Student Loan: Is Nigeria Ready?

 By Mabel Oboh

About two years ago, at the convocation of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the President, who was then the Speaker of the House of Representatives, delivered a lecture. Among many other talks, he posited that a student loan scheme was one of the ways to solve the problem of funding education in Nigeria. 

He sponsored the bill on the matter in the National Assembly. It was not surprising therefore that Gbaja sold the student loans initiative as a priority agenda for the administration. On Monday, June 12, 2023, Nigeria’s democracy day, just two weeks into the life of the government, President Bola Tinubu announced the scholarship scheme.

June 16, 1976 Soweto Uprising: The Pains, Gains And Failure Of African Leadership

 By Omawumi Evelyn Urhobo

As South Africa commemorates this year’s June 16th, the 47th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, and as a Nigerian who was directly involved in the struggle, I can’t help but put down my few thoughts about this momentous event.

On June 16, 1976, the student protest in the township of Soweto against the apartheid regime started. This agitation would soon become known globally as the Soweto Uprising. This uprising by the students protesting the injustice of the Apartheid Regime was, of course, more than ever before, met with the usual bestial and brutal resistance by the Apartheid Regime.

African Peacemakers: Rescuing Europeans From Mutual

 By Owei Lakemfa

Seven African leaders stunned the world on June 16 and 17, 2023 when they went on a peace mission to warring Ukraine and Russia. The reaction from many in the West was that of contempt; how is it the place of lowly Africa to intervene in a war of Europeans? In fact, Poland tried to scuttle the mission by detaining for 30 hours the aircraft carrying the protection unit of President Cyril Ramaphosa, leader of the delegation.

*Ramaphosa and Putin 

Its claim was that the security men carried “dangerous goods”(weapons). Did they expect them to carry candies? The protocol all over the world is for the paper work for the weapons to be submitted; but Poland declined. Eventually, the aircraft which also had a dozen journalists on board, could not join Ramaphosa as Hungary barred it from using its airspace. These are clear indications that some Europeans countries do not want peace.

Nigeria: A Government In Search Of Legitimacy

 By Sunny Ikhioya

Nigeria’s problem is not its people or what some will call the ‘curse of the Black man’. The problem is simply a leader that will put aside religious, ethnic and other primordial sentiments to build a unified nation of one purpose, goal and prosperity. In other words, to build a nation of patriotic Nigerians. You cannot say you love Nigeria and be destroying properties that belong to the commonwealth.

You cannot say you love Nigeria and be killing and kidnapping your fellow Nigerians. You cannot say you love Nigeria and be stealing what belongs to everyone. That is the dilemma the nation is facing; having a leader who can bring together all of these contending forces and project their combined strength to the whole world. That is basically our challenge.

The Rise And Fall Of Lagos

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

The raging acrimony over a vicious plot by the authorities in Lagos to edge out the so called non-indigenes, particularly, the Igbo out of Lagos through appropriate discriminatory laws by the State House of Assembly should not bother anyone for it is only the ignorant who don’t know that cities rise and fall depending on the circumstances at a given time.

When the circumstances are ripe with positive conditions, a city may spring up and flourish so long as those conditions exist. But when the circumstances change and the conditions that made the city wane, the city begins to shrink towards eventual fall. The foregoing occurs when humans are the change agents in a city’s dynamics.

El-Rufai’s Wish For An ‘Islamic Republic Of Nigeria’

 By Olu Fasan

Mallam Nasir el-Rufai is an unrepentant religious bigot; a militant Islamic supremacist, who believes Islam is superior to Christianity and should be privileged in national leadership. He doesn’t just hold these views, he actively pursues them. As governor of Kaduna State for eight years, until May this year, El-Rufai ran an Islamic government, with a Muslim-controlled administration, despite the state’s large Christian population.

*El-Rufai 

Now, out of office, he prides himself on installing a successor on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, and entrenching Muslim dominance of Kaduna State governance. More significantly, El-Rufai boasts of foisting his Kaduna State Muslim-Muslim leadership model on Nigeria, and warns Nigerians to brace themselves for a prolonged Muslim leadership of this country

In Owerri, Nigerian Editors Repudiated The Idiocy Of Identity Politics

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

It is no longer news that the just concluded national bi-annual convention of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, which held in Owerri, Imo State capital, produced Eze Anaba, editor of the Vanguard newspaper as the new president. In the next two years, he and 15 other officers will run the affairs of the elite club of Nigerian editors. It is not going to be an easy task but editors are confident that the Anaba-led team will deliver.

*Anaba

It turned out to be a Guild election like no other, with difficulties more fundamental than the normal schism that characterises every struggle for power. Since the NGE was founded on May 20, 1961, at the old National Press Club in Lagos by Alhaji Lateef Jakande, who also emerged as its first president, the 2023 election was perhaps the most toxic.

Floating Naira: Death Knell For Nigerian Economy

 By Marcel Okeke 

A shocking headline in an online publication: “Naira slumps to N700/dollar as CBN floats currency, stops fixing exchange rates,” stirred my worry and alarm to pen this piece. According to the news story “the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reportedly directed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to remove the rate cap on the naira at the Investor and Exporters’ (I & E) window of the foreign exchange market, to allow for a free float of the national currency against the dollar and other global currencies.” This floating of the national currency is coming barely two weeks after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ‘promise’ in his inaugural address that he was going to unify the nation’s multiple exchange rates.

According to Investopedia, a floating exchange rate is a regime where the currency price of a nation is set by the forex market based on supply and demand relative to other currencies. This is in contrast to a fixed exchange rate, in which the government (that is CBN, in Nigeria) entirely or predominantly determines the rate.

Issues With Tinubu’s Education Loan Scheme

 By Jideofor Adibe

Tinubu’s first three weeks in office have been packed with actions – fuel subsidy was removed on his inauguration, some aides have been appointed, the Naira has been floated and a Bill establishing an education loan scheme has been signed – among others. Though the actions so far have been mostly policy pronouncements that are yet to be implemented and tested, some people, carried away by the giddiness of the actions, have wrongly declared that Tinubu’s first 15 days in office have been better than a whole four-year term spent by past administrations. 

This piece interrogates the Access to Higher Education Act 2023 (otherwise known as the education loan scheme), flagging the promises and issues it raised: 

Dokpesi: A Broadcast Exponent Stages A Final Show

 By Okoh Aihe

Today, Dr Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi will return to Agenebode with his friends. The big boys who have been with him most of his life, the crème de la crème of the society with the incandescent stars, the ordinary folks of the society for whom he had so much love, having struggled up from extreme poverty himself, his professional colleagues – the marine engineers and broadcasters, who cheered him on as he broke new grounds for their industries, and the Dokpesi family, which is quite large; they will gather in Agenebode for a grand exit party that will do their son good.

*Dokpesi

I don’t know whether Sunny Ade will be there, the grand musician with electric feet and even electric fingers as he commands the guitar into entertaining obedience. He loves Jimmy Cliff too and remains one of his early friends as well. Agenebode will receive big people from government, businesses and even the entertainment industry, such as had never been witnessed in the history of that beautiful town by the River Niger,  in honour of a son that has planted their name firmly on the global map. 

Nigeria: Using Torchlight In Broad Daylight

 By Owei Lakemfa

There is a country called Nigeria. For three decades, its coffers were daily looted in the guise of fuel subsidy. The looters are known by name and some are known faces. The companies they use in looting are registered and have addresses. Rather than bring the criminals to book, government decided to remove the subsidy.

Thus, the people are forced to pay astronomical prices for fuel, while the subsidy looters keep their loot and are free to forage for other things to loot. This is the truth. There is also the lie; that fuel subsidy has now been removed. The truth is that it is impossible to remove fuel subsidy no matter how much the people are visited with high fuel prices.

Nigeria: The Real Subsidies Are Not For The Poor, But The Rich

By Femi Falana

Globally, subsidies, whether for food, transportation, energy or housing, are part of good governance. So, the issue is not subsidies but who benefit from them. In Nigeria, subsidies are primarily of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. I will highlight a few, how they are being manipulated and how huge sums of money can be recovered not just to subsidise fuel but also provide funds for development.

Police Should Kill Bandits, Not Democracy In Plateau, Nasarawa

 By Emmanuel Aziken

Arguably the best Inspector General of Police since the exit of Solomon Arase, Nigeria’s top police shot, IGP Usman Alkali Baba appears to have now run himself into an unnecessary controversy.

Given the foibles of the ruling political class, he had within reasonable expectations held his dignity in the face of the rascality of political actors here and there during the recent General Election.

The Bulkachuwalisation Of The Judiciary

 By Ugoji Egbujo

It wasn’t a Freudian slip. The man couldn’t be stopped. An 83-year-old senator, seized by valedictory emotions, stood in the hallowed senate chambers and broke omerta. Defying the bulging eyes of bewildered senators, he told a dirty truth to the nation. All attempts by his distinguished colleagues to extinguish the flame of forthrightness were rebuffed by the courageous man.

The man thanked his wife, a former President of the Court of Appeal for allowing him to use her to pervert justice in favour of his colleagues. Gratitude is a virtue. As the cringing distinguished beneficiaries of the rotten judicial porridge pinched their noses like Pharisees and gasped in shock, the man gushed over his caring and generous wife who had helped him cook judicial outcomes.  

Resolving Abuja’s Real Status Is Overdue!

 By Tonnie Iredia

Former Senate President Lawan’s senatorial nomination bid and the earlier Imo State Governorship election are two recent cases whose controversial outcomes have continued to annoy many people including retired and serving judges. A third case that may have such lasting impact is the controversy concerning what a candidate must score in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory as a condition for becoming president.  

According to Section 134 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999, a candidate can only win a presidential election in Nigeria if he scores majority of votes at the election which must in addition not be “less than one quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja.”

The United States Recurring Memory Loss In Diplomacy

 By Owei Lakemfa

Four archenemies of the United States, US, met variously in its Latin American ‘backyard’ this week. It was the five-day Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. No, the quartet did not make themselves enemies of the US, it was the latter which at various times had dictated to those countries, that designated them as such.

All four are under the unilateral sanctions of the US which punishes any country that dares befriend them. So only the independent-minded and strong countries maintain trade relations with them.

Special Status Of FCT And The Legitimacy Of National Political Leadership

 By Erasmus Morah 

“To unravel the ‘and FCT’ conundrum, one must know what the Nigerian military general founding fathers of the 1999 Constitution had in mind when they decided in 1976 to build a new capital city on virgin land and set it up as a special federal capital territory.” 

Introduction 

ON Saturday, February 25, 2023, Nigeria conducted nationwide elections for the position of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The electoral process was widely regarded as the most fiercely contested in the nation’s delicate democratic history, setting it apart from previous elections. On March 1, 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared the candidate of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, as the winner of the elections and the President-elect. The official swearing-in of the President-elect took place on May 29, 2023, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office as the 16th President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Nasir El-Rufai’s Dangerous Foolery

 By Charles Okoh

It is not a mere happenstance that the nation has remained bitterly divided along ethnic and religious lines in the past eight years. Perhaps, the event of the past eight years has brought to the fore the urgent need for the nation to begin to think of how best we can begin to address the many schisms that have held us down for so long. 

*El-Rufai 

How do we build that nation of our dreams where justice and fairness will prevail? How do we build that egalitarian society of our dreams where all will be treated as equals irrespective of their ethnic or religious leanings when issues of national concern are on the table?

Living In Post-Subsidy Nigeria

 By Adekunle Adekoya

We were warned that petrol subsidy would not last forever and would have to go someday. It has now gone. President Bola Tinubu chose to extinguish subsidy in his inaugural address on May 29. As we all came to see, the president had barely left the Eagle Square venue of his inauguration when the petrol market responded. That May 29 afternoon, most petrol stations had shut their gates to motorists. Those that did not shut their gates had queues several hundred metres long, and dispensed from only one pump. That development generated instant chaos at the stations. But that was just the beginning.

By the following day, a pricing template indicating how much a litre of petrol could be sold for in each state of the federation emerged in the social media. It turned out to be real as the oil sector regulators confirmed its reality. It became clear the one litre of petrol sold for N488 in Lagos, which was the lowest price nationwide, while the price of N537 was indicated for Borno and Yobe states.

Prof. Tony Afejuku: Teacher Of No Mean Repute

 By Henry Agbebire

The news filtered in on the 5th of June, 2023 that the erudite Professor of English and Literature, Tony Afejuku, has mandatorily disengaged from the University of Benin after over four decades of university lecturing. The following article was published in his honour eight years ago in The Guardian to speak of his exemplary virtues as a worthy teacher. I believe it is still a fitting eulogy for a man who committed his entire vibrant life to scholarship…

*Afejuku

Whenever I ponder the sordid state of our university education in Nigeria today, and the persistent outcry of many employers over the perennial crisis of unproductive university graduates, I remember Tony Afejuku, the distinguished Professor of English and Literature at the University of Benin. Great teachers are rare, but Afejuku stands out as an Icon to me. His style was greatly criticised by different categories of students. Some students felt the standard he required was too high.