Nigeria: Corruption And Politics Of ‘Winner Takes All’

 By Jerome-Mario Utomi

This piece primarily stemmed from a recent Nigeria-focused conversation with a Delta state born but Florida, United States of America (USA) based practicing Lawyer who studied in England, Finland, Sweden, and Norway among others. 

Aside from using the opportunity provided by the conversation to explain how today politics in Nigeria is not tailored to the development of the country, but to the individual players and their various interests, the Legal luminary highlighted the corruption challenge in the country with a sustainable strategy to arrest the monster. He deeply advanced approaches to sanitizing the nation’s political space in ways that will not only change the economic and public leadership narrative in the country but pave the way for well informed, self-contained and quietly influential Nigerians to participate in politics while bringing coordinated development in the country. 

Food Crisis And Nigeria’s Multi-Dimensional Poverty

 By Jerome-Mario Utomi

If there is any fresh fact that supports the claim by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in November 2022, that Multidimensional Poverty Index, MPI, is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, it is my experience during a short visit to Agbor, a community which, according to Wikipedia, is the most populous among the Ika people, located in, and functions as the headquarters of Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State, in South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria.

Among many other observations, the referenced report puts the MPI in rural areas at 72% and that of urban areas 42%, thereby confirming that a much higher proportion of people living in rural areas, compared to those living in urban areas, are multidimensionally poor. The report further noted that 63% (133 million people) – that is about six out of every 10 Nigerians– are multidimensionally poor, with 65% [86 million] and 35% [47 million] of the poor living in the North and South of Nigeria respectively. The implication is that location matters with respect to poverty and unemployment, the report concluded.

Federal Universities And Hike In Fees

 By Jerome-Mario Utomi

It is pedestrian information that while Nigerians were waiting for the commencement of governance, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the day of inauguration, precisely on Monday May 29, 2023, announced the removal of fuel subsidy without putting palliatives in place to assist ameliorate the harsh impact of such policy reversal. 

Also newsy is that before the dust raised by such a decision could settle, another was up, as the Federal Government again implemented a coordinated but thoughtless hike in fees paid by students of most of the tertiary institutions of higher learning in the country.  What is however different is that such harrowing decisions have left varying degrees of unpalatable impacts on Nigerians. 

Resource Curse And Niger Delta Unending Discourse

 By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Going by information at the public domain, a Warri Delta State-based newspaper, GbaramatuVoice, in furtherance of its Niger Delta Economic Discourse series, will on Tuesday, November 29, 2022 by 10am, at the BON Hotel, Warri, Delta state, hold a focused group discussion that centers on two separate but related typical and topical issues – the recently extended Presidential Amnesty Programme and the Federal Government proposed but abandoned modular refineries in the region.

The dialogue, which has as a theme, ‘Presidential Amnesty Programme and Modular Refineries: Towards sustainable human capital relations,’ will bring together, to deeply appraise the programmes and come up with useful recommendations, critical stakeholders comprising ex-agitators in the Niger Delta, policymakers from both state and federal levels, agencies and commissions, development professionals, media professionals, traditional rulers from the oil producing communities, representatives of different security agencies and apparatus in the country among others.

Why We Are Failing As A Nation

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Asked how he was able to grow 15 times, independent Singapore with a GDP of $3 billion in 1965 to $46 billion in 1997 and became the 8th highest per capita GNP in the world in 1997 according to the World Bank ranking? Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister of Singapore (as he then was) explained thus; a united and a determined group of leaders, backed by practical and hard-working people who trust them made it possible.

*President Buhari

The story of Singapore’s progress is a reflection of the advances of the industrial countries – their inventions, technology, enterprise, and drive. It is part of the story of man’s search for new fields to increase his wealth and well being, he concluded.

Cruelty And The Future Of Nigeria

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

When Niccolo Machiavelli first came up with the idea that cruelty could be rightly or wrongly employed in governing a country, he may have had Nigeria in mind. According to him, ‘cruelty is used well ‘(if it is permissible to talk in this way of what is evil) when it is employed once for all, and one’s safety depends on it, and then it is not persisted in but as far as possible turned to the good of one’s subjects.

*Buhari 

Again, cruelty badly used is that which, although infrequent to start with, as time goes, rather than disappearing, grows in intensity’’. Unfortunately, this is where we are today.

2019: The Risk Nigerians Must Take!

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Risk viewed conventionally is an observable reality that people sprint away from as it is both covertly and overtly considered an unpleasant situation. But contrary to this belief, Peter Drucker, a United States of America born management consultant in his book; Managing For Result, underscored the inescapable posture of risk-taking in human existence and essentially classified it into four categories; the risk one must accept, the risk one can afford to take, the risk one cannot afford to take, and the risk one cannot afford not to take.

Indeed a virulent reality, however, from the recent/unpleasant political and socioeconomic occurrences in the country, it has become a barefaced truth that for Nigeria to accelerate economic growth and make social progress, the people must use the 2019 general elections as a vehicle to  confront/correct the ‘inbuilt’ anomalies  debilitating our nationhood.

Nigeria: A Nation In Need Of Free Speech

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Merit, taken objectively, is ‘something earned, something owed to a person. Taken subjectively, merit is the right of a person to his earning and is of two types- condign and congruous merits. While condign merit deals with strict justice to a reward, congruous merit is not so much a right as a claim but rests upon what is suitable or fitting in a situation’.

With this words of Paul Glenn in mind, each time I am asked my opinion on the nation’s media industry in relation to free speech/freedom of expression, I usually pause to honestly look at its virtues and attributes both objectively and subjectively, and in all, one thing often stands out; the Nigerian media industry in the writer’s views neither merits nor deserves the inequitable treatments so far mated to it by the successive administrations.