Naira Redesign, Queues And Quest For A New Nigeria

 By Elvis Eromosele

The amount of queueing Nigerians have been subjected to in the last couple of weeks is unprecedented. It is equally unbecoming. It’s almost like the country had gone back four decades.

Fights have broken out in queues at bank facilities, filling stations and INEC and LGAs offices across the country. There are trending videos of people stripping naked in protest inside banking halls, others hitting each other with queue dividers and one person has been confirmed dead inside a banking hall, somewhere in Asaba. Nigerians born in the 2000s, GenZs, should be forgiven for thinking the end of the world is here.

President Buhari’s Race To Develop The North

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

With the seemingly irreversible flight of a pan-Nigerian vision from the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, he continues to flail about in a bid to give the impression to the less discerning among us that he is committed to the unity of the nation. He emotes about the censure of hate speech that threatens the oneness of the country that was cobbled together by some foreign invaders and that has remained so for over a century. He fumes at the citizens’ obliviousness of not only his visions but projects that have overwhelmed the landscape, all aimed at improving their lot that has been negated by years of neglect and misrule of past state helmsmen.

*President Buhari 

Yet, what the citizens see beyond this veneer of Buhari’s self-confessed love for his country is the urgent need for him to preserve the nation not by being obsessed with the hunt for some elusive enemies of their collective wellbeing who spew hate. Rather, he must consider himself as the enemy of the nation whose actions have worsened the fissures which his utterances have inflicted.

In the past two years since Buhari emerged as the nation’s president, he has translated into reality his apocalyptic prediction conveyed in the mathematical absurdity of consigning those who gave him five per cent of his votes to immiseration while sparing those who gave him 97 per cent. This bifurcation of the citizenry for the purpose of punishing some and rewarding others has clearly stoked mutual suspicion. 

The Kachikwu-Baru Story: Memo To President Buhari

By Mfom Bassey-Wellington 

The August 31, 2017 letter from the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, complaining of the insubordination of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru, began to generate ripples less than 24 hours after it was made available to the media. The Senate, for example, the next day resolved to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate grave allegations against the NNPC chief executive.

The decision followed a motion by Senator Samuel Anyanwu asking for a probe into the enormous and constant jobs given to Duke Energy, a motion which Senator Kabiru Marafa successfully prayed the Senate to include an investigation into the charge that Dr Baru has awarded $25 billion contracts without due process.

Dr. Ibe Kachikwu and President Buhari 

In the letter to President Buhari, Kachikwu, who is also the chairman of the NNPC Board of Directors, revealed that the NNPC GMD has since his appointment sidelined him in the affairs of the organisation. He cited the example of recent appointments as part of the NNPC reorganisation done without his knowledge, as he read about the changes only in the media, like any other person. The irony is that the appointments were made shortly after the corporation’s board held a meeting which, presumably, Baru attended. In other words, he did not deem it fit to intimate the board of the impending development.    

$25 NNPC Scandal: Money For Buhari's Reelection – PDP

Press Release

NNPC’s 25billion Dollars Scandal And The Hypocrisy Of Buhari’s Anti-Corruption War

*President Buhari 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) wishes to express our shock at the loud silence of President Muhammadu Buhari on the humongous corruption scandal and other illegalities currently being exposed at the nation’s cash cow, the NNPC in which two of his henchmen, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu and the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru are the dramatis personae.

1. As a political party, we expect that the President, who prides himself as an indefatigable corruption fighter, would for once try to live above board, by genuinely allowing one of his own, accused of corruption, get properly investigated and prosecuted as a show of his impartiality in the war against corruption.

2. He should do this to correct the open impression Nigerians have about his so called anti-corruption war; that it’s just a tool of persecution of perceived enemies.

 3. We view the allegations levelled against Baru by Kachikwu as too grave to be swept under the carpet and we insist that the NNPC GMD must be treated like an accused who should not have the opportunity to influence investigation into his alleged misdeeds.

Buhari, Kachikwu And NNPC

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

No matter how much we strain to sustain the illusion that the President Muhammadu Buhari government is on the right track, we are often jarred into reality by his regular missteps and seemingly intentional negation of the common good. Buhari’s platitudes about patriotism and the indivisibility of the country notwithstanding, we are confronted with a situation where it is clear that he ignores the exploration of the opportunities that have frequently come his way to blur the fissiparous tendencies in different parts of the country.

*President Buhari and Dr. Kachikwu

We have seen this in his refusal to heed the calls for the restructuring of the country as a means of quelling agitations for equity that clearly threaten the unity of the country. Rather, Buhari has a penchant for regarding those criticising him for taking wrong decisions as courting government’s attention in order to be settled – a euphemism for bribery. But by making this argument, the government is rather indicting itself. For the government is only saying that public service in the Buhari era is still fabulously lucrative; a means of self-enrichment as it has not been made less financially attractive. If it had done this and public office had been rightly turned into just a means of serving the people with its attendant sacrifice, it would not have considered government officials as privileged Nigerians who other citizens are striving to join or replace.

Nigeria: A Snake Without Head

By Ndubuisi Ukah

Most of the time, one cannot but wonder if something is uniquely wrong with Nigeria’s destiny, considering that any forward step she takes is immediately followed by a thousand ones backward. We are one of the few countries whose leaders unashamedly and openly display their complete lack of trust in their system and in the country that they purport to lead; we are one of the few countries in the world whose healthcare infrastructure is fitting only for their unlucky, impoverished and forgotten citizens, and not their ruling class.

When would folks ruling us realise that the healthcare systems they admire and run to each time they are ill are made possible by fellow humans in positions of public trust, just like them? When would our clueless and hypocritical ruling class realise that Nigeria is blessed with top talents capable of replicating same medical feats available in these foreign lands that they constantly run to? When would the ruling class come to its senses, think right and do right? Are these folks so clueless as to not know that some of the top talents in these foreign lands – doctors, PhD-level scientists and engineers – are Nigerian-born and Nigerian-educated? As such, the problem is not the ruled, but the rulers.

The doctors in these foreign hospitals do not have higher IQs than most of the doctors in Nigeria; the doctors in the U.K for example, are able to provide better care and cure more diseases simply because they have access to more advanced medical facilities at their hospitals. Period.

We are probably the only country on earth, whose number one public figure could just leave the citizens guessing and wondering, even in the midst of what I consider the worst economic recession of the country’s life time. Our currency has plummeted by more than 150 percent in the last sixteen months with no halt in sight and with no coherent explanations from people in-charge.

Those Spoiling Nigeria

By Sunny Ikhioya
The foundation of any nation state is based sorely on unity, you cannot attain unity without peace and justice. And, you cannot attain peace and justice without love and honesty. To enable us understand this further, let us look at our national anthem that we all stand up everyday to honour.

 Those who composed our national anthem had this in mind when they wrote in the last verse of the first stanza thus: “One nation bound in freedom, Peace and Unity”. Have we really considered the weight of this verse as we recite when the opportunity presents itself? Have our leaders really tried to govern this country in an atmosphere of fundamental rights, as enshrined in the United Nations charter on freedom?

Has it not been a situation of the strong always oppressing the weak ? Have the minority rights ever been upheld to the letter as enunciated in our Constitution? One good thing that is happening in this country is the discovery of crude oil in places outside the Niger Delta, like in Lagos and a few in the north as being touted in certain circles. Will these oil producing areas be treated the same way the Niger Delta region has been treated, with disdain and neglect? My answer is no.

Already, the rumour mill is rife with stories about relief and compensation given to areas affected by the oil drilling activities in the north, especially to  Emirs. The NNPC is in position to clarify details on this but surely they will not get the Niger Delta treatment. I do not know if our leaders take time to read and digest the national anthem, the second stanza, verses five and six which speaks of  building a nation  “ In love and honesty to grow, And living just and true”. Have we related to ourselves in love and honesty? Where the Jigawa man is saying that the oil in Bayelsa belongs to Jigawa?

 Why have the Niger Delta people been completely deprived of the control of their natural resources? The Petroleum Industry bill, PIB, designed to take care of the interest of all, has been kept in the cooler by the majority ethnic groups in the National Assembly for almost eight years now. Where is the justice in that? The last verse of our national anthem says; “To build a nation where peace and justice shall reign”.  It is indisputable that, in a nation where peace and justice reigns, progress is guaranteed. The composers of our anthem noted this fact and all of our past and present leadership have accepted it as such. It therefore follows that all the past leaders,  including the present leader ship have failed to govern with justice, honesty, fairness and equity.

Fix the Fuel Supply Problem; Don’t Dump It On Nigerians

By Moses E. Ochonu

Now that one has had time to digest the announcement of a massive increase in petrol price, one should enter a few comments. The astronomical hike has nothing to do with the “cost of production” argument we have become accustomed to hearing. There is some cost involved in refining crude oil abroad and transporting it to Nigeria, but with crude being so cheap, the previous price of 86 naira a litre had already accounted for all the cost, give or take a few naira.

With the price of crude inching up slightly in the last few weeks, it should add no more than a few nairas to the price if indeed we want to let market fluctuations modulate the pump price. This increase has everything to do with government’s last ditch effort to end the scarcity, which is caused by the inability of fuel importers to secure foreign exchange, a problem that was in turn caused by the government’s rigid restrictions on access to foreign exchange.

It was unrealistic to expect fuel importers without access to Forex at the official rate to continue to import fuel with Forex sourced from the parallel market ($1=N320) and then sell the same fuel at N86. They would have lost money. The Forex policy was a disincentive to fuel importation business and many importers simply stopped importing, especially since the government announced that it would no longer pay subsidy; subsidy being the difference between the total cost of importing fuel plus a small profit margin and the pump price. Now, with the deregulated regime, fuel importers can source Forex from the parallel market, import fuel, and sell at a price that would allow them to recoup their cost and make a small margin.

In other words, the government wittingly or unwittingly created a problem, which caused many fuel importers to quit the business, and the same government is now deregulating the sector fully so that it does not have to (1) pay subsidy, and (2) subsidise Forex for fuel importers. The government also desperately wants to end the fuel scarcity, which has eroded its political goodwill. In plain language, the government wants to kill three birds with one stone.

Another appropriate proverbial metaphor is that the government wants to eat its cake and have it too. It wants to subsidise neither Forex nor the difference between the cost of fuel importation and the pump price, but at the same time it wants fuel to become widely available. The government wants to transfer the burden of solving a fuel scarcity problem caused by its Forex restriction policy to Nigerians. The government is throwing Nigerians to the jaws of fuel marketers in the hope that, as long as fuel becomes widely available through improved supply, Nigerians will forgive the insensitivity of the policy, especially since this will also mean the end of the fraudulent subsidy regime that Nigerians universally despise.

Fuel Scarcity And A Culture Of Scapegoat

By Ikeogu Oke   

Reading some of the public commentaries – and other forms of reactions –   on the current fuel crisis and associated issues, I was reminded of why I opposed the controversial call to kill the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) made last year by a prominent Nigerian politician. The politician reportedly summed up his justification for the call with the words: “If you don’t kill the NNPC, it will kill Nigeria.” Clearly, those words should incline all patriotic Nigerians to see the country’s survival and theirs as dependent on their killing NNPC at a time when, due to various factors, its popularity was arguably at its nadir.

Prominent among those factors were allegations of massive corruption and chronic mismanagement. And since we would naturally like to survive together with our country and be rid of things that pose a fatal threat to our joint existence (as the call implies about NNPC), I believe the politician in question expected us to accept the kill-or-be-killed scenario he created and act like people who understand that self-preservation is the first law of nature. An instance of the instigation or blackmail to kill for supposed self-preservation couldn’t have been more subtle or effective to the discerning mind.

Now, one of such public commentaries is Moses E. Ochonu’s “Dr. Kachikwu’s Blunders” – published recently in Sahara Reporters and Premium Times – which more or less sums up the predicament of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources in managing the current fuel scarcity in the country thus: “Whatever he is doing is not working… The man thrives on deception and propaganda…. He deserves whatever opprobrium is heaped on him.” Let me say en passant that this sort of criticism is too harsh and demoralising. The function of the responsible social critic is to build hope while identifying problems, and not to demoralise. Ochonu’s criticism demoralises by its unjustified total condemnation of its target and his efforts, and by spreading despair.

And by other forms of reactions, I refer to such call made by the leaders of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on the Network News of the Africa Independent Television (AIT) on April 11, 2016, asking for the minister’s resignation.

Buhari, Tinubu And Anti-Kachikwu Hysteria

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

Having crashed from the dizzy heights of the grand dreams of prosperity and equity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government led by President Muhammadu Buhari, the citizens who are desperately in search of succour are faced with the danger of snatching whatever promises to ameliorate their plight. What is amply being demonstrated now is that the citizens’ straitened circumstances could blur their capacity to make a distinction between those who really love them and are genuinely committed to their well-being and those who would gleefully turn their blighted condition into a populist stunt to leverage their social and political capital.

*Tinubu and President Buhari

The citizens who have been left in the lurch by the APC government after winning the presidential election may agree with Bola Tinubu that what Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachikwu owes Nigerians is a public apology and not smugly applauding himself from an Olympian height for how much he has deployed his ingenuity  to supply the citizens fuel amid highly discouraging odds.  Yet, the citizens must take cognisance of the need to avoid being corralled into a turf war that is not actually designed to benefit them. We do not need to probe how much love of the people Tinubu demonstrated while he was the governor of Lagos State. What we observe now from his position as a leader of the ruling party is enough for us. He was instrumental to the emergence of Buhari as president. It was apparently to avoid indicting himself that Tinubu would not like to blame Buhari for the failure of his government. For Tinubu cannot really say that he found in Buhari administrative genius that compelled him to recommend him to Nigerians as the best presidential material last year. In this regard, we are reminded of the attempts by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to divorce himself from the crises sired by the inability of  his successor Musa Yar’ Adua to govern effectively after being hobbled by an illness that he never recovered from.

To be sure, the nation’s fuel crisis is aggravated by the erratic supply of electricity. This is a sector managed by Babatunde  Fashola whom Tinubu imposed on Lagos State residents for eight years.  On account of Tinubu’s newfangled love for the well-being of the citizens, he should have  issued a statement bristling with rage at  Fashola’s abandonment of   his responsibility of providing the citizens improved electricity. Or does Tinubu not consider it revoltingly illogical for  Fashola to compel the citizens to pay more for electricity they are not provided? Which should come first, the provision of meters for the citizens or their paying more for electricity? Would the citizens not readily pay their bills if they were metered and they were convinced that they were paying for what they consumed?

President Buhari, You Are Still The Petroleum Minister

By Ogundana Michael Rotimi

Dear President Buhari,

I am addressing you not as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, a post to which you appointed yourself on the November 11, 2015.

*President Buhari 

You seem to have forgotten that you are the Minister of Petroleum Resources and may have completely relinquished your responsibilities to the Minister of State of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu.

You seem to have neglected the fact that you are directly answerable to Nigerians as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, and owe it to Nigerians to make the product readily available and affordable.

As a reminder of what you already know - fuel scarcity has fully gripped major cities in the country and is contributing negatively to an economy that is still struggling to pick its stand.

Pathetic as it may be, your Ministry has failed Nigerians over its inability to end the lingering fuel shortage, as this unabated scarcity of the product has contributed to the high cost of goods and services.

The Honourable Minister of Petroleum Sir, you are on your way to set the record for the longest reign of fuel scarcity in the history of the Republic under your watch. Since you have been sworn in, it has been from one scarcity to another.

Although, one cannot belittle or underestimate the efforts of the junior Minister of Petroleum Resources who also happens to be the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, in revamping the sector. But Sir, your unnecessary and unwarranted silence and carefree attitude before every short statement is issued on the lingering scarcity is worrisome. It suggests that you may have forgotten or may have become unconscious of the fact that you head the Ministry that is currently failing to make available and affordable the product that is key to the economy and the everyday activities of the people.