Nigeria: VP Yemi Osinbajo Still Didn’t Get It!

By Afam Nkemdiche

The federal government’s economic team, led by the National Economic Council (NEC), has once again received a hard knock for its poor understanding of how to grow a national economy.

Bill Gates; yes, Bill Gates of the Microsoft fame, who came calling a couple of days previously, was reported to have told a special session of the NEC that Nigeria’s ongoing Economic Recovery And Growth Plan (ERGP) is broadly flawed.

*VP Osinbajo

He said for the ERGP to be effective, it must reflect the people’s needs, and it should give priority to human capital development over physical capital, contrary to the present composition of the ERGP. 

He then advised the federal government to review the ERGP – I should interpret that to mean reconstitute the NEC.

T.Y. Danjuma: The Hypocrisy Of A Chief Mourner

By Jude Ndukwe

When on Saturday, March 24, 2018, Gen T.Y. Danjuma sent out a shrill cry to Nigerians using the exalted pedestal of the Taraba State University’s first convocation ceremony as a medium to send out his message, one could see nothing but desperation, frustration and hopelessness all over him as a result of the incessant killings of Nigerians of diverse nationalities by the marauding Fulani herdsmen terrorists. 

*Gen Danjuma 

Such emotions are expected of a man whose kith and kin are directly in the line of fire.

There is no doubt that Danjuma’s call for Nigerians to rise and defend themselves in the face of the immutable failure of security agencies to come to their rescue is germane, it is however too late, too little and too feeble. This is in addition to the fact that Danjuma has since lost his exalted place in the scheme of morality before the ordinary Nigerian.

Dapchi Abduction, Height Of Inglorious, Pathological Deceit And Hoax

Press Release

“The latest drama of the Dapchi school girls release is the height of serial and inglorious, pathological deceit and hoax. In their bid to make unfounded and unthinkable comparisons (with the regime of Gooduck Jonathan) President Buhari and his hegemonic Fulani cabal become antithetic as they are contradictory.

“Apparently, in a hurried orchestra to display their high dexterity of quick response to the manipulated abduction (as against the snail speed approach of the then Jonathan’s regime) the ‘good plan’ was marred by poor execution. Over one hundred girls appearing in new and neat dresses with their big bags of different makes.

“The thought-provoking questions are: Did all the girls dress for a religious or social outing shortly before their abduction? Were they allowed to bring their new clothes on abduction or were they taken to a boutique for their fine ‘uniforms’ before they were brought back?

Nigerian Youths Must Fight For Real Change

By Dan Amor

I am first and foremost a Nigerian child. Then I am a depressed Nigerian youth. Depression obviously has its several roots: it is the doubtful protection which comes from not recognizing failure. It is the psychic burden of exhaustion, and also and very often, that discipline of the will or the ego which enables one to continue fighting, continue working, when one’s unadmitted emotion is in panic. 

And panic, it is, I think, which sits as the largest single sentiment in the heart of the collective members of my own generation. Today, I find myself in an overwhelmingly urban society, a distinctly urban creature. Thus, I am adequately informed of current developments in my country. I am anxious, angry, humorless, suspicious of my own society, apprehensive with relation to the future of my own country. Quixotic, yet optimistic, I am on the prowl for the immediate and remote causes of our national predicament. My nostrils fairly quiver for the stench of some injustice I can sally forth to condemn. Devoid of any feeling for the real delineation of function and responsibility, I find all the ills of my country, real or fancied, pressing on my conscience. Not lacking in courage, I am prepared, in fact, to charge any number of windmills.

Of Hate Speeches, The Nigerian Senate And The Death Penalty Bill

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo

Recently, the Nigerian Senate entertained a bill on “hate speech”, the high-point of which is the recommendation of death sentence to any person found guilty of hate speech. I am utterly disappointed that the Senate could at this point in our history be considering such bill even in the face of mounting challenges confronting the country. This is a typical case of treating the symptoms of an illness rather than the root cause of the illness.

*Dr. Arthur Nwankwo 

I am disappointed that life in Nigeria today has become so cheap; that while we are daily assailed by the atrocities of Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and other merchants of death, that while other countries are removing capital punishments from their statute books; an institution such as the Nigerian Senate is considering a bill to constitutionalize capital punishment. This is a tragedy of gargantuan proportion and it does consolidate the impression among many that Nigeria is irredeemable. 

The Dapchi ‘Abduction’ Scam: Where Is Leah Sharibu?

By Femi Fani-Kayode

I am happy that the abducted Dapchi schools girls are all back home but I am deeply troubled by the fact that one of them was left behind and by the assertion that five of them died whilst in captivity. The day the truth comes out about what really happened to the Chibok and Dapchi girls and those that were behind these two scams, Nigerians will be shocked and they will spit on the graves of Buhari and his collaborators.

Meanwhile I saw the pictures and watched the video of Dapchi residents cheering on and waving at Boko Haram insurgents as they dropped off the "missing" girls. It was clear to me that they regarded the terrorists as heroes and I was compelled to ask myself the following question, "Are we really one country?"

Dapchi Girls: Of Sham Release And Cynical Citizenry

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Between February 19, 2018 when the Dapchi schoolgirls were abducted by supposed Boko Haram insurgents and Wednesday, March 21, 2018, when the news broke that 101 of them had been released, I had offered perspectives on the incident in two articles. The first was titled: “Chibok and Dapchi girls: The whoredom of Karma” while the second was titled: “Gbomogbomo as metaphor.”

The second article, in particular, provides the take-off point for the current intervention. Therein, I had expressed a concern at the role abductions of schoolgirls play in our presidential politics.  My thesis was that our abducted schoolgirls in the northeast zone have become objects of political bargain in the hands of our modern day real or prearranged gbomogbomo, a Yoruba word transliterated as stealer of children.

President Buhari, Before You Seek Reelection

By Matthew Ozah

I write not to dissuade you from running in 2019 elections just like two notable statesmen in the country and others did the other day.

Nevertheless, you have done well to ask the messengers of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ intention to give you some time to think about a second term.

*President Buhari 

As you may know, many Nigerians were charmed to ride that gravy train with you because of your pedigree, captivating campaign promise to fight corruption and other miracles that you pledged to perform during your election campaign in 2014/2015.

The recent corruption rating of the country by Transparency International (TI) triggered this letter. From the foregoing, it seems obvious that corruption has taken an armchair in your administration.

Fighting Corruption: Time For Nigeria To Take The Gloves Off

By Chris Douglas

Nigeria is making significant inroads into the fight against corruption. Charges are being brought against people in Nigeria for corruption and fraud allowing significant amounts of cash to be recovered. And the country has achieved some success in recovering the proceeds of corruption laundered offshore, notably the return of US$700 million by Switzerland.

President Buhari 

But not every country is cooperating. As an Australian Federal Police officer, I have experienced the frustration of attempting to recover the proceeds of crime earned in Australia and laundered overseas. Recovering the proceeds of crime in other countries involves a minefield of legal, logistical and financial issues. However, the chances of success can be increased by undertaking a thorough criminal investigation in country, having local money laundering laws that are robust and which have extra territorial reach, and by the appropriate use of informal and formal asset recovery arrangements.

Dapchi Abduction: Scam Of No Equal Dimension, War Crime Against Humanity – PDP

Text of Press Conference of the Peoples Democratic Party, on the Return of the Abducted Dapchi School Girls Presented by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, Today, March 21, 2018. 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) condemns the All Progressives Congress (APC) and certain officials in the Presidency for staging the abduction of the schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State, for political purposes.

Our Party considers this act as wicked, callous and tormenting to use innocent schoolgirls as pawns in an ignoble script that was designed to hoodwink Nigerians and orchestrate a great rescue and security prowess of a conquering general, all to push a 2019 reelection bid, is an unpardonable gamble with human lives.

Nigeria: Vice President Osinbajo’s Bluster And Burden Of Proof

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Nations like individuals who have recorded giant strides in most spheres of life sometimes look backward. It is not to escape from the challenges of the present. Rather, they appropriate vital lessons in such moments to turn their travails into opportunities for a stellar lot in life. In that case, they appreciate the place of history in their current march to progress. But we are trapped in a tragic situation when we think that such moments only serve as opportunities to gloatingly point to others the glitch in the wheel of a people’s quest for development. Thus, we do not deny the necessity for the past to pay for its misdeeds. 

Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo

In this regard, the current government headed by President Muhammadu Buhari is free to hold its predecessor to account. But the danger the current government has not successfully negotiated is that of going to a ridiculous extent. Deluded by the notion that the past is complicit in its denial of a star rating, the Buhari government could unabashedly blame the Jonathan government for disrupting the president’s domestic felicity by inducing his wife to rail at his failings in private and public. 

Nigeria: Who Says Army Cannot Takeover?

By Ike Abonyi

"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia"— George Orwell 

In the title of this piece is the harmful question asked by the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu that set the polity and military authorities talking? It is one contribution to a debate last week at the nation's parliament - the Senate, that ignited a tense conversation in the polity. The topic was on the incessant human rights abuses especially on the Senators by their obsessional state governors.

Ekweremadu was reacting particularly to a report from a Kogi state Senator Ahmed Ogembe to the effect that his youthful controversial state Governor, Yahaya Bello, has been sending political thugs after him and threatening to chase him out of his constituency.

Nigeria: How Not To Govern Lagos

By Abraham Ogbodo

Lagos State is very peculiar. In terms of landmass, it is the smallest state in Nigeria, measuring just about 3,345 square kilometers, which is about the size of a local government in Niger State with a landmass of 76,363 square km. But that is where the smallness of Lagos State ends. In every other index of measurement, the state is a towering giant.

It is the most populous, claiming to accommodate 25 million human beings or about 16 percent of Nigeria’s estimated population of 150 million. 

 Estimates also say that about one third of industries in Nigeria are in Lagos.

Herdsmen Attacks: A National Security Failure

By Abiodun Ladepo

As the National Security Adviser, you have to be grossly incompetent to not know how the Fulani herdsmen (yes, they are herdsmen and they are Fulani) conduct their raids. If you knew and just refused to do something about it, anything that would stop these mindless, gory massacres of unarmed innocent Nigerians, then you are just asinine or unpatriotic or both. And if you have laid everything out for your boss, in this case, the President, and he does not have the political cojones to do what he is required by law to do – that is, the protection of the lives and properties of Nigerians, the President has failed.

It must amaze and confound anybody with a scintilla of security awareness – how much more, national security awareness – that there are people roaming around the entire country with illegal weapons, even if they are not killing people with it. No serious security-conscious person, how much more, one with statutory responsibility and obligation to prevent such acquisition in the first place; and the confiscation of such weapons and prosecution of culprits, will sleep well at night knowing that the country is awash with such weapons. But what is even more galling is that the culprits are killing people in dozens, almost daily, and everybody who is getting paid to act is wringing their hands and praying to God to help them. Come on! 

Land Use Charge: Lagos Police Warns Intending Protesters

Press Release

The attention of Lagos State Police Command has been drawn to the news making the rounds that a  group of persons under the sponsorship of  some mischief makers, and who are   masquerading as civil rights activists, intends to block the Third Mainland Bridge and  occupy some critical public infrastructures in Lagos to protest the increase in the Land Use Charge by the government of Lagos state.

Mr. President, You Dine With Corruption – Open Letter To President Buhari

By Chima Amadi

Your Excellency,

Naturally, conventional wisdom and etiquette will require that I start by expressing my happiness for the safe return of your son, Yusuf, from his medical sojourn. However, I am constrained to hold my horses in that regard for like everything now surrounding you there is no clarity as to the status of that journey. First, patriotic tales of how you have placed the young man’s fate in the hands of Nigeria’s quirky medical expertise and facility regaled us, then later, an announcement of a successful surgery and discharge was made to the delight of a relieved nation. Sir, you can pardon my reticence in not going the courteous route when all that drivel from your handlers is just that; yet, another mishandled spin. Yusuf had been in Germany all along. Given this deception, I beg your indulgence to skip niceties and to proceed right to the crux of this open letter.

*President Buhari 

Why an open letter to you? As I read the drab defence of your government’s anti-corruption credentials by your Media Team in reaction to Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perception Index(CPI) which scored Nigeria poorly, I was left to wonder if that was the quality of advice you were getting. Admittedly, against the backdrop of efforts by the EFCC to ratchet up the public show of force against corruption, you have every reason to wonder why the rankings would suggest that Nigeria’s corruption perception has regressed under your watch. While your angst would not be misplaced, it was the duty of your trusted aides to tell you the truth about the situation and why we would continue to be perceived as one of the most corrupt places on earth irrespective of the uncoordinated, incoherent and tactless efforts of the nation’s leading anti-corruption agency. 

2019 Election Sequence: Overriding President Buhari’s Veto

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

By writing to both chambers of the National Assembly to express his reservations about the Electoral Act 2010 Amendment Bill, President Muhammadu Buhari has  withheld his assent and cast doubt on the rationality of the lawmakers to review or amend the contentious provisions of the Act. What this means, in legislative parlance, is that the president has vetoed the bill. Consequently, the National Assembly is now in a position to override the veto  by two-thirds of its members at separate sittings.

*President Buhari and Senate President Saraki

There is no doubt that the nation is about to witness another executive-legislature face-off in constitution reviews, amendments of Acts of Parliament and lawmaking process where the executive arm of government feels its interest is threatened by the spirit and the letter of the proposed laws or amendments. To be sure, the National Assembly has performed its constitutional function in the circumstance to the dissatisfaction of the incumbent head of the executive arm.

President Buhari, It’s Time To Go!

By Emmanuel Ogundele

For those who have watched the direction of President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration for well over two years now, there is no doubting the fact that we have made a wrong choice. Not that there was anything to choose from between a weakling called Goodluck Jonathan who allowed free stealing to go on in his government unabated and, at that time, a serial loser at presidential elections since 1999 called Muhammadu Buhari.

*President Buhari

However, little did we know then that it was a choice between a present disaster and a would-be tragic figure. The facts don’t come out in good time and so people were quick to paint a future devil in a Saint’s colour. While the drive to choose anybody but Jonathan among the political elite which eventually percolated down to the people, was so pressing at that time, it was not a well-thought out choice. For while Nigerians act as if they operate a two-party system, we actually run a multi-party democracy. 

Buhari, Our President In The Clouds

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Bristling with rage at the unceasing carnage and fecklessness that have bogged down the nation since the emergence of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as the president, Prof. Wole Soyinka recently warned us against the fate of a people whose affairs are presided over by a leader in a trance. But not a few of those who are befuddled by their devotion to Buhari sniggered at Soyinka’s position as another instance of the dramatist over-dramatising the perceived failings of his president. 

*President Buhari 

But those who did not share Soyinka’s prescience and thus did not appreciate the horrendous developments that validated his position can no longer ignore what has happened since that grim verdict.

Indeed, we have all been confronted with subsequent stark developments that have been triggered by the administration of Buhari which show that Soyinka’s position remains unimpeachable.

Customer Eligibility: Business Opportunities In The Nigerian Power Sector

By Idowu Oyebanjo

The eligible customer criteria declared by the Minister of Power is a clear business opportunity. Generally speaking, it means qualified customers can get electricity directly from GenCos and other Suppliers. This brings a number of opportunities for investors and fund managers as enumerated below.

Opportunity for Independent Electricity Distribution Network Owners – IEDNOs.

A person or group of individuals can invest in a dedicated electricity network and supply power to housing estates, manufacturers, and heavy electricity consumers throughout Nigeria. This will be according to the Independent Electricity Distribution Network [IEDN] regulations set by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).