Nigeria: Is There A Reason To Be Hopeful?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Is Nigeria making progress? Is there any reason to be optimistic about the future? These are the questions that continue to concentrate my mind as the country and its leadership continue to fumble. Ordinarily, I am a very optimistic person with a positive outlook on life. I would rather look at a half of a glass of water and see it as half-full than half-empty. But wishing Nigeria the best or being hopeful that things will get better does not necessarily translate to reality. The vehicle that transports hope to the destination of reality is positive action.

*Tinubu 

Esther Boyd, the Editorial Director for State of Formation, an offshoot of the Journal of Interreligious Studies, JIRS, in a 2016 article, “Hope is an Action,” wrote: “Hope as an action means pushing boundaries, dismantling barriers, and taking steps – however small they may be – one by one, towards the better that we’re hoping for. To hope for something means to strive towards it, to build it if it doesn’t already exist, and to keep moving forward.” But hope, as Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher and cultural critic, once noted could be “the worst of all evils, for it prolongs the torments of man”.

Letter To Chukwuma Soludo

 By Amanze Obi

I had thought that I would give you a little more time before inquiring into your stewardship as the governor of Anambra State. But your recent outburst about the Peter Obi presidential bid has dragged me out earlier than I wanted.

*Soludo

When your long quest for the governorship of Anambra State materialized in November, 2021, I was elated. I felt happy for you, for Anambra State and for Nigeria. I was particularly happy that the intellectual community to which I belong has got a breather through your emergence as governor.

You are certainly not the first intellectual to rise to an exalted governance position in Nigeria.

Soludo Just Signed The Certificate Of His Marriage To Irrelevance

 By Onyemaechi Ogbunwezeh 

Charles Chukwuma Soludo is an intelligent man no doubt. But his most recent write up on Peter Obi, was to all intents and purposes, certifiably stupid. There is no polite way of telling an intelligent man, that he goofed big time. 

*Soludu and Obi

In all his wisdom, he missed the most important fact of this period. He missed the fact that Peter Obi is not the one running for President. He failed to realize that it is the ordinary, dispossessed and oppressed Nigerian youth that is running for the Presidency through Peter Obi. 

He thought that this is about Peter Obi. 

He forgot the fact that this is the first time in the history of this country that Nigerian oppressed youths have risen, financed themselves and set out to wrest their destiny from a thieving, visionless and lazy elite, which has disembowelled their aspirations and left them with a broken country without purpose. 

Nigeria: Is This How To Run A Government?

By Dele Sobowale 

“First of all, don’t forget that there are local and global financial markets. What is their job? It is to lend money. If you don’t borrow those people are going to lose their jobs.” –  Fashola  Minister of  Works and  Housing,  Report, July  31, 2022.

I had to check four times to be sure that the person being interviewed was our former Governor of Lagos State.  He was once  everybody’s favourite Governor in Nigeria. Most people were not sound enough in economics to realise that he also had far more money to spend than any other Governor.

It would have been interesting to find out how really good he was if he was Governor of Nasarawa or Taraba State.  He is now Minister of Works and Housing  –  before he was also Minister of Power. Now, he has no financial advantage over other Ministers;  so  we can judge.

Obiano, Soludo And Anambra State

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Chukwuma Charles Soludo was the guest lecturer in Awka during the 3rd Anniversary of the inception of the Willie Obiano Administration. The renowned economist’s magisterial presentation was laced with numerous economic, political and social nuggets, all of which boiled down to his unequivocal endorsement of Governor Willie Obiano for a second term of office. His views make sustained interrogation imperative. But, some background information is apposite.

*Soludo and Gov Obiano

Professor Soludo is far from the first Anambra personage to endorse Governor Obiano’s bid for a second tenure as Governor of Anambra State. The impressive list contains such names as Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, the first civilian governor of the new Anambra State; Dame Virgy Etiaba, a former Governor of Anambra State, and Chief Emeka Sibeudu, who was Deputy Governor to Mr. Peter Obi. Others include Senators Ben Ndi Obi, Annie Okonkwo and Emma Anosike, none of whom is of Governor Obiano’s ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), as well as Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, the former Nigerian Education Minister. Elder statesmen like Chief Alex Ekwueme, a former Vice-President of Nigeria, and Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary-General, have equally thrown their lot with Governor Obiano. Non-politicians like Dr. Cosmas Maduka, the versatile industrialist, and Chief Innocent Chukwuma of Innoson Car manufacturers have equally given Governor Obiano the thumbs up.

Indeed, the support for an Obiano second term is gradually becoming a movement. It has gone beyond personalities and attracted the remarkable attention of groups that cut across socio-political, religious, and professional divides. In this category are to be found the Anambra North Peoples Assembly (ANPA); the Old Aguata Union (OAU); the Federation of Old Nnewi Division (FOND); the Anambra State Association of Town Unions (ASATU) and the Anambra State Markets Amalgamated Traders Association, (ASMATA.) Yet, that is not all because the Anambra state branches of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC); the Anambra State Traditional Rulers Council; the Traditional Prime Ministers Council, the Anambra state branch of Southeast Women of Substance and the United Anambra Youths Assembly have equally endorsed Governor Obiano to continue with his exemplary leadership.

All the endorsements are held by one powerful bond – the fact that Governor Willie Obiano has acquitted himself creditably in the onerous responsibility of directing the affairs of Anambra State. In unison they sing the joyous song of his achievements: Obiano has made Anambra the safest state in the country. He has transformed the Awka capital territory from a provincial enclave to a worthy state capital. He has revolutionized agriculture, making Anambra a rice-producing state of note and a leader in dairy farming. He has sustained the prompt and regular payment of salaries, gratuities and pensions. He has displayed an uncommon sense of empathy for the sensibilities and sensitivities of Ndi Anambra. For these and many other reasons, they have taken the attitude that a second term is the appropriate reward for Obiano’s services to his people.

Suicidal Defence Of The Naira

By Henry Boyo

The awareness of the correlation between lower naira exchange rates and increasing poverty motivated the “Save the Naira, Save Nigerians!” by-line in articles in this column since 2004. Despite the obvious debilitating impact of Naira devaluation on inflation, domestic industries, employment and social welfare, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recently, brazenly   declared that it deliberately devalued the naira from below N120/$1 to almost N150/$1; regretably CBN, by this act, declared a war against our welfare.

 The apex bank however, countered that devaluation was necessary to stabilize the economy and ensure that monthly naira allocations matched the projected 2009 expenditure budget. I daresay, however, that such a fiscal strategy is counterproductive; Instructively, the resultant bloated Naira allocations will still be inadequate to cover recurrent and capital expenditure which were earlier projected with at least 25% stronger naira values.

When the folly of this strategy ultimately dawned on our monetary policy makers, the CBN Governor quickly recanted and later alleged that, the devaluation was in fact, the handiwork of speculators!!   Now, let us examine his claim. The first pertinent question is, how speculators accumulated almost N2,000bn between October and November 2008 to exchange for $7bn plus from CBN?   Indeed, prior to the alleged deliberate devaluation, the monetary authorities, reportedly held internal consultations and sought President Yar Adua and National Economic Council’s approval; inevitably, prominent Nigerians with interest in banks became consequently privy to the dastardly blow awaiting the naira!

Curiously, despite the very late budget passage in October 2008, and the parallel delay in capital projects execution, the Federal Executive Council, nonetheless, authorized 100% release of all outstanding budget provisions, not minding that with Sallah, Xmas and New Year- holidays imminent, there were barely seven weeks left to 31st December 2008 to complete projects which should normally take 12 months for implementation.

Invariably, with the subsisting embarrassingly surplus Naira Liquidity, and the open secret of an imminent Naria devaluation, the banks besieged CBN with demands for unusually large dollar purchases, which they would later sell with huge profit after devaluation.

Soludo: The Real Idi Amin That Ran The CBN?

By Jude Ndukwe

Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo, former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and former governorship aspirant in Anambra State, got the nation anxious again when he declared in a no-holds-barred manner that former President Goodluck Jonathan ran the Central Bank of Nigeria in manners akin to that of Uganda’s late dictator, Idi Amin. Soludo did not fall short of accusing the former president of ordering the CBN to ‘print’ say, N3 trillion under the guise of creating an intervention fund for national stability but which is eventually doled out to prosecute an election campaign or just about anything the president fancies. He further described the CBN as the presidency’s ATM under Jonathan.

*Soludo

Such an unsubstantiated grave allegation coming from a man like Soludo is, indeed, worrisome. That a man of Soludo’s status would condescend so low, throw caution to the wind, jump on the bandwagon, play to the gallery and take advantage of the political situation in Nigeria to make spurious allegations unscrupulously against the former president is a sign of the decline and amnesia which has gripped our political class in the last eight months.
Apart from the fact that such unguarded outburst is false, the timing is instructive.

In the months prior to the appointment of Ministers by President Buhari, Soludo was so desperate to be noticed that he suddenly became vocal in condemning the immediate past administration and accused them of just anything that tickled his fancy all in a bid to get Buhari’s attention. His nearly endless tirade against Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s immediate past Minister of Finance and
Coordinating Minister of the Economy, is legendary. Despite all his efforts, President Buhari overlooked him and settled for someone who by her deportment is timid and easily malleable than a Soludo who is brash, rash, abrasive, confrontational and does ITK (I Too Know).

After having missed that opportunity, and with the growing rumour that the job of the current CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, is hanging in the balance following the shambolic state of our economy and the continued slide in the value of the naira, it is time for Soludo to remind Buhari that he is still jobless and quite available for the CBN top job, and the only way to do this since he does not have direct access to the president is to criticise the past administration for just anything that would make him sound as being in the same boat with the president and his men, and probably be considered for a job in the current administration.

However, a look at Soludo’s leadership of the CBN between May 29, 2004 and May 29, 2009, when he held sway there leaves much to be desired.