Abduction And Forced Marriage Of 13 Year-Old Girl: Impunity Stretched Beyond Comprehension!

*The Victim - Ese Rita Oruru

1. On 12 August, 2015, 13 years old Ms Ese Rita Oruru did not return home 

2. Efforts made by the parents to locate Ese led to one Mohammed (aka Daidi) who informed the mother that one Mr. Yinusa (alias Yellow) had taken the said Miss Ese Rita Oruru to Kano with an intention to convert her into Islam, recruit her into an Islamic fanatical Group and marry her.
3. Acting on the above information, Mrs. Rose Oruru approached one Dan Kano, who not only confirmed the story but also promised to take her to Kano to recover her daughter.

4. Notwithstanding the above promise made, the said Dan Kano rescinded on his promise and rather sent one Rabiu to accompany Mrs. Rose Oruru to Kano.

5. On the 14th of August, 2015 the journey to Kano was embarked on, arriving after midnight. The said Rabiu took Mrs. Rose Oruru to the chief of a village called Tufa in Kura Local Government Area of Kano State on the 15th of August, 2015.

6. After relaying the purpose of their visit, the said chief was furious with Rabiu for bringing Mrs. Rose Oruru to Kano and told them that the said Miss Ese Rita Oruru has been converted to Islam and renamed “Aisha”, married and that the child was no longer her child. He also informed them that Miss Ese Rita Oruru was in the custody of the Emir of Kano Sanusi Lamido Sanusi at the Palace.

7. Moving forward, Mrs. Rose Oruru in the company of Rabiu approached the Emir of Kano’s Palace but met a stiff opposition by several youth, they were pushed out of the Palace.

US On Uganda's Presidential Elections

Press Statement

*Museveni and Obama

The United States commends the Ugandan people for participating actively and peacefully in the February 18 elections. While the vote occurred without major unrest, we must acknowledge numerous reports of irregularities and official conduct that are deeply inconsistent with international standards and expectations for any democratic process.

Delays in the delivery of voting materials, reports of pre-checked ballots and vote buying, ongoing blockage of social media sites, and excessive use of force by the police, collectively undermine the integrity of the electoral process. The Ugandan people deserved better. We are also concerned by the continued house arrest of opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye. We call for his immediate release and the restoration of access to all social media sites.

We encourage those who wish to contest the election results to do so peacefully and in accordance with Uganda’s laws and judicial process, and urge the Ugandan government to respect the rights and freedoms of its people and refrain from interference in those processes.

Mark C. Toner

Washington, DC

February 20, 2016

The Demise Of Naira: Foundation Built On Shifting Sand

By Emeka Chiakwelu

“… Likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”-Matthew 7:27

By now we all know the story of naira, the value is collapsing and its malleability threaten the dwindling Nigeria’s economy. To be candid, there is no need to beat around the bush; the whole truth is that the future of naira as a principally medium of exchange is very bleak, if not in doubt.

The implication is not that Nigeria’s reserve bank will abandon naira as an operating currency and come up with another currency with a new nomenclature and different denominations. Not in affirmative, the mechanics of operation of a prevailing currency is its acceptability. As the participating marketers in a base monetary market losses interest in a given currency, then its function as an instrument for business transaction will be dramatically diminished. This episode will open door to the introduction of foreign currencies in a local transactions.

In this case, international currencies specifically dollars and pounds will displaced local naira in trading, commercialization and transaction on consumer market level. This scenario has already started happening with naira. Nigerians are now more interested in dollars than in naira. Even using dollar as an indicator to measure and deduce the price and value of a commodity in the supposedly naira dominated sphere. This implies that dollars and pounds are acting as a’ gold reserve’ for naira.

The Niger Delta Cauldron

By Julius Oweh
The recent bombing of crude oil and gas pipelines in some communities in Warri South West local council of Delta State has once again raised the ugly spectre of militancy and the threat it poses to the economy. Coming at time when the price of crude oil is nose-diving and the resultant dwindling revenue, those responsible for the pipeline bombings are the very enemies of the nation.

(pix: Vanguard)

No matter the degree of grievances and given the generous amnesty programme of the federal government, these criminals must be sanctioned according to the relevant laws of the nation. And this was the theme worked on by the presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina while appealing to the community leaders to tell the government the whereabouts of such people and that it was no use shielding them.

This is how Adesina couched his appeal: "Ijaw communities need not fear. What they can rather do is to hand over culprits hiding in their midst to the authorities. If they have identified those who blew up pipelines, and who are taking refuge in their communities, as good citizens, they should hand them over to the law enforcement agents." This is the civilized and best approach to the matter and it subtracts very much from patriotism for some people using jaundiced reasons to justify the blowing up of the pipelines, the economic lifeline of the nation.

Boko Haram Is About Human Lives, Not Territories

By Ahmad Salkida

NIGERIA has been known to place a deplorable value on the lives of her citizens. It seems to run in the veins of successive administrations. And none has been more disturbing than the inclination to celebrate the much hyped technical defeat of Boko Haram over the continual massacre of defenceless citizens in the war-ravaged Northeast region of Nigeria as well as in camps holding numerous distressed Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

Add caption

Yes, ‘Boko Haram or the ‘Islamic’ State West Africa Provence (ISWAP) as they preferred to be called, may no longer lash out and hold territories as it used to, but this should not be held up as a victory by Nigerian officials who proudly celebrate their “technical defeat” of the group. The group still operates and kills at will in these areas. Is it the priority of government to protect deserted territories from being reoccupied by Boko Haram or, end further massacres and sufferings visited on civilian populations in the region? If the two are one and the same, then, Nigeria and the rest of the West African countries confronted with the Boko Haram conundrum are years from celebrating any victory.

Apparently, Boko Haram’s priority is not to spare the lives of the people in the communities they overrun in the Lake Chad area. They have come to realise the hard way that, it is rather implausible to enforce their model of the Sharia on the kaffirs, which is how they view the larger Nigerian society. Why, then, are government officials focusing on the diminished expanse of territories under the group’s control as an indication of a war won and settled?

Restructure NERC Now!

...Speaking For Power System Engineers In The Nigerian Power Sector

By Idowu Oyebanjo

Power System Engineers have always maintained that the gains of the privatisation process cannot be felt except if conscious effort is made to involve qualified Power Systems experts to lead the course. The most recent addition to this urgent call or advice to a nation in darkness is the one from Engineer Otis Anyaeji, the current president and council chairman of the Nigerian Society of Engineers on why and how the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) should be restructured. 

*Fashola, Minister of Power 

Engineer Otis Anyaeji, in his interview with Tajudeen Suleiman in this month's TELL Magazine on why and how the government should restructure NERC has this to say:

"They just have to appoint an Engineer as Chairman, an Engineer each to regulate generation, transmission, system operation, distribution and marketing. That is to say, five of the commissioners must be Engineers while the other two can come from support services"

I cannot express it better!

One should praise the courage and devotion towards the revamping of the electricity industry in Nigeria by Lawyers and Economists who tried their best in the last ten years as Commissioners of NERC. However, they should have known that Law is in no way relevant to the management of electricity business especially one that is in the kind of chaos the NESI is. Advanced economies whose models are copied hook, line and sinker, have had stable electricity for decades before toying with Lawyers and Economists to manage electricity business. When did we lose our collective senses?

Only Power System Engineers who know their onions can save NESI, of course with a few lawyers and economists just for mere guidance. Power System is a unique field. The greatest damage done was to put Lawyers and Economists as Commissioners in numbers greater than Power Engineers, because, try as you may, you will move in circles. There will be no electricity. It is a career that some have spent their years to pursue, how easily can it then be replaced by those who pursued a different career running away from the almighty equations of physics and mathematics back in the days. 

How Not to Defend Buhari

By Moses E. Ochonu

There is a roving, seemingly ubiquitous army of Nigerians who have appointed themselves defenders of President Buhari. Unfortunately, by employing offensive and ineffective logics and tactics, these fanatical supporters of the president are doing more reputational harm than good to their hero, and turning away compatriots who would otherwise be willing to give the president a fair hearing on the mounting disappointments with his administration.

*Buhari 

Yesterday, I saw an update on my Facebook timeline with the following words: “if Jonathan had won, the dollar would be exchanging for N1000.” This was apparently advanced to counter the criticism of the naira’s current free fall under the confused monetary policy of this administration.

Where does one begin on this fanatically blind, impulsive defence of Buhari? First of all, that statement begins from a premise of absence, which is a no-no in logic. Jonathan did not win, so we do not and cannot know what would have happened to the naira had he won. That belongs in the realm of known unknowns, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld.

Historians call this counterfactual logic or argument. And, by the way, since when did Jonathan become the baseline of comparison for the author(s) of this Facebook update?

Second, it is a defence that slyly attempts to divert our attention away from the current Forex reality, which is that under Buhari the naira has lost about 40 percent of its value against the dollar in the parallel market. We can debate the extent to which this is the fault of the fiscal and monetary policies of the president, but that is a separate conversation.

Third, the defence is premised on a negative — that is, the fact that the dollar does NOT (yet) exchange for N1000, instead of on the fact that it DOES exchange for N360, which is about N150 more than it exchanged under Jonathan. In this warped reasoning, we should only start complaining about Buhari’s monetary policies when the dollar begins to exchange for more than N1000!

Was Lai Mohammed The Man For The Job?

*Lai Mohammed

By Ochereome Nnanna

In 1996, when the first phase of the Liberian civil war was ending, one of the warlords, Brigadier General Yormie Johnson (who personally killed former dictator, the late President Samuel Doe) wrote a pamphlet where he recorded his random musings about the war and his philosophical attitudes to some issues connected thereto. He titled the book: The Gun That Liberates Should Not Rule.

His argument is that a liberator’s role is to remove the problem and then give way to those who have the capacity to correct it. If the gun that liberates mounts the throne, it will turn the liberator into a dictator. While most of the warlords who drove away Doe from power (such as Charles Taylor) jostled for leadership, Johnson simply came to Lagos to cool his heels, perhaps, his own way of walking his talk. His postulations were later proved right, because Charles Taylor went on to become an even deadlier dictator than Doe and today, answers for his crimes at the Hague.

However, there are those who would fiercely disagree with Johnson’s argument. They would ask: What is the point of putting your hide on the line to drive away the perceived source of a nation’s problems if you cannot pick the courage to show you can do better? The tendency of most people who participate in getting rid of an entrenched ruling class is to entertain the feeling of legitmate entitlement to be part of the government that replaces it. Let’s face it: The 2015 presidential election was historic. The removal of a ruling party from power through the polls rather than through the gun barrel was hitherto seen as an impossibility in our political cosmos. But it happened.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed was the voice of the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which performed the feat of dethroning the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). You and I know that during elections, the truth is usually forced on a compulsory leave by all contestants. What remain are cleverly dressed-up falshood, hyperboles, false promises, false statistics, angelic characterisation of mere mortals and their dressing up in borrowed robes, diversion of attention from things that matter and the playing up of inanities to fool the gullible voter; in short, PROPAGANDA and its sly accoutrements.

Budget 2016: Zero Brianed Concoction

 By Magnus Onyibe

To save face, it is the case that something or somebody must be blamed whenever something goes awry with a project or policy in a public or corporate sector organization. That explains why, Zero Based Budgeting, ZBB, which is the latest policy innovation of government aimed at arresting corruption in the public sector, is the ‘fall guy’ of budget 2016, as it were.

*President Buhari presents the 2016 Appropriation to the National Assembly 

To douse the tension raised by the unsavory discoveries in the proposed 2016 appropriation bill, the Budget and National planning minister, Udoma Udo Udoma, has opted like a good lieutenant to shield President Muhammadu Buhari from the darts being thrown at him as a result of the unfolding budget fiasco.

With ZBB being held up as the culprit, Minister Udoma is absolved from blame; President Buhari is protected and the civil servants are covered, but the citizens are suffering untold hardships as the budget which calls for greater scrutiny, is now bogged down at the National Assembly, NASS, much longer than the initial February deadline.

Legislators who are reneging on their earlier pledge of speedy passage of the 2016 appropriation bill before the end of February are justified in their decision. This is because the chaff has to be sieved from the seed of the highly bastardized budget to allow the long suffering Nigerian masses enjoy optimum benefits of the resources of the country whose potentials have remained in pendency.

Assuming the complexity of ZBB truly is the cause of the disaster that has befallen budget 2016, is ZBB also responsible for the shoddy, if not shady manner in which the budget was sneaked out of NASS for amendment ostensibly by the presidential adviser on National Assembly, Senator Ita Enang? How about the discovery by the committee on judiciary that the provision for Investment and Securities Tribunal, IST, in the 2016 budget is exactly a replication of the 2015 document? Is what happened to the IST budget not evidence of the continuity of the erstwhile envelope pushing budget system said to have been replaced in the 2016 budget with ZBB which compels creating a budget from ground zero?

Aside the discovery of about N10bn as fictitious provision for a strange budget head in Education Ministry, legislators have also rejected the same ministry’s budget as being completely different from what Mr President presented to the parliament.

Buhari: Time To Change Strategy

By Sunny Ikhioya

Strategy is the path, course or way we choose to attain our goals. There are many strategies. What succeeds in one clime may not in another. We have not been adopting the right strategies to the challenges facing this country and that is why we are still adrift. What are the goals and vision of Nigeria as a nation? It is a united, peaceful, strong and prosperous nation. How close are we to attaining these goals? Very far, the reason is that we keep applying the same remedy to the same problem without success and successive regimes have been guilty of this.

*Buhari

The present government is threading the same path and will get the same result unless it re-directs its course. Not a few of us are agreed of the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari represents the best hope for the stabilization of this country, at this point in our history. This is why his coming was greeted with general acceptance from every part of the country.

Even President Goodluck Jonathan’s trouble shooter, Chief E K Clark did a u-turn and welcomed his coming. There was relative peace in the land from the south to the north in the first two months after the elections; even the dreaded Boko Haram was silent. Nine months into the government, disillusionment is beginning to set in and pockets of resistance are beginning to spring up here and there. How did the regime squander the goodwill it received then? Will it continue to hold the past government responsible for its inactions? Don’t we know already that the past government performed woefully? Is that not why they were voted out? Were we not promised change and no less? President Muhammadu Buhari The principal thing in the movement forward for this country is peace and tranquility, we can only get that if we are united with a common purpose, every time this country has moved forward in terms of development, there has been almost unanimity of purpose by all. Before the coming of the military, the regions were run autonomously and each progressed accordingly.

The Yakubu Gowon years, backed by oil money also witnessed a period of happiness for Nigerians, even the devastation caused by the civil war was ameliorated to a great extent but outside these two regimes, what have we seen? The enthronement of mediocrity by successive rulers: ethnicity, cronyism, sectional interests, religious acrimonies and glaring inequitable distribution of our common wealth, through shameless manipulations and rationalisations. Let us not deceive ourselves, until we address the challenge of ‘oneness’ in this country, we will make no progress. No economic miracle can address that, even if you bring in the best brains, the people must be willing to be led. Nine months after, why are the pockets of resistance on the rise? The government must avoid situations where dissidents manifest.

It is always better to talk than to allow them to go underground. Ben Ezeamalu writing in the February 1 edition of Sahara Reporters quoted Max Abrahms thus; “History shows that terrorist groups are extra ordinarily difficult to snuff out once they have reached a critical mass. The truth is that terrorism is very easy to perpetrate.” The solution to checking insurgency is openness, equity and proper rule of law. When you allow the law to take its course naturally, without any interference, the people will be open to your intentions but when the law courts have made pronouncements and you use wisdom and logic to do otherwise, then it is obvious that you are only adding fuel to the already ignited fire.

President Muhammadu Buhari is still suffused with the military culture. Unfortunately, with what the world has come to realise, extreme force does not give you results. We must begin to apply very effective means of communication between the government and various interest groups. Government decisions must not be seen to be biased or favoring particular interests. Speaking in Addis Ababa as reported in the Vanguard of February 1, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari said; “The theft of the oil market by some Nigerians who happen to live there who feel that the oil belongs to them and not the country is an irritating thing for those of us who participated in the civil war for 30 months in which at least 2million Nigerians were killed”.

Such a statement is inappropriate at this point in our history, where various ethnic groups are clamouring for their freedom to determine how their God given resources are managed. Is Buhari telling us that the north participated in the civil war because of the oil in the Niger Delta? Before then, what was the formula for revenue sharing accruing to the nation? With the sacrifices of the Niger Delta to the development of this country, they surely deserve a better treatment, instead of spiteful and disdainful comments that will further incite the people. Why are the oil wells ceded to people from other parts of the country and not indigenes of the place? Why can’t the people enjoy the fruits of their sufferings, that is fruits from the environmental degradation of their land, severe health risks and pillaging by international oil companies and the federal and state governments? Such are the causes of insurgency in the land.

The solution to Nigeria’s problem lies in a total restructuring of the system. First do away with the over bloated and wasteful central government and allow the states and regions to determine their resources. They will then be free to collaborate with whoever and whatever neighbouring states that they deem fit. We should not take the issue of insurgency lightly, at least the Boko Haram has shown us enough of that. You can only look at Iraq, Syria and Libya to see a vivid picture of what happens when insurgents are allowed to thrive. 

As I was rounding up this piece, news just came that a foreign vessel has been hijacked in the Nigerian waters, this has not happened for some years now. Are we going back to the dark days in the south south waters? Do we have the wherewithal to contain the Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants and Biafran separatists simultaneously, if push turns to shove? Our strategists must analyze the situation carefully and advise the government correctly. History has shown that you achieve more with talking than to war-war, without peace and unity; there cannot be any economic or political progress.

Sunny Ikhioya, a commentator on public issues.

Nigeria’s Most bogus And Fraudulent Budget

By Femi Aribasala

When the incredible issue of a missing/counterfeited 2016 budget arose some weeks ago, I was expecting to hear from the All Progressive Congress (APC) that Goodluck Jonathan was to blame. Surprisingly, that did not happen. Instead, blame was traded between the presidency and the national assembly, seemingly forgetting that both organs of government are now controlled by the same APC.

The stock-in-trade of this government is to blame Goodluck Jonathan for everything. If there is petrol shortage: Jonathan is to blame. If there are power cuts, Jonathan is to blame. If there Boko Haram killings, Jonathan is to blame.

This government has apparently not yet heard the aphorism that: “the buck stops with the president.” Nine months down the road from his inauguration, the president continues to pass the buck to Goodluck Jonathan. Then came the defining issue of the 2016 budget.

Mr. President did not just send the budget to the National Assembly, he presented it himself with great fanfare and bells and whistles. This was supposed to be his signature proposal. With seven months squandered ostensibly trying to get a cabinet of saints and angels who turned out to be the same old same old, many with corruption allegations hanging over their heads; the budget was expected to provide redemption for the government.

*President Buhari presenting the 2016 Budget

It would provide a bold new start to the government’s much-heralded “change” with a N6 trillion “zero-based” proposal that would defy Nigeria’s austere economic circumstances, and put us firmly on the launch-pad to economic recovery and diversification.

This makes it all the more perplexing that the 2016 budget has turned out to be the biggest blunder of this government in a catalogue of blunders that has now come to define it. I am still waiting for those who voted for APC to admit they blundered royally. In their blunder, they have given us a government that keeps going from one blunder to another.

We did not need Olisa Metuh, the opposition spokesman conveniently padlocked by the EFCC, to expose the blunders in the 2016 budget proposals. Different government spokesmen have competed to distance themselves from it as much as possible. Charles Dafe, Director of Information, Ministry of National Planning, blamed the blunders in the budget on the government’s insufficient knowledge of the zero-based budgeting. Who is to be held responsible for this ignorance? Surprisingly, Dafe forgot to mention Goodluck Jonathan.

Isaac Adewole, the Minister of Heath, also forgot to blame Goodluck Jonathan. Instead, he maintained: “rats invaded Nigeria Budget documents and smuggled in foreign items.” You may well ask who was supposed to buy rat poison. Did Goodluck Jonathan forget to hand it over on his departure?

Lai Mohammed, the past-master at blaming Goodluck Jonathan for everything, could not blame Jonathan for once. The man who promised to hold 365 carnivals in 365 days in 2016, and was awarded a budget allocation bigger than the Ministry of Agriculture, openly disowned the government’s “budget of change.” Apparently, someone had gone ahead to change a number of the items in it; much in the spirit of the APC’s highfalutin change mantra. Among them, the N5 million proposed for buying computers for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Film and Video Censors Board mysteriously became N398 million.

Prof. Pat Utomi @ 60

A Quintessential Scholar and Entrepreneur!

*Utomi

By Jossy Nkwocha

Since the middle 80s when I covered the Industrial Sector for Vanguard Newspapers as a rookie reporter, I have always seen Prof. Pat Utomi as a man to emulate. He was then the Chief Operating Officer and Acting Managing Director of Volkswagen Nigeria Limited. He was only 30 when he assumed that responsibility in 1986. That was after spending few months as the company’s Assistant General Manager, Corporate Affairs.

These past 30 years, therefore, I have tried to study this phenomenon called Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, who was born on 6th February, 1956 to Ibussa parents of Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State.

He is a mentor and role model for many Nigerian youths, many of whom have benefited from his youth programmes at the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL), Victoria Island, Lagos, which he founded. The Centre also celebrates people who have achieved high successes in various areas of life, and uses them as a case study for younger ones to learn and grow.

Pat Utomi is also a quintessential scholar – right from his undergraduate days at the Jackson School of Journalism, Mass communications department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he graduated in 1977; to his graduate school at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, where he obtained his Ph.D, and later co-founded the Lagos Business School and Pan Atlantic University; and appointed professor of political economy.

Sharpeville, Nigeria

By Chuks Iloegbunam

There are two stories to jump off from:

1) Sharpeville, South Africa; March 21, 1960.

A group of between 5,000 and 10,000 people converged on the local police station in the township of Sharpeville, offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their passbooks. The Sharpeville police were not completely unprepared for the demonstration, as they had already been forced to drive smaller groups of more militant activists away the previous night.

By 10:00, a large crowd had gathered, and the atmosphere was initially peaceful and festive. Fewer than 20 police officers were present in the station at the start of the protest. Later the crowd grew to about 20,000, and the mood was described as “ugly”, prompting about 130 police reinforcements, supported by four Saracen armoured personnel carriers. The police were armed with firearms, including Sten submachine guns and Lee-Enfield rifles. There was no evidence that anyone in the gathering was armed with anything other than rocks.

F-86 Sabre jets and Harvard Trainers approached to within a hundred feet of the ground, flying low over the crowd in an attempt to scatter it. The protestors responded by hurling a few stones and menacing the police barricades. Tear gas proved ineffectual, and policemen elected to repel these advances with their batons. At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protestor, resulting in a scuffle, and the crowd surged forward. The shooting began shortly thereafter. The official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children. Many were shot in the back as they turned to flee.” (Quoted from Wikipedia.)

*Herbert Ekwe-ekwe 

2) Onitsha; Aba, Nigeria; December 2015 – February 2016.

“The current orgy of massacres of Biafrans by the Nigerian occupation genocidist military, begun on Wednesday 2 December 2015 in Onicha, has continued unabated. On Wednesday 9 February 2016, the genocidists positioned in Aba, commercial city in southeast Biafra, shot dead 10 Biafrans attending a prayer session at the National High School, Aba, for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, freedom broadcaster of Radio Biafra and leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Vanguard, Lagos, Friday 12 February 2016), illegally detained by the Nigerian regime in a secret police facility in Abuja since mid-October. Scores of other demonstrators were seriously wounded in the slaughter and several others seized and taken away by the genocidists. This massacre is the second within three weeks in Aba. On Monday 18 January 2016, another marauding genocidist corps gunned down eight peaceful Biafrans demonstrating for Nnamdi Kanu’s release and the restoration of Biafran independence (Vanguard, Lagos, Tuesday 19 January 2016).”

(Quoted from a report by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe in http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-current-orgy-of-massacres-of.html )

Nigeria: An Opposition In Tatters

 

By Paul Utho

“We’re Our Own Dragons As Well As Our Own Heroes, And We Have To Rescue Ourselves From Ourselves’’ – Tom Robbins
Following the results of the 2015 general election wherein the All Progressive Congress (APC) swept the polls, Nigerians expected the opposing political parties to present a stiff opposition, challenge the APC on governance, the delivery of dividends of democracy to the people and to hold them accountable on their electoral promises.
Nine months down the line after the APC took over as the ruling party, Nigerians are yet to see any real opposition from the other political parties, except the APC opposing itself in most cases. While the APC continues in its policy somersaults, internal party wrangling and denial of campaign promises to Nigerians, the other political parties are on sabbatical and are yet to come to terms with the enormous responsibility expected of an opposition in a peculiar democracy like ours.
The main opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) which had been in power for the greater part of our democratic experience seems to be the major culprit in playing the role of an opposition and meeting the expectations of millions of Nigerians who not only voted them in the last election but have continued to keep faith with the party. Instead of dusting itself off the defeat of the last election and consolidating on its recent successes in the Bayelsa gubernatorial election and Supreme Court judgments on Rivers, Akwa Ibom & Taraba State election tribunal cases, the PDP has been bedevilled with one crisis or the other.

The Dollar Hunt In Nigeria

By Aniebo Nwamu

By this year’s end, I expect Nigeria’s foreign exchange hawkers to sell a dollar for more than N500. If oil price fails to climb up, and the Central Bank maintains its current policy, the dollar may hit N1, 000 before the end of 2017. Is my prediction frightening?

 

*Buhari

I’m not perturbed. The CBN is perhaps not perturbed. The rates I’ve quoted are found only in the black market; in the white market, a dollar is just N197. Last year, the then opposition APC promised to make $1 equal to N1. To fulfil its campaign promise, the ruling APC should wait for some time before applying former CBN governor Chukwuma Soludo’s redenomination idea by striking out three zeros.

There is no better route to take now. Rather than hint of an impending restriction of forex for medicals and school fees, as it did last week, the apex bank should act immediately. It’s time to exclude ALL items from forex allocations. Perhaps only then would Nigerians come to their senses and begin to look inwards.

The dollar hunt has taken hawkers and bureaux de change operators to Togo, Benin and even Ghana. They won’t get enough of it. Not until the Nigerian government reverses itself on forex allocations to criminals and importers of toothpicks.

And that’s what I dread most: the lack of continuity of policies. It’s one of Nigeria’s greatest problems. In this space, a fortnight ago, I canvassed supporting importers of medicines, agric equipment and fuel with forex at the official rate. Now, I eat my words. Ban them all! Let everyone that desires dollars, euros and pounds source them at “autonomous” markets.  I say so because I know what Nigerians can do. Anyone who gets forex at the official rate is likely to divert it to the parallel market: it is far more profitable to make 100 per cent profit instantly than import machinery for business, with all the risks involved.

Buhari Sacks 20 Heads Of Federal Parastals And Agencies

Press Release 

1. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has approved the immediate disengagement of the following Chief Executive Officers of the underlisted Parastatals, Agencies and Commissions.

2.​He has also approved that the most senior officers in the Parastatals, Agencies and Councils oversee the activities of the organizations pending the appointment of substantive Chief Executive Officers.

(i) Nigerian Television Authority (NTA)
(ii) Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN)
(iii) Voice of Nigeria (VON)
(iiii) News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
(v) National Broadcasting Commission (NBC)
(vi) Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF)
(vii) New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)
(viii) Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF)
(ix) Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board(NCDMB)
(x) Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN)
(xi) Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund)
(xii) National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)
(xiii) Petroleum Equalization Fund
(xiiii) Nigeria Railways Corporation (NRC)
(xv) Bureau of Public Procurements (BPP)
(xvi) Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE)
(xvii) Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA)
(xviii) Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON)
(xix) National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC)
(xx) Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC)
(xxi) Bank of Industry (BoI)
(xxii) National Centre for Women Development (NCWD)
(xxiii) National Orientation Agency (NOA)
(xxiiii) Industrial Training Fund (ITF)
(xxv) Nigerian Export-Import Bank
(xxvi) National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic In Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP)

3. Mr. President, however, thanked them for their invaluable services to the Nation and wishes them well in their future endeavours.

(Signed)
Engr. Babachir David Lawal
Secretary to the Government of the Federation

As NERC Introduces New Electricity Tariffs In Nigeria

By Idowu Oyebanjo

The much talked about increase in electricity tariffs became operational with effect from 1st of February 2016. As consumers brace up for the new tariff regime, there are issues worth noting which will determine the sustainability of the power reform process.

The main focus on the issue of cost reflectivity has been the Distribution Companies (Discos) because they act as the conduit pipe for the collection of monies to be shared by all the stakeholders involved in the provision of energy for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to consumers. In effect, they are the cash boxes of the entire electricity value chain. Although 25% of collected revenue is theirs to keep, 60% goes to the generating companies (Gencos), 11% to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), while the remaining 4% goes to other stakeholders like NERC, NBET etc.

One of the main issue is that the cost reflective tariff is hinged on a recent performance agreement reached between Discos and NERC. Given that the new Commissioners for NERC have not been appointed, albeit a care-taker committee of career officers have been running the show, it is clear that the enforcement of the service level agreements (SLAs) in the performance as agreed will lag behind. There should be a tracking of performance right from the word Go!

But the Discos cannot perform any miracles at all. The investment to be made is huge and will take many years before the overall impact can be felt. They cannot fix the technical losses in the wires and transformers from the monthly bills collected from unimpressed consumers who are likely to display a recalcitrant attitude towards the payment of their bills. At the moment, Discos have huge debts to finance as many of the technical partners have left for lack of liquidity in the sector even after two years. The current 187 billion naira deficit is a case in point. This deficit has the potential to be recurrent year after year if power system engineers are not allowed to lead the privatisation process. Economists and Lawyers will never have a clue. Technically speaking, the contract between a Disco with the federal government is no longer valid once the technical partner has abandoned the partnership. Don't forget the sale of government's asset was based, in part, on the technical capability of the so call "technical partner". Nigeria needs to get it right this time having wasted so much resources on the power sector reform of which time is the most invaluable.

Ghana Is A Tragic Country!

By Ibrahim Hardi

When I look at Ghana today, many questions come to my mind. The biggest question I find is that in a country so rich and blessed with so much natural resources, why is Ghana ranked among the poorest countries in Africa? Why are Ghanaians still wallowing in abject poverty while tourists flock in our country on a daily basis to view of the beauty of our natural resources? Why do we have foreign investors making lots of money and take the money to enrich their countries? These same investors employ our citizens and subject them to hard labour under poor working conditions and yet underpay them.

I have come to understand that CORRUPTION is the cause of all this tragedy. Corruption is something that we talk about, it is something that we complain about, it is something whose negative impact we recognise, it is something that even the corrupt acknowledge is a bad thing. But the tragedy is that those involved in it love it and those who are not involved in it accommodate it. Our level of tolerance for corruption in Ghana is amazing.

It seems to be in the nature of Ghanaians to jail small thieves and elect the great ones into public office. Today the richest men and women are those who occupy public office. Our politicians will not rest until they have houses in which they will never live in. They have vehicles which they will never drive. They have beds of gold which they will never sleep in because they have no sleep anyway. They buy food which they will never eat because they long lost the appetite.

The Mass Murder of Unarmed Civilians In Aba

 ...An Attack On Human Rights And Democracy

By Tochukwu EZEOKE (Maazi)

We the Igbo Ekunie Initiative, IEI, comprised of individuals in Nigeria and the Diaspora; for the umpteenth time unequivocally condemn the heinous, barbaric and shameful massacre once again of peaceful pro-Biafra protesters who were holding prayers in a school premises in Aba by agents of Nigeria’s infamous army and police force. Such cowardly killing of unarmed protesters exercising their fundamental rights to peaceful protests only goes to confirm the globally acclaimed notoriety of Nigeria’s disoriented security services that more often than not, turn their guns on the hapless and defenceless citizens they are trained and paid to protect.

That the Nigerian army and police that have not acquitted itself in the fight against Boko Haram and other security challenges will always so callously murder unarmed civilians under the watch and orders of President Buhari only validates the widely held notion that Nigeria has finally returned to full blown dictatorship and tyranny. Consequently, the nation is once again facing human rights violations, repression and tyranny at a scale that far supersedes what obtained under erstwhile military dictators. No nation whose security services murders unarmed innocent civilians who are engaged in peaceful protests and free expression both of which constitute some of the most basic attributes of democracy can still call itself by any definition a democracy.

We note that while Buhari campaigned on change; his idea of change has turned out to mean repression, extra judicial detentions, mass killing of unarmed civilians and other human rights abuses that characterise the dark past Nigerians laboured to escape from. It is even more shameful that while Buhari in the course of addressing the 26th AU summit in Addis Ababa urged “African nations to put down their guns and stop spending scarce resources killing our children and inflicting unspeakable horrors and unimaginable hardship on our brothers and sisters,” yet, under his watch, Nigeria has become a killing field where the guns are blazing, the army and police are killing peaceful protesters and inflicting the same unspeakable horrors and unimaginable hardship on fellow citizens that he condemned in his AU speech.

We submit that a president who has no inclination for peace or dialogue and who since inception of his administration has been busy widening the theatres of conflict with killings and extra judicial detentions goes abroad to preach peace only, in the vain hope of impressing and deceiving a global audience. But the world is wiser and the mounting human rights violations of the administration are increasingly subject to international scrutiny. We therefore, use this opportunity to again call on the International community; the United Nations, Human rights watch, AU, Amnesty international, the European Union, the US state department and others to take note of Buhari’s increasing human rights violations and decimation of democratic rights and principles. We warn that the constant killing of unarmed pro-Biafra protesters in cold blood is a recipe for disaster that could at some point force the Biafra groups to legitimately seek self defence and thus conflict/insurgency for which president Buhari, the COAS Tukur Buratai, the IGP Solomon Arase, the police commissioners and army commanders of respective units where such killings have taken place should be held responsible.

While we continue to pursue the indictment of all those implicated in such heinous crimes against humanity within International statutes, we urge governors of the respective states, the national assembly and state assembly members to uphold the tenets of democracy and speak out against tyranny and the egregious violation of the fundamental rights of their constituents by the army and police.

Signed:
Maazi Tochukwu Ezeoke
President Igbo Ekunie Initiative
Twitter: @MaaziEzeoke
+44 7748612933
Mr Lawrence Nwobu
Secretary Igbo Ekunie Initiative