoya

What amounted to an earthquake occurred in the oil sector in the week ending today. Mallam Farouk Ahmed, Authority Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, fell from his Olympian heights and his resignation from office was suddenly announced after a meeting with the President at the Presidential Villa Wednesday evening. In unclear circumstances, Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, CEO of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, also resigned his job.

*Matawalle 

The earthquake coming from Alhaji Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Industries and operator of the largest single train refinery in Africa started with tremors on Sunday when Africa’s richest man accused Farouk Ahmed’s NMDPRA of economic sabotage, alleging that regulatory actions were undermining local refining capacity in Nigeria.

Rising air Fares As Threat To National Economy

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Two major ironies are staring Nigeria in the face at the moment, in so far as it concerns air travel. A few days ago,  the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development rolled out the drums to celebrate 100 years of civil aviation in Nigeria. An international air show was organised and held in Abuja, among other events, to commemorate the milestone. It was on November 1, 1925 that the first flight into Nigeria landed in Kano.

It is therefore an irony of developments that citizens of a nation celebrating 100 years of civil aviation can no longer afford to travel by air. It has been in the news for some days now that the cost of air travel tickets to the South-Eastern part of the country, in particular, is hitting an all-time high.

Insecurity: Between Badaru’s Resignation And General Musa’s Return

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Curious. And curiouser. 

That’s how I can describe happenings on the Defence turf. Just weeks ago, immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa exited active service as a uniformed soldier. His exit, still unexplained, led to the elevation of his immediate subordinates into vacancies created by his exit. The burly Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Olufemi Oluyede, stepped in as Defence Chief, while the Navy and Air Force and Army also got new chiefs.

*Gen Musa 

Prior to these developments, there had been talk of insurrection, with more talk of some soldiers having been arrested for questioning. After Musa was formally pulled out of service, all that talk vaporised. It seemed as if the dog had been given the name they wanted to give it so they could do to it what they wanted to do.

Insecurity: Managing Our Clear And Present Danger

 By Adekunle Adekoya

There can be no further doubt in the minds of the average Nigerian that our dear country faces a clear and present danger on many fronts. The immediate one is the unrelenting wave of terror attacks, exemplified by repeated attacks on communities in Kwara State, which was preceded by abduction of Kebbi school girls, now said to have regained freedom.

Another problem the nation faces is with regard to the procurement, sale and use of narcotics and other psychotropic substances. The NDLEA, under General Mohammed Marwa has been doing a good job on that front, but he needs support. More on that another day.

Sale Of Alcohol In Sachets: Growing An Alcoholic Population

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Several months ago, the National Agency for Foods, Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, announced a bid to ban sale of alcoholic beverages packaged in sachets. The bid did not fly at the time, mainly as a result of pushbacks from vested interests, including manufacturers and distributors of the products.

Product packaging in sachets gained traction in Nigeria in the mid-90s when, first,  the “pure water” industry emerged. Later, in a bid to secure market share, a popular milk brand introduced into the market its product in sachets, and it worked for the company like magic. It has since become a juggernaut in the dairy industry, making billions annually. Its success encouraged others and soon, everywhere you turned, you saw all kinds of products packaged for sale in sachets, including, yes, tomato puree.

Cost Of Governance: Playing Ostrich With The Economy

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Earlier in the week, two renowned economists, one a businessman and the other a traditional ruler used the occasion of a book launch by the Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference in Abuja to speak truth to power. They are HRH Muhammad Sanusi II, Emir of Kano and former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and Mr. Atedo N.A. Peterside, founder of IBTC, which later fused with Stanbic Bank to become Stanbic-IBTC Bank. 

*Tinubu

What came up at the event, which the media focused on, were the reforms of the present administration and the cost of governance.

For Sanusi, the issue was the size and cost of governance. He pointedly asked: “We’ve got to be honest, why do we need 48 ministers? Why do we need dozens of vehicles when we’re moving around in convoys or travelling all over the country?”

Need For Decisive Action On Insecurity

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Recently, the Governor of Niger State, apparently at the end of his tether, vowed never to negotiate with bandits or pay ransom for kidnap victims, saying instead residents must be prepared to defend themselves against attacks. Governor Bago said this when he visited the people of Rijau and Magama Local Government Areas of the state, whose communities were recently attacked by bandits in Kontagora.

His words: “The state has reached a point where the people must stand up and defend themselves because ransom will only turn kidnapping into a thriving business.

Let’s All Defect, Now!

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Earlier this week, Tuesday precisely, Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah of Enugu State, elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, ditched his party, and with his entire political machinery, defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. He was not the first, and will not be the last.

*Mbah and Tinubu

His colleagues of the PDP that had defected to the APC much earlier include Governors Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State and Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State. With the way things have turned out in Rivers State, we should expect another defection from there anytime soon.

Insecurity: Getting The Right Things Wrong

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Right now, the 80th United Nations General Assembly, UNGA is holding in New York, the United States. This year, unlike on previous occasions, our president is not attending. Instead, Vice President Kashim Shettima is standing in for the president and has already delivered the Nigerian national address to the UN body.

The key takeaways from the speech made at UNGA is the renewed call for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, and the proposal for a two-state solution to the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I will quote certain sentences from the speech delivered by Shettima, and relate it to our peculiar circumstances.

African Leaders And The Renewed Scramble For Africa!

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Many readers might have read or heard about the initial scramble for Africa, as recorded by historians. It was a movement that culminated in a major political and economic exertion by the major and minor powers, largely of European origin.

The end result was colonisation. In a bid to continue to sustain the economic wealth of their countries, many European countries saw that they needed resources not immediately available in their territories to sustain the new ways of life that promises more wealth as the Industrial Revolution took off with inventions being rolled out one after the other and investors commercialising them. 

The Nigeria Police, CMR And Tinted-Glass Permits

 By Adekunle Adekoya

A little over a year ago, specifically on July 19, 2024, this column had cause to join issues with the High Command of the Nigeria Police Force over the issue of CMR, or Central Motor Registry, which the Police decreed all motorists must obtain a permit from. 

I recall a statement issued by Force spokeman, ACP Muyiwa Adejobi, now DCP, which announced that the Police “will commence the enforcement of the digitalised central motor registry, e-CMR, by July 29, 2024.

“As part of the efforts of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, NPM, PhD, to enhance the security of lives and property, the Nigeria Police Force is set to commence the enforcement of the digitalised central motor registry (e-CMR) within the next 14 days, specifically on the 29th of July, 2024, — to rejuvenate and digitalize the motor vehicle registration system, significantly bolstering our nation’s safety and security framework,” the statement read in part.

Insouciant, Immoral Politicking For 2027 Elections

 By Adekunle Adekoya

A cursory perusal of the state of affairs in Nigeria today and how things are managed by the politicians in charge led me to one conclusion — we, the people of Nigeria, do not matter a jot to the politicians managing our affairs. In addition, the laws that we have in place to regulate our daily experience in many spheres of life also do not matter to them.

This is because preparations to get re-elected after the elections of 2023 began earnestly last year, a development unprecedented since the Fourth Republic was birthed in 1999. To me, that wasn’t just jumping the gun, it signalled a crazy obsession with, and yearning for power that even demagogues may not possess. Throughout last year, and continuing into this year, developments on the political landscape had to do in the main with who is defecting from which party, and to which. This year, most of the rumours became fact when the decampings started taking place, one after the other, like the sequence in a computer programme.

The Roads Not Taken On Insecurity

 By Adekunle Adekoya

If it’s not over, then it’s not over, and therefore we cannot stop talking about it. We cannot, indeed, we must not stop talking about a problem that threatens our very existence. It is trite to restate that as at this time, majority of Nigerians are feeling insecure, what with the news of  killings and kidnappings in various parts of the country continuing to dominate news headlines. Things are so bad, security-wise, that people are getting benumbed by news of killings. If Boko Haram strikes and kills people in Borno now, the reaction of an average Nigerian would probably be: “Na today?”

That reaction means we are used to getting killed by mindless, Luciferous gangs of killers on a blood-sucking mission. They are on repeated missions to kill people and execute other sinister agenda.

The Forgotten Take-Aways From June 12

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Yesterday was June 12. That date has become something else in the history of our dear country. At the risk of telling you what you what you already know, the presidential election of June 12, 1993 was adjudged by Nigerians and watchers of Nigerian politics worldwide to be the freest, fairest ever held in the country.

But sadly, the country was denied the benefits of enjoying the dividends of their freest and fairest election through a most callous annulment of that election, a development that I still cannot understand till tomorrow. Not that I was a child in 1993; far from it, in fact I had fathered two of my own children long before that election, and as a university graduate, was fully equipped to discern and witness the train of events that happened one after the other, as a practising newspaperman, till the nation was told that the election stood annulled. I still don’t understand it.

10,217 Persons Killed In 2 Years: Still Playing Games With Security

 By Adekunle Adekoya

This week, the newswires were awash with reports that the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Olufemi Oluyede has relocated to Benue State, ostensibly in a show of force following endless killings by herdsmen militias in that state. Without fear of equivocation, one can say that Benue is the most embattled of all the states of the federation, given the frequency of attacks and scale of killings in that state. 

Plateau will be second on that gruesome list. Kaduna, under Nasir el-Rufai would have trumped both, given the bloodbath that took place in that state, but something happened; there is palpable relief as the orgy of killings there, particularly in Southern Kaduna, seems to have abated. What happened in Kaduna? Can we make it happen in Benue and Plateau?

Unending Collapses Of The National Grid

 By Adekunle Adekoya

On Wednesday, the national power grid managed by the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, collapsed for the 11th time in 2024, leaving the country in complete blackout. Some people said that it wasn’t the 11th but the 12th time, on the average, a collapse of once a month.

Data from the National System Operator, NSO, showed that as of 2pm that day, none of Nigeria’s 26 power plants was on the grid.

The Case Of Two Maniacal Looters And Our Future

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Two major reports on the anti-corruption landscape made the headlines these last few days. Both left me wondering about the mental state of the perpetrators, given the sheer scale of what they were up to.

Pix: Amazon

All of us still remember the late maximum dictator, General Sani Abacha. Since his passing, it has come to light that the redoubtable General siphoned so much money from the national exchequer that 30 generations from him would never have to work again.

GDP Growth Report: Whose Figures?

 By Adekunle Adekoya

“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.” — Mark Twain (1835-1910). Please note that Mark Twain himself attributed it to former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Last Monday, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, released a report on the National Gross Domestic Product for Q1 2024, that is, the first three months of this year. On its website, NBS gave the following overview: Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 2.98% (year-on-year) in real terms in the first quarter of 2024.

IMF’s Doublespeak’ll Make Tinubu’s Hardship Worse

 By Adekunle Adekoya

During the work week ending today, that infamous Bretton Woods institution, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, was in doublespeak regarding the economy of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly mentioned countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, and my dear country ( I have no other!), Nigeria. 

*Tinubu

Urging Nigeria and the other countries to rethink implementation strategies of the reforms embarked on, the IMF, in its latest Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa report, noted that the countries involved in deep reforms, including Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya, may now be experiencing what it called ‘adjustment fatigue’, while some are facing civil resistance.