Oshiomhole Is Making Saraki Popular!

By Ifeanyi Izeze

Hitherto, we all thought that the former Edo state governor had some quality stuffs upstairs but in less than two months of being incorporated into the national politics from his little labour and Edo state enclaves, he has quickly shown that he lacks the capacity to think deep and plan strategically on issues especially as concerns engagement strategies against political adversaries-real and perceived.

*Oshiomhole greets Saraki

With every pronouncement, action, and even body language, Adams Oshiomole, the newly enthroned National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress party (APC) displays himself as a big mistake for the Buhari political strategists. The man seems power drunk or at best in a hurry to prove something that he has not. Does Oshiomole not know that majority of the ordinary Nigerian people would rather go in support of anyone perceived to be victimized by the government whether state or federal? If you like don’t believe this but that is the absolute truth of how the psyche of the Nigerian electorate works.

Why Restructuring Is A Win-Win For All Nigerians

By Written by Ifeanyi Izeze

When the former Vice President and presidential hopeful on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, recently addressed the London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), on the importance of strengthening the economic management system of the federating states in Nigeria, the major takeaway was that we have lived on a dangerous structural fault line for too long and pretended all was well.

Southern Nigerian Leaders: Advocates for Restructuring 

Though the former vice president used the auspicious opportunity of his speech at the Chatham House to harp on some of his economic programmes and policies as a presidential candidate, the emphasis was heavily on the ills of our defective federal system of government.

Buhari And Oil Sector Liberalisation: What Kachikwu Has Not Told Us?

By Ifeanyi Izeze

Whether they called it “subsidy removal,” at first and later “price modulation” and now “downstream liberalisation,” one fact stands out that the announcement by the federal government on the fuel issue represented a form of deregulation of the petroleum products procurement and distribution sub-sector of the nation’s downstream. Most Nigerians as it stands today are seriously praying and hoping that President Muhammadu Buhari and his team will arrive and quickly too at a reasonable strategy to take the nation through the next couple of years and position us for the long term as well. This is our hope and according to the Holy Bible (Romans 5:5), “Hope does not make us ashamed”- we cannot be ashamed of having hope on the abilities of our crop of ‘ogas on top.’ And our prayer is that our president fulfils the hope of his calling by being fruitful in every good work.

It is an understatement to say that there is a lot of confusion that need to be cleared and in plain language too by the government in the announced liberalisation of the petroleum products procurement and distribution sub-sector.

Truly Nigeria is “fantastically wonderful,” if not how do you explain the existing foreign exchange (forex) discrepancies between the Central Bank rate and those of the autonomous or rather black markets? As at today black market foreign exchange rates are well over two times the official rate. The first question is: who supplies forex to the black market operators? Is it possible that someone can smuggle huge amount of dollars into Nigeria without beign detected? It is obvious that those in authority- in government, CBN and the NNPC are the ones releasing forex to their cronies/fronts that operate the black markets. Is this in its self not corruption/fraud at its highest order?

This government that has shown a strong political will to fight corruption should address this foreign exchange discrepancy that is at best sabotaging the genuine efforts to re-jig and strengthen our economy. You expect marketers to source forex at the secondary/ black market and at the same time cap the price they are expected to sell their commodity, is that going to work?

Though it is better to believe it was an oversight, remarkably, the president and the petroleum minister have been mute on the fate of one of the worst epicentres of corruption in the fuel subsidy and price modulation fraud in this country. The Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), a conscription that is as fraudulent as the entire subsidy racket is being completely left out of the present argument by both the government and those against the recently announced deregulation of the downstream.

It is “fantastically corrupt” to be mute on the issue of equalisation as enshrined in the Act that established The Petroleum Equalisation Fund. This Fund was supposed to make sure every Nigerian, no matter where you live, pay the same price for at least petrol and kerosene. And money has been channelled through it all these years to majorly offset haulage costs to different parts of the country. Unfortunately, the haulage cartel is as corrupt, mindless, and selfish as the fake fuel importers themselves. But for whatever reasons, their fraud and activities had been deliberately played down by both government and anti-subsidy campaigners.

Has the obnoxious payment of the “Bridging Cost”, also been scrapped by the federal government as part of the recently announced deregulation/subsidy removal and cost saving initiative?

Our Fulani And Herdsmen Of Mayhem

By Ifeanyi Izeze

How can we live peaceably together as a people by continuously telling ourselves lies? Abi, it has now become our lifestyle in this country to always rationalize obvious aberrations. For how long can we as a people afford to continue like this?

The increasing sophistication and clinical coordination of the group of mindless attackers we call "Fulani herdsmen" or "cattle rearers" that have meted chained terror to our people in different parts of the country is mind-boggling and embarrassing. To think that what is happening in the North-Central and now in virtually every other part of the country is a mere conflict for grazing rights would only amount to naivety at best, because it is now without a doubt that an evil wind is blowing and no section of the country is spared.

The question to ask is: why is it that these so-called “Fulani herdsmen” always take our security operatives off-guard? They always finish their dastardly acts before the arrival of our counter-terrorism security forces. Haba! And instead of sitting together to marshal out a coordinated approach to address this challenge, managers of our security apparatuses give us the impression that some of them may be privy to these conspiracies against our people.

How do you explain the recent incident in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State, where Fulani herdsmen, backed by mercenary fighters (as already confirmed), invaded several communities, killing more than 500 natives because they were cautioned to stop taking their cows into people’s farms?

Surprisingly, since the revelation that what we have been calling our cattle rearers were actually well-trained mercenaries in the act of causing mayhem, the government has not instituted any serious mechanism to unravel the real identity of these contract fighters.