Naira Redesign, Queues And The Quest For A New Nigeria

 By Elvis Eromosele

The amount of queuing 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 LGA 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. On a typical day, a person will queue to collect new currency notes at the bank, rush to queue at the filling station to buy supposedly subsidised petrol at exorbitant prices and then drive to the closest INEC office to queue for permanent voter cards, PVCs. This is not sustainable.

The Beauty Of The 2023 General Elections

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

The 2023 general election, which is around the corner, is the easiest for Nigerians to vote and vote rightly. The anger and hardship in the land should be visited at the poll. People should be angry enough to say enough is enough and translate it by voting only those who are capable and prepared to bring relief to the people. This election is a matter of life and death for a country. It is either that Nigeria gets it right or this might be the last chance.

Luckily, choosing the right presidential candidate would not present any difficulty. The choice is very glaring among the contestants. It has never been like this since 1999, when the present democratic dispensation birthed. This is the beauty of the 2023 elections. In the previous elections, there were many capable contestants, which made it difficult for the electorate to select. The situation is different this time around.

El-Rufai Did Not Say Anything New

By Charles Okoh

It is completely heart-rending and morally incomprehensible the level some Nigerians can go to excuse President Muhammadu Buhari for the wreck that his administration has made of Nigeria and Nigerians. His spin doctors would blame anything and everything under the sun for his sloppy performance in office, except the culprits himself. Buhari’s failure is self-inflicted and he should completely take responsibility for the failure of his government.

*Buhari and el-Rufai 

Today, everybody is in one queue or the other. The perennial fuel scarcity has remained with the country for virtually all of the President’s seven-and-half years’ tenure, so far, and everybody and association or union, is blamed for the failure of the petroleum sector, except the substantive minister of petroleum, who happens to be President Buhari.

Fuel Scarcity And Bad Leadership

 By Dele Sobowale 

 “As a people normally gets the government it deserves, so a society normally receives the punishment it asks for.’’ Robert Ardrey in Social Contract 

Anarchy reigns in the Nigerian fuel sector today. Nigerians were warned in 2018 when President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo launched their re-election campaign on the dubious platform of Next Level. 

Like most shallow thinkers, the All Progressives Congress, APC, politicians easily forgot that if you are in an elevator, going down on the tenth floor, the next level is the ninth floor. 

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.

Presidential leadership In A Nigeria Without Oil

 By Stanley Ekpa

When the International Monetary Fund, IMF, categorises resource-rich countries, it classifies the countries according to their export baskets. At least 20 African countries, including Nigeria, Angola, Ghana, and Tanzania, are classified as resource-rich, with their export bases comprising a bulk of unprocessed crude oil, minerals and agricultural commodities.

The classification of countries in other continents, such as Japan, Malaysia, and Indonesia, is based on the diversity of their export bases and value-added products. Since 1973, the year of the first oil boom, crude oil has constituted more than 90% of Nigeria’s export earnings, making Nigeria a global classic case of a monocultural economy. Though a monocultural economy has the advantage of product specialisation, it runs contrary to the spirit of Section 16 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) in building a balanced and resilient economy.

I See ‘Mcphilips Arts And Educational Foundation’ Achieving Global Recognition – Mrs. Nwachukwu

Mrs. Tyna Mcphilips Nwachukwu is the Director General of the Mcphilips Arts and Educational Foundation which was launched in Lagos in May 2022. In this interview with Nigerian journalist and writer, UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE, Mrs. Nwachukwu speaks on the vision and objectives of the foundation, the programmes it has embarked upon so far and the grounds the foundation hopes to cover in the next couple of years...

*Mrs. Nwachukwu 

When and how did the motivation to set up the Mcphilips Arts and Educational Foundation come to you?

The motivation to set up the Mcphilips Arts and Educational Foundation came to me in the month of January 2021. On that day, my daughter just said to me, “Mom, we should continue from where my Dad stopped." I took time to think about what she said. Continuing from where my husband had stopped should mean pursuing his dreams when he was alive. My husband loved poetry. In fact, I can say that he lived poetry. He wrote poems and promoted poets and other writers.  That was how the motivation came to me. 

Politicians, Foreigners And Nigeria’s Elections

 By Paul Ejime

The call, the other day, by President Muhammadu Buhari on foreign ambassadors posted to Nigeria to desist from interfering in the country’s forthcoming election is both timely and imperative. The president spoke while receiving Letters of Credence from the Ambassadors of Switzerland, Sweden, Republic of Ireland, Kingdom of Thailand, Republic of Senegal and Republic of South Sudan. He reiterated his call to foreign government representatives in Nigeria not to interfere in the country’s internal affairs, especially the electoral process.

*Tinubu

“I urge you to be guided by diplomatic practice to ensure that your activities remain within the limits of your profession as you monitor the build-up to the elections and the conduct of the general elections itself,” presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said in a statement.

Tinubu Vs Atiku: A Cautionary Tale Of Self-Destruction

 By Dan Onwukwe

Like a broken family whose members would  prefer to destroy their father’s inheritance rather than share it, shame has become a passé to the managers of the Presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress and that of the Peoples Democratic Party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar. As the Feb 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections draw feverishly near, the desperation in the camps of these two presidential candidates seems to have reached a new low.

*Atiku and Tinubu 

With the many gaffes and seeming lack of tact by Tinubu on the campaign hustings, a sense of ennui has set in. His desperate efforts to be the next President of Nigeria appear to be bogging down. But he keeps blowing hot. As respected columnist Sonala Olumhense wrote in the SUNDAY PUNCH of January 29, if there’s one political party that ought not to be on the ballot in the February/March elections, it’s the ruling APC.  

Elections, Terrorism And 2022 In Retrospect

 By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Nearly 645 people lost their lives in diverse circumstances across Kaduna State in the first six months of 2022. Speaking under the aegis of Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), the then acting President of SOKAPU Awemi Dio Maisamari had stated that the terrorists had not only captured and occupied Kaduna State but had been “running the government’ in the State since 2019. He lamented that most rural communities and villages in Kaduna State especially in Chikun, Kajuru, Kachia, Zangon Kataf, Kauru, Lere, Birnin Gwari and Giwa Local Councils had not only been deserted but occupied by the religious terrorists.

The Catholic Church tearfully will not forget the year 2022 in a hurry. In 2022 alone, 39 Catholic Priests were murdered and 30 abducted in Nigeria by terrorists. However Sahara Reporters reports that 145 Catholics priests were killed in 2022. Only God knows the number of Catholic Priests who would be murdered in 2023. Already one Catholic Priest has been murdered on January 15 2023. In fact, on January 14, 2023, Fr. Michael Olofinlade, a Catholic priest in Omu Ekiti, Oye Local Government, Ekiti State was kidnapped.

Obi And Soldiers Of Conscience

 By Jideofor Chukwuemeka

After several years of trials with the democratic order without significant progress in all indices of development, Nigeria is yet at another trajectory. Another general election is around the corner. And the kind of leadership choices the electorate makes will determine whether the country will mark a sharp departure from its sordid past or continue with a dismal and decadent order that is sliding to the brink.

*Peter Obi mobbed by admirers in Delta State 

 

Though there appears a wide gamut of consensus that the coming elections yet provide a defining opportunity for this country to get its acts right, those who hitherto profited from the old order seem not keen in having that be.

Before the emergence of the presidential candidates of the political parties, issues of competence in grappling with the worsening economic situation and power rotation had dominated political discourse.

Tinubu Is Right, FG Has Failed

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

It was obvious to all discerning minds from the get-go that the 2023 elections would be like no other. However, even the most perceptible of political observers could never have imagined the breadth of the incongruities, if not outright illogicalities, that are underpinning the contest. The ironies are as breathtaking as the absurdities are unimaginable.

*Tinubu and Buhari 

Imagine a situation where, 23 days before the presidential and National Assembly elections, the candidate of the ruling party is skewering the president of the country, calling him, literally, an unthinking, good-for-nothing president at every campaign stop; a leading light of the ruling party, a state governor, is accusing the “cabal in the presidency” of sabotaging their own candidate; and the opposition party and their presidential candidate are vigorously defending a president that his own people have thrown under the bus. And wait for it – the presidency is telling the chieftains of the opposition party to weep for themselves. 

Tinubu As President? Buhari Must Really Hate Nigeria!

 By Olu Fasan

Ahead of the 1993 presidential election, General Ibrahim Babangida, the then military head of state, made a profound statement. He said: “I don’t know who will succeed me, but I know who will not.” Sadly, that statement panned out with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Yet, in principle, it was a perfectly reasonable statement. 

*Buhari and Tinubu 

Here’s why. If General Babangida had damaging intelligence on MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the election, an intelligence that could bring international shame on Nigeria, he had a duty to stop him from running for president. 

Towards A New And Better Nigeria (2): Obi’s ‘No Shishi’ As Political Contract

 By Pieray Awele Odor

I am an OBIdient! I cannot hide my choice or pretend about it. I have told my friends this as we discussed the man who merits to be the next president among the contestants for this highest position in Nigeria and, as Mr. Boris Johnson said, “The best job in the country”; not the best job for me though! I have also told them that what is important is why anyone supports any candidate.

*Obi

This should be the basis for discuss about who should be the next president. I chose to support Mr. Peter Obi because of his four bases for asking Nigerians to vote for him. These are “No shishi”, “Character”, “Track record” and Trust”. This is unique in Nigerian politics! Indeed it is phenomenal! In this piece, as contribution Toward a New and Better Nigeria, I shall discuss “No shishi”.

My Journalism Journey By Ray Ekpu

*Ray Ekpu 
Permit me dear readers to stray away from the current happenings such as the petrol palaver and the naira redesign nuisance, both of which have shown the world how badly we run our lives. The excuse for choosing to write on my journalism odyssey today is the recent conferment of a Lifetime Achievement Award on me by one of Nigeria’s leading newspapers, Vanguard.

This is my fifth lifetime achievement award, two of which came from non-media outfits while the other three including this one came from media organisations. A few years ago I received one from the Nation Newspaper in Kenya when it marked the 50th anniversary of its existence. A couple of years ago I was also honoured with the award by Diamond Media run by one of the respected journalists in the country, Mr Lanre Idowu.

Protecting The New Coup From Heaven

 By Pat Utomi

The current travails of our country are legion, from pain beyond what is reasonable to expect at petrol stations to physical fight at ATMs; the fuel scarcity and currency change processes are eroding our humanity. Add to these the gripping poverty which has been weaponized by the traditional political parties for vote buying, voter suppression and ‘incentives’ to vote for parties and candidates so undeserving of a seat at the table of public life, the season of discontent in Nigeria seems so grim and dark.

*Utomi

Add to this corruption that cries to high heavens for the wrath of God, insecurity so threatening and inflation that literarily wipes out income of those who desperately need it because they are so deep in water, that, as Tawney’s metaphor points out, even a ripple can disown them, and for the need for a citizen crystalizes as the imperative of the moment.

How Many Presidents Will Atiku Make Of Ndigbo?

 By Amanze Obi

Atiku Abubakar’s announcement in Asaba, Delta State, last week that their son, Ifeanyi Okowa, would succeed him, should he become the President of Nigeria in 2023, says a lot about the delicate and intricate balancing that Atiku is dealing with. The man is working hard to penetrate the Igbo nation from either the east or the west.

*Atiku and Soludo 

It all began in Enugu some weeks earlier when Atiku told a gathering of southeasterners that he would ensure that they take their turn at the presidency, if they support him to become President in 2023. With these pronouncements, Atiku surely knows what the Igbo want. They are hungry for the presidency and Atiku is dangling the carrot at them at every turn. He wants them to see him as the vehicle that will take them to Damascus.

Dr. Stanley Macebuh: Unforgettable Pathfinder Of Modern Nigerian Journalism

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Dr. Stanley Nkwachikwelumamaya Macebuh was a rare breed in the freshest sense of the term, a charge of fine electricity who all on his own changed the face of journalism practice in Nigeria. 

*Macebuh

Stanley was at once a scholar, philosopher, cerebral journalist, informed commentator, mentor, liberal, technocrat, icon, legend, connoisseur, all rolled into one diminutive body of irresistible charisma. 

As the founding Managing Director of The Guardian Newspapers, Stanley bequeathed on this country in word and deed “the Flagship of the Nigerian Press.” 

He died at age 67 by 4.15 in the morning on Sunday, March 7, 2010 at the National Hospital, Abuja. 

But We Warned Tinubu About Buhari

 By Charles Okoh

There must be something about Abeokuta that makes the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to wait until his visit there to literally spit fire, like the legendary dragon. It was in Abeokuta on June 3, 2022 that Tinubu made his now famous emilokan cry.

*Buhari and Tinubu 

Before the June 3 outburst last year, Tinubu had survived a surreptitious plot to deny him the shot at the presidency in spite of his gentleman’s agreement with President Buhari before the 2015 presidential elections. An unwritten agreement which guaranteed that in the principle of one-turn-deserves-another, Tinubu had rallied his men and resources to ensure that Buhari, who had failed three times previously, was successful at the fourth time of asking.

Book Review: The Promise Of A New Era

 By Angela Agoawike

The use of biographies for election campaigns date back decades. 

Sometimes written in a hurry, a campaign biography gives highlights of the candidate’s life, introduces him to the voting public and so doing, gives an insight into his aspiration to the highest office in the land. 

The importance of a presidential campaign ‘biography’ is underlined by among others, the setting up of libraries to look for such books and store them for posterity, just like the Clarke Library of the Central Michigan University in the USA has done since the early 1960s. 

Many politicians, such as former American President Jimmy Carter released campaign biographies. As a little-known governor of the American State of Georgia, Why Not The Best? was published in 1976, during his quest for the American presidency. It was his introduction to Americans beyond Georgia.