Spreading Smile And Knowledge: Smile Communications, Alternative Bank, Celebrate Children's Day

At the heart of every community lies the promise of a brighter future, nurtured by the boundless potentials of its youngest members. In a beautiful display of compassion and collaboration, Smile Communications and Alternative Bank, a proud member of the Sterling Bank Group, came together to celebrate Children's Day with the students of Olusosun Primary School in Ojota, Lagos.

The event took place on  the 28th of May 2024. It was a special day and memorable occasion filled with laughter, joy, and invaluable support for the children of Olusosun Primary School.

Multilateral Finance Institutions Win Big At African Banker Awards 2024

 The most prestigious event in the African banking calendar, the African Banker Awards Gala Ceremony 2024, took place last night at the JW Marriott Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, on the sidelines of the African Development Bank Annual Meetings. The ceremony was attended by over 300 of the continent's leading figures in banking and finance. 

Now in its 18th edition, the African Banker Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and institutions that have contributed significantly to the growth and development of Africa's banking sector over the past year. This year’s awards ceremony in particular saw DFIs triumph, enjoying successes, in both institutional and individual categories, and representing the increased growth they enjoy in the African financial ecosystem.

When Will Nigerian Legislators Work For Their People?

 By Tonnie Iredia

The decision of the Kano state government to reinstate Emir Sanusi II some four years after he was dethroned has expectedly elicited diverse reactions from many Nigerians. While some looked at the subject from the cultural point of view and argued that it is in order to restore the traditional institution in its unadulterated form, others are unhappy that politicians have turned the royal throne into a chess game. So, the blame game is on.

Some say it is the result of an unending political rift between two former Kano governors, Musa Kwankwaso and Abdullahi Ganduje. There is a third group that loathes the involvement of the Judiciary which engaged in an offshore interference in the controversy. It is however simplistic to make conclusions about the return of Emir Sanusi II without reference to why and how he was deposed in 2020. The deposition of the Emir 4 years ago was heavily criticised by many political analysts who were convinced that the Emir did no wrong.

Re-Thinking Nigeria: Beyond Myths, Illusions And Self-Deceit

 By Pat Utomi

Nigeria is a mess right now. A huge mess. Even the blind can see it. And the deaf can hear the cry of anguish of Nigeria’s children. Can the country be rescued? Possibly. But the myths, years of delusions of grandeur and criminal capture of the Nigerian state threaten the possibility.

*Utomi

Last week one of the great TV interviewers in Nigeria, Charles Aniagolu, asked me the big question. How did we get here?

I resisted the temptation of the immodest but frank answer:   go and read just about everything I have written in the last 40 years.

Nigeria: One Year Under Tinubu…

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Time flies. Does time really fly? Whichever, next Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of the Tinubu presidency. May 29, 2023, was a day many Nigerians will not forget in a hurry. It was on that day that flimsy fabrics holding economic strands together was brutally rent asunder by a proclamation that we are all now familiar with: removal of subsidy on petrol. Up till the moment Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was reading his inaugural address to the nation, petrol sold for N187 per litre. 

*Tinubu

Before he finished reading the address, many petrol marketers shut their stations, and queues began growing at filling stations. By the following day, May 30, reality dawned on Nigerians as they awoke to the reality of higher prices of petrol. The increase was threefold; a litre of petrol was selling for N568, and that was the cheapest, available only at NNPC Retail stations. Other marketers, major or minor sold for prices anywhere between N700 and N650 in the Lagos and Abuja areas. 

Blame Tinubu For The Impending Political Inferno In Rivers

 By Olu Fasan

The Most Rev. Matthew Kukah, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, is uncharacteristically complacent. Recently, he upbraided Nigerians for fretting about the Rivers State crisis, triggered by the festering conflict between the current governor Siminalayi Fubara and his immediate predecessor, Nyesom Wike. “We ordinary people cry more than the bereaved,” Rev. Kukah said, adding: “When politicians fight, don’t get carried away because they will fix their quarrel.” 

*Tinubu and Wike 
Really? How many ordinary people must die before the politicians do so? How many properties must be destroyed before they fix their quarrel? The highly respected and cerebral bishop was trivialising a serious issue. Truth is, the stakes are high. It is about political survival, about who controls the political levers in Rivers State. And ahead of 2027, it will become a do-or-die affair, and could morph into a political inferno, a conflagration.

This Is Ghana, Not A Graveyard

 By Banji Ojewale

It’s a Sunday morning in May 2024 in downtown Accra, capital of Ghana. I’m in a Church auditorium. Strangely for an African Pentecostal assembly, there are subdued acoustics. The preacher’s message is electronically transmitted. But it is solemnly controlled to stay indoors.

Later, I find myself in the city’s busy streets. I’m challenged by very long, snaky metallic lines glistening under the sun. Motorists appear horn-shy. I can only hear creaking bursts of engines responding to traffic lights. There are even no flights of tempers or accidents to scuttle the scorching silence everywhere.

Would dusk make a difference?

Global Crusade With Kumuyi (GCK) And The Way Out Of Probity Crisis

 By Banji Ojewale

At the close of every month, an African non-denominational brand, the Global Crusade with Kumuyi, GCK, launches into the international scene, seeking 

Pastor Kumuyi and his wife at one of the GCKs

 a solution to humanity’s multidisciplinary crisis, arising from integrity bereavement. 

Dufil Prima Foods Kicks Off 16th Edition of Indomie Heroes Awards

 …As search to recognise and reward Nigeria’s extraordinary children begins

 

Dufil Prima Foods Ltd, makers of Indomie Instant Noodles, on Thursday May 9, officially announced the commencement of the 16^th edition of its corporate social responsibility initiative, the Indomie Heroes Awards, the nationwide search exercise that seeks to identify, recognize, celebrate, and reward the positive and heroic efforts of by children aged 15 years and below.

Waffling Ohanaeze And The Igbo Aspiration

 By Ugo Onuoha

In light of the challenges facing the Igbo today in Nigeria, the last thing that the beleaguered people should have to contend with is a fractionalised socio- political umbrella body. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been grappling with for some years. And it seems the situation is deteriorating rather rapidly. 

*Iwuanyanwu 

The Igbo who are the only large, in terms of population, group of people who are indigenous to Nigeria [a fuller exposition on this another day] have been facing existential threats. The threats to emasculate and possibly annihilate the Igbo have been on for the better part of a century. And evidence abounds.

Government Of Lies, By Liars And For Liars!

 By Kenneth Okonkwo

On 1st March, 2023, Prof Yakubu Mahmood, Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at about 4:30am, while most Nigerians were asleep, proclaimed Bola Tinubu as winner of the presidential election held on the 25th of February, 2023, in apparent disregard of the laws and rules of collation of results which he made for himself and for INEC.

*Yakubu and Tinubu

He even boasted that there will be a big television screen revealing the electronically transmitted election results for the whole world to see to confirm and corroborate the manually collated presidential election results which he will be announcing. He failed woefully and deceitfully announced presidential election results without following due process he made for himself, and blamed technical glitch for failing to obey the laws. Till date nobody has been held responsible for the glitch that purportedly occurred that day. The people in charge of the systems then have been said to have been handsomely rewarded with promotion.

Nigerians May Soon Pay Air Levy!

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Last week, when I wrote that this government lacks a human face, I never knew that more harsh policies were in the offing. If not that President Bola Tinubu is a Muslim, I would have thought that his other name is Zaccheus. The biblical short man called Zaccheus was a tax collector, deeply hated by the people. Although the first name of the executive chairman of our Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is Zaccheus, he is innocent of the recent taxes the Federal Government imposed on Nigerians. 

*Tinubu

The most recent one is called cybersecurity levy. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), all money deposit banks, mobile money operators and payment service providers will soon begin to deduct 0.5 per cent on electronic transactions in line with Section 44 (2)(a) of the Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act, 2024. The levy is to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF) administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). 

Is Dave Umahi Also Igbo?

 By Ugo Onuoha

Yes, he is. A bonafide Igbo for that matter. After all, he was a two term governor of Ebonyi, one of the five states in the south east of the country. And south east is the core of the Igbo nation. It really does not matter that some elements in Ebonyi state do not really see themselves as Igbo. 

*Umahi and Obi 

There are many dialects of the Igbo language. Sure. But there is something common in the dialects- almost all Igbo people understand and comprehend themselves no matter the dialect they speak. However, there is a particular part of Ebonyi state who, when they speak their dialect, the typical Igbo person from outside their community will never make out any meaning from their words. This assertion is not designed to exclude or make any part of the south east less Igbo. 

Nigeria: Government Without Human Face?

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose’s brother trended on the social media recently. The outrageous amount of money he pays as electricity tariff every week was the crux of the matter. Some Nigerians apparently thought he was joking in the video where he claimed his weekly electricity bill was N100,000. And this is for three rooms. He said he used to spend this N100,000 in one month.

*Tinubu

Fayose is not alone. All electricity consumers on Band A category are feeling the same pinch. Simply put, what they used to spend on electricity in one month is now spent in one week. What happened was that the Federal Government increased electricity tariff for these Band A customers on April 3, 2024. From N68 per kilowatt-hour, the tariff went up to N225 per kWh, an increase of over 200 per cent. These B and A customers reportedly have electricity at least 20 hours in a day. Customers on Band B, C, D and E do not have to worry about the increase in tariff for now as they are not affected in this pilot phase. The plan is to co-opt them into the tariff-hike prison within a period of three years. 

Tinubu’s Disappearing Acts

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s president since May 29, 2023 is a man of many parts, talented in multiple areas of life. As someone who is able to do many different things almost effortlessly, Nigerians perceive him as a superman – the “ideal superior man of the future,” as described by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the 19th century German philosopher in Thus Spake Zarathustra, “who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values.”

*Tinubu

Notwithstanding, it has become glaring in the 11 months of his presidency that what is still unknown about him far outstrips what people thought they knew. For instance, Nigerians didn’t reckon with his ability to do a disappearing act on them. Again, how could anyone have imagined that Tinubu had the ability to cast a spell on an otherwise vibrant people and turn them into zombies so much so that even in the face of egregious conducts, the people would rather relapse into portentous silence?

Nigeria: Our Under-Policed, Insecure Living Space!

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Penultimate Wednesday, the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, on Wednesday, said the state government he works for has discovered dwellings under the Dolphin Estate Bridge, Ikoyi, where tenants pay N250,000 annual rent.

According to the commissioner, the under-bridge dwellings, which he called apartments in his post on the matter on his X (former Twitter) handle, had 86 partitioned rooms, sized “10×10 and 12×10”.

He added that the enforcement team of Lagos State’s Ministry of Environment and Water Resources had successfully removed all structures, including a container utilised for various illegal activities, from beneath the Dolphin Estate Bridge.

In Nigeria, Judicial Appointments Have Become Network Of Corruption

 By Chidi Odinkalu

“Fools at the top would cause damage to any system not to talk of the fragile institutions of a fledgling democracy.”—Charles Archibong, A Stranger in Their Midst: A Memoir, 97 (2021)

In the last week of April, 2024, Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Olukayode Ariwoola, co-convened and chaired a “National Summit on Justice” in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital. Addressing the participants “with a profound sense of responsibility”, the CJN invited them “on a journey of comprehensive reform to ensure that justice is not only dispensed but also perceived to be dispensed fairly and impartially.” More specifically, he asked them to identify “gaps and inconsistencies that hinder the efficient administration of justice.”

No issue is as afflicted with such gaps in knowledge and inconsistencies of practice and yet so dispositive of outcomes in justice administration as judicial appointments in Nigeria. Yet, it is the one area about which little is public and debate is discouraged.

David Umahi: When Envy Rules Our Politics

By Ike Abonyi 

“It’s in the character of a very few men to honour without envy a friend who prospered.” – Aeschylus

*Umahi and Obi

Envy and jealousy drive political rhetoric in Nigeria, particularly among handicapped Igbo politicians. David Umahi, the former Ebonyi State Governor and current Minister of Works, has been mistaking envy towards Peter Obi, the Labour Party's presidential candidate for normal political behaviour. The minister's recent outburst against Ndigbo is a desperate and disingenuous effort to impress his political allies and gain favour from the Aso Rock Villa.

Nigeria’s Low Tax Intake: Blame Weak Economy, Breach Of Social Contract

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, lamented Nigeria’ low tax revenues. Two weeks ago, when launching the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, the Fund’s Director for Africa, Abebe Selassie, said: “For a country like Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, with all those development spending needs, we think it is problematic that the tax revenue to GDP is only 8-9 per cent when it should be a lot higher.”

A few years ago, in its 2019 Article IV Consultation with Nigeria, the IMF made the same point. It said Nigeria suffered from “low tax mobilisation”, adding: “The revenue base is simply too low to address the current challenges”. Compared with the sub-Saharan African average of 18.6 per cent, Nigeria’s 8-9 per cent is minuscule and truly shocking. Like the IMF, successive Nigerian governments have fretted about it.

Our Intractable Electricity Conundrum

 By Adekunle Adekoya

As a people, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves when it comes to electricity.  Since 1972 when the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, ECN, was merged with the Niger Dams Authority to create the National Electric Power Authority, NEPA, millions of Nigerians have been born and have died with their dreams of living in a country with reliable power supply unrealised.

From one foible to another, the political class, whether military or civilian, have lurched from one excuse to another for this shame that has refused to go away.