The Sick Continent

 By Dan Agbese

Africa is a baffling continent sitting on mounds of paradoxes. The paradox of rich but poor continent is a familiar theme. It is rich in human and natural resources; yet its 54 independent nation-states are dependent on other less divine-favoured countries to even feed their own people.

Africa is a sick but lucky continent. Its paradoxes attract economic and other experts who periodically diagnose its ailments and go on to offer sane expert prescriptions on how to heal it. The problem, and this is one of the many paradoxes, is that the continent continues to get sicker. It is either the failure of the diagnoses or the ineffectiveness of the prescriptions or both. The question is why?

Killing Nigeria With Senseless Loans

 By Yemi Adebowale

The 2021 federal budget is N13.8 trillion. It has a deficit of N5.6 trillion and this will be funded, largely, through external borrowing. Over 30 per cent of the funds for this budget 2021 will be loans. This is why President Muhammadu Buhari is asking the National Assembly to approve N2.3 trillion ($6.18 billion) external loan to enable him fund part of the 2021 budget. The loan is part of N4.6 trillion federal lawmakers had earlier approved for his government as contained in the 2021 Appropriation Act. About 33 per cent of budget 2021 is set aside for debt servicing. Is this nonsense making sense? 

*Buhari 
This is the level Nigeria has degenerated while binge-borrowing. Budget figures of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have become voodoo numbers. They persistently bamboozle Nigerians with humorous numerals. The long and the shot of all these confusing figures is that Nigeria is in serious financial mess compounded by binge-borrowing by the Buhari government. This country parades a long list of creditors – World Bank, African Development Bank, French Development Agency, Islamic Development Bank, China EXIM Bank, China Development Bank, European Investment Bank, European ECA, KFW, IPEX, AFC, India EXIM Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development and the rest of them.

Mr. President, You Dine With Corruption – Open Letter To President Buhari

By Chima Amadi

Your Excellency,

Naturally, conventional wisdom and etiquette will require that I start by expressing my happiness for the safe return of your son, Yusuf, from his medical sojourn. However, I am constrained to hold my horses in that regard for like everything now surrounding you there is no clarity as to the status of that journey. First, patriotic tales of how you have placed the young man’s fate in the hands of Nigeria’s quirky medical expertise and facility regaled us, then later, an announcement of a successful surgery and discharge was made to the delight of a relieved nation. Sir, you can pardon my reticence in not going the courteous route when all that drivel from your handlers is just that; yet, another mishandled spin. Yusuf had been in Germany all along. Given this deception, I beg your indulgence to skip niceties and to proceed right to the crux of this open letter.

*President Buhari 

Why an open letter to you? As I read the drab defence of your government’s anti-corruption credentials by your Media Team in reaction to Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perception Index(CPI) which scored Nigeria poorly, I was left to wonder if that was the quality of advice you were getting. Admittedly, against the backdrop of efforts by the EFCC to ratchet up the public show of force against corruption, you have every reason to wonder why the rankings would suggest that Nigeria’s corruption perception has regressed under your watch. While your angst would not be misplaced, it was the duty of your trusted aides to tell you the truth about the situation and why we would continue to be perceived as one of the most corrupt places on earth irrespective of the uncoordinated, incoherent and tactless efforts of the nation’s leading anti-corruption agency.