By Ray Ekpu
In the last one year I must have written up to a dozen articles on the intractable problem of insecurity in the country. How can I stop when insecurity has not stopped harassing us. It has become a daily nightmare because nowhere is safe today, neither the road nor your house.
By Dan Onwukwe
When things go wrong in a country, it’s fair to ask: why? Why are things steadily getting worse rather than better since Bola Tinubu was sworn in as President of Nigeria a little more than 8 months ago?
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Lately, Mrs. Aisha Achimugu has been in the news for the wrong reasons. Of course, she disagrees, having already put a damper on that by telling those who think so to take a swim in a crocodile-infested pond for all she cares.
But let us interrogate the
issues to determine who is right.
Mrs. Achimugu, an Abuja-based Nigerian businesswoman, clocked 50 years on January 22, no doubt a milestone age worth celebrating for those so inclined. But in doing that, she went overboard, orchestrating an obscene spectacle.
By Olu Fasan
The controversies over the Federal Government’s plans to relocate some departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, from Abuja to Lagos are yet another proof that Nigeria is deeply divided. The country that the British colonialists cobbled together from several ancient kingdoms and distinct civilisations remains today, over 100 years after its forced marriage of convenience, a fractured state, not a unified nation. Nigeria is so polarised that everything is seen through the prisms of ethnicity and religion, and politics is a zero-sum game.
In societies where politics is perceived as zero-sum struggles, each group sees its ‘loss’ as another group’s ‘gain’. Therefore, there’s intense loss-aversion, whereby each group fights to protect its interests and prevent ‘loss’ to other groups. But oppositional identities and zero-sum politics are characteristics of a fragile state because they are indicative of deep divisions in the society. Instead of inter-group cooperation to achieve common purpose for mutual gains, every group is concerned about loss to other groups, and that loss-aversion shapes political actions. That explains what’s happening in Nigeria.
By Tony Eluemunor
What Nigeria is going through now, be it religious, ethnic, social, political and economic, national insecurity, uncontrolled militancy and banditry, all our national ills, were disasters that were clearly foretold in a major publication.
Next month will mark the 30th
anniversary of Robert D. Kaplan’s “THE
COMING ANARCHY – How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease
are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet”.
Published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in February 1994, it pretended to scrutinize the entire planet Earth, though it actually focused on West Africa – with Nigeria receiving a special attention which detailed out our problems and warned that things were about to get worse.
By Dele Sobowale
“Why is cash scarce again?” — Lekan Sote, January
10, 2024.
Lekan, one of the most perceptive columnists in Nigeria today astonished me when he asked that question. Vanguard readers knew as far back as March 2023 that another round of cash scarcity was coming. It occurred in December. It will linger for a while – as long as the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, continue to miss the point.
Nigerians should actually be asking two questions regarding cash scarcity: will it end? How? The answer to the first is “Yes”; but not next month or perhaps even March. It will certainly not end before a great deal of damage would have been done to the economy. The answer to “How?” will be left untouched for now. The FG and CBN will be shocked to know the major cause of the lingering scarcity. The stranglehold on cash supply is now assuming the characteristics of a plot.
By Ugoji Egbujo
While the naira gasped for breath, the nation sent 400 tourists to Dubai to fill the gallery in a climate change conference. Two weeks ago, the President dabbed powder on the wound. He announced a cut in his entourage and those of his wife and ministers. The general attitude of the country to the looming disaster seems surreal.
At N1400 for a dollar, alarm bells should be ringing. But in the highest offices in the land and amongst politicians, the dollar has become the preferred instrument of settlement and lubrication. Nothing moves the leaders of this country. In the middle of this economic tornado, a minister signed off air tickets to a non-existent Kogi airport. The new government met a mess. But it has been sloppy and haphazard.
By Dele Sobowale
“But, the fact in our favour is that nothing was done under the veil of secrecy. We were as transparent and accountable as possible, being aware of the fact that posterity was the ultimate judge” – Ex-President Buhari at the launching of the books chronicling the purported achievements of his administration.
I have not read the books; and for two reasons. One, I was not aware they were coming out until the news reports about the launching. Two, I have my own project requiring a lot of money. Reading a book predictably self-serving about the Buhari government is not top on my list of priorities. However, if anybody is willing to donate a set, then I promise, on my word of honour, to read the entire thing – line by line. After that, I will write a rejoinder – for the sake of posterity.
By Banji Ojewale
Our leaders are our deadliest enemies.
Not given to altruism, these leaders don’t also subscribe to the law of the power of example. This is the golden rule insisting that rulers aren’t graded great until they exhibit selfless, sacrificial and Spartan conduct that sparks same virtues in the citizens. But our leaders, elected, selected or ‘dictated,’ believe in the precept of the example of power. Here, the goal is, as you grab power, you must dig in, you must live in it and flaunt it and extend its frontiers like you’d be in its embrace forever.
Tinubu and Buhari
By Olu Fasan
Ola Olukoyede, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, recently appointed by Nigeria’s new president, Bola Tinubu, is saying the right things and making the right noises about fighting corruption in Nigeria. Recently, he struck a chord with me when he called for unexplained wealth legislation in Nigeria.
Unexplained wealth laws are the most powerful tool for tackling corruption, as I wrote in a piece titled: “Fighting corruption? Nigeria must tackle unexplained wealth” (Vanguard, November 22, 2021). Yet, despite my positive opinion of the new EFCC chairman, the stark reality is that the EFCC won’t and can’t make an iota of difference in stemming the inexorable rise of corruption in Nigeria. The agency is so bedevilled that it has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.
By Owei Lakemfa
My experience in highbrow Asokoro on Friday, January 19, 2024 was like a nightmare. I had an important appointment and I felt comfortable I was going to be some 40 minutes early. Then it happened: blocked roads in the narrow streets. That was when it dawned on me this was the day the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on gubernatorial elections in some eight states. Now, Asokoro is where the Governors have their lodges in the nation’s capital, and some with their supporters had blocked the roads.
I was, like many motorists, trapped, but just when I thought I had extricated myself, the worse happened: Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule and his supporters were celebrating further down, and the road was completely blocked. There was no escape. While they celebrated in Abuja, there were protests and bonfires in the state. At the end of the wild celebrations, Governor Sule told the press at the Presidential Villa that those protesting in his state were just “1,000 people (who) are protesting somewhere”.
By Oludayo Tade
On the ‘roof-top-bar’ of the Senior Staff Club, University of Ibadan, I sat with my professor friend switching between discussions on the social economic conditions and the precarity of our lives as public university lecturers in Nigeria and watching the African Nations’ cup.
We requested for a bottle of coke and mixed it with water, sipped
it when we felt the need to and talked about how those who are supposed to
protect Nigerians have abdicated that responsibility.
It was not long when we heard a massive bang, the only thing compared to it was a bomb. Paul, one of the waiters in the club ran up as the surface upon which he stood vibrated heavily. We experienced the same.
By Chidi Odinkalu
Most people do not know or remember that, strictly speaking, there were and remain no official results for Nigeria’s 2007 presidential election. Organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the vote itself occurred on April 21, 2007 under Maurice Iwu, a professor whose academic discipline coincidentally was alchemy. His main qualification for the position of Chairman of the INEC was that he was close to President Obasanjo’s fixer, Andy Uba.
The results began trickling in the following day. Under Nigeria’s Constitution, a winner of a presidential election must secure the highest number of votes in addition to winning a minimum of 25% of the votes in at least 24 of the 36 states of the federation. What this means is that it is impossible to declare a lawful result in a presidential election until the results in at least 24 states have been computed.
By Tonnie Iredia
The National Judicial Council (NJC) is the body set-up by law to among other things discipline erring Nigerian judges. This was probably to prevent different agencies from harassing judges thereby boosting judicial autonomy. One would therefore have expected that the body would be up and doing in ensuring sanity in the Nigerian judiciary thereby giving no room for outsiders to pry into its internal matters.
But this has not been so. Instead, the NJC has for long shown that it is incapable of effectively performing the function. Many judges who have openly misbehaved to the chagrin of other sectors of the Nigerian society, often got off the hook. Some Nigerians actually believe that the NJC has acted more as a tool for covering-up erring judges on the basis of esprit de corps.
By Ezinwanne Onwuka
I am smitten with nostalgia when I remember the ‘good old days’. The days when N5,000 could buy a big fowl that would feed a family of six. How much did you buy a fowl last Christmas?
Oh! How could I have forgotten that Nigeria’s economy dealt with the majority of us last year so much so that we had no option but to be grateful for life and good health, and watch the clock tick away the minutes?
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Since the Supreme Court reversed the Appeal Court judgements that sacked Kano State Governor, Kabiru Yusuf; Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State; and Zamfara’s Lawal Dauda, many Nigerians, characteristically, have been ululating about how the judiciary has redeemed itself. Those wishing to cut the apex court a bigger slack talk about how the Supreme Court has redeemed the image of the judiciary.
Some have even stretched the inane adulation by claiming, rather ludicrously, that the verdicts are a veritable proof of President Bola Tinubu’s democratic credentials because it must take the non-interference of the president for the judiciary, a supposedly independent arm of government, to do the needful.
By Olu Fasan
Few things confer greater honour and privilege than being a minister in the government of one’s country. From a wider population, you are one of the select few called upon to run your nation. But a ministerial office is not a source of personal wealth, power or prestige.
Rather, it’s a call to service,
an opportunity to use your talent to advance your nation’s progress and the
wellbeing of its people.
Therefore, it’s an unpardonable betrayal for any minister or officeholder to abuse his or her office and put private gain above public good. Sadly, in Nigeria, private gain triumphs over public good.
By Tonnie Iredia
In many developing societies where the government of the day is unable to provide basic facilities to improve living standards the way out is usually to resort to the tokenism of distributing palliatives to citizens.
Nigeria adopted the option in 2015 – an option which from inception has been unable to wear a transparent and credible toga. No one including those in government had faith in Sadiya Farouq, pioneer minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development as well as her officials who were mandated to superintend the subject during President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
By Aishat Abisola
Over the years, Nigeria has dealt with a profound crisis plaguing its healthcare system, exacerbated by the alarming rate of brain drain among its highly-skilled medical professionals. Nigeria’s health sector is in a precarious state as doctors, nurses, and other essential healthcare personnel depart the country for greener pasture abroad.
A closer look at the issue reveals a critical factor that fuels brain drain, which is harming our health sector. The consequences of this phenomenon are dire, and have led to a shortage of healthcare professionals, compromising the overall quality of healthcare services in Nigeria.
By Kekemeke Gboloibai
Quite frankly, the telltale scars of general delusions caused by the volatility in the economy in 2023 earnestly need a presidential healing balm to give soothing relief to the many Nigerians whose means of livelihood have disappeared with the times, their self-worth undervalued, and their manliness of mind continually eviscerated. Thankfully, help may be on the way as President Bola Tinubu, in his New Year address to Nigerians, said he feels the pulse and the groaning of Nigerians across the country.
Regrettably, the average Nigerian cannot meet his family’s expectations as current food and general inflation rates hit an all-time high of 33.93 per cent and 28.92 per cent respectively.
