As Mr. President cools off in London…

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Soon after President Bola Tinubu made a futile attempt to raise the hope of Nigerians in his Independence Day broadcast on October 1, 2024, he jetted out to London on a ‘two-week vacation’. A statement by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, indicated that it’s a working vacation and a retreat to reflect on his administration’s economic reforms. Really!

*Tinubu

Nigerians are used to governance by deceit. Not a few citizens doubted this story about vacationing to reflect on economic reforms. They wondered why the President should travel to London to do that simple task. Are the air conditioners in Aso Villa not cooling his brain well enough? Well, we have to believe because we have no choice. If you protest, security agents could arrest you and slam terrorism charges against you.

'Oil Curse’: Nigeria Has No viable Future As A Petrostate

 By Olu Fasan

The latest foreign trade data show that Nigeria recorded a trade balance of N6.52 trillion in the first quarter of this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. Expectedly, President Bola Tinubu seized on the figure as evidence that his economic reform is working. Given that the positive trade balance significantly reversed the negative balance of minus N1.4 trillion recorded in the fourth quarter of last year, one should cut Tinubu a slack. After all, a trade surplus, any trade surplus, is better than a trade deficit! 

However, dig deeper, there’s little to gloat about: for nothing has changed in the structure of Nigeria’s export trade. Crude oil exports, at N15.5 trillion, account for 80.8 per cent of the total exports. If you add other petroleum oil products, including natural gas, at N1.9 trillion or 9.92 per cent, oil and gas represent 91 per cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Thus, non-oil exports, at N1.8 trillion, account for a minuscule nine per cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Surely, then, Tinubu’s economic reform has done nothing to change the structure of Nigeria’s export trade, which remains almost totally dominated by crude oil and natural gas. 

Nigeria’s GDP ‘Growth’ Is Anaemic; It’s Nothing To Celebrate!

 By Olu Fasan

Trust Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s self-assured yet bumbling president. He will claw at any piece of seemingly good news. Recently, when the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, reported that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, grew to 3.19 per cent in the second quarter of this year, from 2.51 per cent at the same period last year, Tinubu was overly exultant.

*Tinubu

His newspaper, The Nation, screamed on its front page: “Tinubu hails GDP surge, assures of stronger economic performance.” Surely, describing the anaemic and shallow GDP growth rate as a “surge” shows how Tinubu grasps at straws, denying reality. Interestingly, while Tinubu gloated about the GDP figure, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s two-time Finance Minister and current Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, lamented Nigeria’s perennially sluggish GDP growth rate at this year’s annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA. So, who is right?

Judges Are The Biggest Bribe-Takers In Nigeria: Wow! What A Country!

 By Olu Fasan

IT is official! The judiciary is the most corrupt institution in Nigeria; judges are the biggest takers of bribes in this country. A few years ago, I wrote a piece titled “Lord, give Nigeria bold and incorruptible judges”, (Vanguard, April 25, 2019). When I said that Nigerian judges are fantastically corrupt, it seemed as if I was just making an assertion, as if I was just expressing an opinion as a columnist.

But now, we have an official confirmation. According to a recent survey conducted and published by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Nigeria’s public officials received N721billion cash bribes in 2023, and judges topped the list of the recipients.

Change Your Ways And Not The Anthem

By Dr Sota Omoigui  

When I wrote my words for the anthem, in 1978, it was my dream for the country to move forward and take its place among the great nations of the world.  But all that potential has been hijacked and degraded by a political leadership that constitutes a criminal enterprise. Many of our people now wonder if we were ready for independence.

The regressive reverting of our anthem to the colonial anthem is a betrayal of our independence. It is a symbol of a political leadership that is clueless and has so lost its way that it goes crawling on its hands and knees back to kiss the ring of its colonial master to adopt its anthem – music and lyrics.

Nigeria: What Goes Around Comes Aground

 By Banji Ojewale

The universal principle is that what goes around must come around. It’s not so in Nigeria. With us, when what goes around goes around, it does more than coming around. As it makes its return trip, it comes aground, grounding us, leveling us, merging us with the miry mud. That’s been our history, extinct and extant. We create institutions and leaders from this back-and-forth process to form an endless cycle of vulnerable links in governance that remind us of the late poet, Christopher Okigbo: AN OLD STAR departs, leaves us here on the shore, Gazing heavenward for a new star approaching; The new star appears, foreshadows its going Before a going and coming that goes on forever… (Path of Thunder).

*Buhari and Tinubu 

 It is a villainous star, a kind of abiku that gives short-lived joy to the home where it surfaces at birth. Our present is nothing but a horrid replay of our unpleasant encounters with the past. We sowed the wind yesterday; but today we’re reaping what’s greater than the wind. What goes around comes aground.

Addressing Failed Government Policies That Fuel Food Inflation

By Adefolarin A. Olamilekan

Food, food and food remain the most constant nutritional and vitamin value humans cannot do without. Our existence depends on it or else humanity will go into extinction. We cannot dare joke about the lack of food. Nobody has made food its enemy.

These are the reasons why serious nations make deliberate efforts toward not just having food security, but making it strategically abundant, available, and affordable for the people. In other words, there is greater attention to government policy direction that defines food, essentially, as the number one priority on the scale of preference. In this regard, the policy to make food available all year round and affordable is not toiled with no matter how the economic technical conundrum calls it inflation or food inflation.

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.

Nigeria’s New Jobs ‘Data’: NBS Makes Itself A Laughingstock!

 By Olu Fasan

The news came like a bolt from the blue. Nigeria’s jobless rate dropped from 33.3 per cent to 4.1 per cent in August, declared the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. It was a meteoric rise in employment that called for national celebration. Except that it was a lie, a total fabrication. Nothing changed in Nigeria’s depressing unemployment situation. The sharp ‘drop’ from 33.3 per cent to 4.1 per cent only came about because the NBS changed the methodology for measuring unemployment. It was a shameful statistical sleight of hand!

Every statistical body must crave public confidence in the data it produces, based on the cardinal rule that data must be ethically sound and stand up to scrutiny. But the NBS breached this rule with jobs data that are utterly misleading, suggesting that Nigeria’s jobless rate magically came tumbling down from 33.3 per cent to 4.1 per cent. But nothing magical happened. It was a human contrivance. The NBS said the methodology that produced the jobs data was “in line with international best practices”, saying it was “recommended” by the International Labour Organisation, ILO.

Gas Flaring Means Cash Burning

 By Ray Ekpu

Most literate Nigerians have heard or read about gas flaring but it may not mean much to them. Some of them may know that gas flaring is done in the oil producing states of the country but they may not know what it means to Nigeria or Nigerians who live in those areas.

Even though it is a very important subject in economic terms it is not a subject that most people talk or write about. But it is a subject that has featured in the lives of some Nigerians since oil was discovered in 1956 in Nigeria. That is because gas flaring brings a lot of misery to those who live where the gas is flared. We will come to this later.

Starving The Poor To Subsidize The Rich

 By Dan Onwukwe

The pay and perks of political office holders in the country are back on the spotlight. This time, more damning and sickening. It’s raising dark clouds as ever. Right now, the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, is behind the astonishing, wicked and mindless proposal. Behind the veil, lies a tangle web of conspiracy.

*Akpabio and Tinubu
It amounts to high level of insensitivity to the current economic crunch and the harrowing plight of poor Nigerians who are already pushed against the wall due to previous government’s flip-flop policies. If the pay raise proposed by RMAFC is not a conspiracy of sort between it and the rampaging political elite, nothing comes closer to the harsh truth.   

Feb 25: All Eyes On Peter Obi

 By Dan Onwukwe

You needed to have been at the Boundary market, Ajegunle, Lagos state, last weekend. There were tears of joy  when the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, went to campaign there. It was part of his open campaign in selected markets across the country. Remember he has always told us that he is trader.

*Peter Obi

It wasn’t the chant of his name, “Obi, Obi, Obi number One”… that touched the hearts of the enthusiastic crowd at the Ajegunle market. It was, indeed the crowd of excited women with their kids jostling like that woman with the issue of blood in the scriptures who desperately wanted to touch only the hem of the garment of Jesus Christ and be healed. (Matthew 9:20-21, KJV).  Obi obliged them, carrying one baby after the other. It’s the audacity of hope, amid despair.

When A Leader Is Demystified In Power

By Okey Ndiribe

A recent attack on President Muhammadu Buhari’s convoy in Kano is a clear sign of rejection by the youths of the ancient city. Coming shortly after a similar incident in his home state of Katsina, it sends a signal of regional resentment against a leader who enjoyed a massive personality cult-following at the beginning of his  tenure eight years ago. 

These seeming acts of rebellion on the part of a once docile populace -which gave him over 12 million votes during the 2015 presidential election-appear to be a direct response to the President’s recent self-award of a pass mark to his administration. Buhari’s remark which was made in Bauchi had elicited a huge controversy among Nigerians. One had thought that was the end of the matter.

Presidency: Why Nigerians Should Think Deeper Before Casting Their Votes

 By Emeka Alex Duru

Growing up, we were treated to a certain ghastly form of wrestling, referred to as cage fight, in which the competitors were herded into a chained ring and made to attack one another until a winner emerged. Watching the contest could be gory and not for the faint-hearted. Each wrestler was free to adopt any strategy, no matter how unconventional, to dismantle his opponent. It was usually catastrophic. Not even the eventual winner got out of the ring intact. Everyone lost in one way or another.

This summarizes the tortuous route the All Progressives Congress (APC) has taken Nigeria through in the last eight years as the ruling party. Like ardent con artists, chieftains of the party have driven the country down the slope in a manner of a car without brakes to the point of crashing it beyond repair.

Nigeria: Beyond The Anger In The Land!

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje 

No money, no food, no fuel, no electric power supply, no justice, no equity, yet all our politicians are concerned about now is how to grab and retain power through the forthcoming general elections! Nigerians now queue for fuel, queue for their own money and queue for PVC in our fatherland!

Worse still, the current currency redesign has drastically reduced the much-needed cash flow, putting millions of Nigerians in the pit of acute hunger and desperation. Did you watch the video of the lady who stripped herself half-naked inside a banking hall to express her outrage at their services, that went viral on social media? It is despicable. Imagine the sad situation that you cannot withdraw your own money, old or new currency from the bank or the ATM ”. He responded.

Buhari’s Best Not Good Enough

 By Charles Okoh

The most pathetic people to listen to on the situation in Nigeria are the ardent supporters and sympathisers of President Muhammadu Buhari. They unabashedly regularly stand truth on its head, all in the name of trying to rewrite history just to suit their principal.

*Buhari

Truth is that Buhari remains the worst President ever to occupy that office. They speak of construction of roads, railways and building other infrastructure, as though there has ever been a president who did not do all of that. Is there any president or military head of state that did not build roads and bridges or other infrastructure? Buhari’s eight years, by the time he leaves, thank God, on May 29, would be the greatest disservice any leader has visited on this nation.

133m ‘Multidimensionally’ Poor: Buhari’s ‘Gift’ To Nigeria In 2022

 By Olu Fasan

President Muhammadu Buhari has a victim mentality. He takes absolutely no responsibility for anything that goes wrong under his watch. Instead, he treats legitimate and fair criticisms of his leadership failure as harassment.

*Buhari 

More likely, he’ll see this piece on the shocking levels of multidimensional poverty in Nigeria, fostered under his government, as harassment. To mimic Shakespeare: He does protest too much, methinks!  Last week, in a documentary shown at a private event to mark his 80th birthday, President Buhari was asked whether he would miss anything about the presidency.

Another Look At Poverty In Nigeria

 By Adekunle Adekoya

When we talk of poverty, we think of it as the inability of a person, group of persons, or a social collective to meet basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica describes poverty as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs.”

Provision of basic needs — food, clothing, and shelter — has been the preoccupation of man ever since he began to form social collectives. Getting these things in sufficient quantities is a pillar of security in many societies where leaders are sensible, feel for, and empathise with the people they lead. In fact, it is the primary purpose of organised governance. In today’s Nigeria, it is obvious that basic needs are going out of the reach of the ordinary Nigerian with the passing of each day.

Taming The Monster Of Poverty

 By Adeze Ojukwu

The gory details of pain, anguish and hopelessness have become the calamitous lot of many Nigerians today. The cry of the masses is reverberating everywhere. From Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto and Zamfara to Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Lagos, Plateau and Edo states, the stories of suffering and sorrow are the same. Poverty is the new norm for the masses. 

Latest reports published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) are frightening and disconcerting. Here is the verdict: “About 133 million Nigerians, representing about 63 percent are poor.” This has again confirmed Nigeria’s status as the world’s poverty capital of the world, surpassing India, with a massive population of over 1.4 billion. 

Why Are More Nigerians Getting Poor?

 By Ray Ekpu

The descent by Nigerians into the poverty hole seems very rapid despite the country’s fabled wealth. In the 70s we were swimming in wealth. That was why the Yakubu Gowon government approved the windfall called Udoji awards. With the Udoji bonanza, workers were catapulted from being pedestrians to the adorable class of car owners in one swift jump.

The government spread its wings to the West Indies as a Father Christmas picking up the bills of civil servants in a couple of those countries. That was the time that the government felt that money was not a problem. What was a problem was how to spend it. And did we spend it? Yes, we did. That is how we had the rice and cement armada, which choked our ports and proved to be a curse rather than a cure for our existential problems.