Nigeria: Time To Clean Up The Budget Process

 By Tunde Bamise

It is budget season again for Nigeria. In November, President Bola Tinubu assented to the 2023 Supplementary Budget, and, a few weeks later, presented the 2024 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly. Naturally, this has been followed by a lot of debate and conversation about the details of the budget.

President Tinubu, in his presentation speech to the National Assembly, described it as “Our Budget of Renewed Hope; a budget which will go further than ever before in cementing macro-economic stability, reducing the deficit, increasing capital spending and allocation to reflect the eight priority areas of this Administration.”

Time Ticks For Nigerian Ruling Elite

 By Suyi Ayodele 

I take a bet. The judgement of God and of the people is nigh! Check your neighbourhood. For weeks, and in some cases, months, there is no electricity. But in your houses, you run your generator. Neighbours come around to charge their phones, rechargeable lamps and what have you in your compound. How do you tell them that you are not part of the oppressors? What about water? As early as 5 am, neighbours are already on the queue in front of your house to fetch water. They don't have the boldness to knock on your gate to wake you up. They know that they are at your mercy, and so, they wait until you wake up to turn on the tap for them. Many of these people grew up with functional water corporations and dams in their towns and villages.

 *Tinubu and Shettima

We are already in the festive period. How many Nigerians have what to eat during this season? How many can afford a bag of rice? How many will be able to buy clothes for their children and wards? How many are already calculating the school fees for the second term which begins by the first week of January 2024? When you consider these, you will realise that there is no time to postpone fixing Nigeria. The elite just have to fix Nigeria now or Nigerians will fix them, and permanently too. The masses are like the sheep. Those are the most gentle of all animals. But they have the most poisonous teeth ever! You can read me again. Sheep have teeth. Just pray they don't bite you with them. There is no anti-rabies vaccine that can cure that. 

Akpabio’s Uncommon Birthday Celebration

 By Ugoji Egbujo

Akpabio celebrated his birthday in a stadium. That must be a sign of his stature. The economic situation didn’t deter him. He gathered his people in tens of thousands to eat and drink. The people are poor but their leaders are rich on their behalf.

*Akpabio

A two-term governor, former minister and now senate president. It can’t get larger. Ordinarily, one government or the other would pick up the bill in recognition of his services to the nation. After all, such a political Iroko must have paid his dues. As Flavor, the musician, would say, “How much is money”? 

Solving National Leadership Problem In Nigeria

 By Chiedu Okoye

Nigeria, a multi-ethnic country, is a nation of nations with more than 250 ethnic and linguistic groups making up its geographical space and colonial contraption. It has not become an organic whole. The sad fact is that our past political leaders have failed to engender true peace and unity in Nigeria. The centrifugal forces of ethnicity and religion are tearing the nation apart.

*Buhari and Tinubu

Our past national leaders, both politicians and military rulers, could not harness our abundant natural resources such as limestone, tin-ore, bauxite, crude oil, and others, to leapfrog Nigeria to the acme of economic and technological advancement. Instead, the nation is trapped in the morass of national underdevelopment. Nigeria has been outpaced by less-endowed countries in the areas of economic and technological development. Think about Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan.

An Itinerant Jurist, An Unfinished Honeymoon And A Judicial Transaction

 By Chidi Odinkalu

Supreme Courts are places where lawyers and judges regularly encounter one another. On 17 November 2023, one of such encounters occurred, not in the regular halls of Nigeria’s Supreme Court in Abuja but in its Mosque.

There, Abdulaziz Waziri, a Justice of Appeal wedded Zaynab Bashir, a Judge of Nigeria’s National Industrial Court. The wedding reception followed thereafter at a well-appointed venue in up-market Maitama, in Abuja.

Justice Waziri has been nothing if not busy this season. For his duty station in this election petition appeal season, Justice Waziri was stationed in Jos, Plateau State, where the Justices of Appeal, in the state from which the President of the Court of Appeal hails, have been busy re-writing the results of the elections, taking seats from one party and generously handing them to another party on the bases of jurisprudence that can most charitably be described as extraordinarily specious. 

Tinubu, Appoint Diplomats, Not Politicians To Run Our Missions

 By Owei Lakemfa

The culture in Nigeria is that after Presidential Elections, politicians, hangers-on, propagandists, relatives and a rainbow of persons gather like ants over sugar. Primarily, the gathering is to partake of the honey which is how they see the emergent government.

*Tinubu 

In fact, for many, elections are the best investment they can make, and they need to quickly recoup the funds invested. The Tinubu administration has so far, exhibited the symptoms of that national disease.

Who Will Tell The Chief Justice?

By Chidi Odinkalu

Nigeria’s Supreme Court held a special session on 27 November 2023 to formally usher in a new legal year. It provides an occasion for a retrospective on the performance of Nigeria’s judiciary by its leaders in a season of unprecedented levels of public angst over the political weaponisation of judges and a set piece moment to compare notes on the dysfunctions that afflict the judicial system. The outcome was interesting to the point of anti-climactic.

*CJN Olukayode Ariwoola

On that occasion, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola, also administered the oath on 57 new entrants into the coven of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN). One of the new SANs was born in 1981. Two years later, in 1983, his dad, a lawyer, began proceedings against Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Ltd, a multinational company in the hydrocarbons sector, in Warri. At the time, Warri was part of Bendel State, which was created by the military a mere seven years earlier in 1976.

Addressing Youth Unemployment In Nigeria

 By Sirajaddeen Bello

Among Nigeria’s many socioeconomic challenges, one issue stands out as the biggest threat, casting a gloomy shadow over both the present and the future. That issue is youth unemployment. It is a subject that elicits a head shake, and a sense of impending doom. But beyond the sombre tone, let me unravel the implications of this predicament and infuse a touch of hope into this  serious issue.

Youth unemployment in Nigeria isn’t just a problem; it’s an iceberg of colossal proportions. Picture some hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of youths (educated, bright young minds) stuck in a seemingly endless and almost fruitless game of job hunting— a game where there are fewer opportunities and a mammoth crowd of players. 

Respecting Diversity For The Sake Of Unity

 By Abachi Ungbo

The social media is routinely awash with acerbic comments that eloquently speak to the antagonistic relationship that exists amongst Nigerians. They come with heavy religious and ethnic connotations. The situation now amounts to a declaration of war against the country’s unity. The warriors in the battlefield are preponderantly youth which clearly places the country’s future in a quandary. Sadly, moderating voices are few and far between. 

Nigeria is an intriguing weave of cultures, faiths and tribes, constituting a huge population that should ordinarily serve the union. Essentially, its rich diversity holds an abounding potential for collective progress and development. 

Nigeria: The Poor Shall Not Die!

 By Sunny Awhefeada

Delta State born gospel singer, Harold Ikuku, re­leased a popular album that was the rave of the moment in the tough and horri­ble years that the 1990s were. The song’s motif is “I shall not die”. Although a gospel song, it reso­nated with both Christians and non-Christians as a result of its affirmative message of survival in the face of brutal economic and psychological assault on the citizenry. 

It was this song that a man sang with so much gusto on hearing of the new pump price of petrol about three weeks ago, the second of such astronomical increase within two months of the present regime. When Presi­dent Bola Tinubu said, in his in­augural speech, that petroleum subsidy was gone, his handlers must have thought that it was a masterstroke in view of the fact that petrol subsidy had become an albatross for the Nigerian polity. 

Our Beloved Country Is Bleeding

 By Sunny Awhefeada

 I do not know why countries or na­tions are thought of in feminine forms (she/her). Perhaps, it is a strategy to endear us to the place of our nativity and create a bond, the kind that exists between a mother and her child. Growing up, we sang songs that endeared Nigeria to us. Our young and impressionable minds glowed with no­ble ideas to which our sonorous voices gave clarion utterances. Men and wom­en who lived generations before this era also thought of their place of birth in endearing terms and they went to war in defence of their homeland.

*President Tinubu and Senate President Akpabio

Empires and kingdoms rose and fell in battles to defend the homeland. Even Nigeria’s national anthem and pledge have mem­orable and endearing words to configure our allegiance and love for “our beloved country”.

As Gov Akeredolu Steps Aside

 By Dan Agbese

The centre did not quite fall out in Ondo State. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu has done the right thing even if reluctantly. He persuaded himself to end the needless crisis and take another medical leave and very reluctantly leave the state in the hands of the deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, as acting governor.

*Akeredolu 

The State House of Assembly has formally confirmed him in that position. This was the eventuality the governor had risked his health to fight. I join the people of Ondo State in heaving a huge sigh of relief. 

Taking Rocky Path Of Struggle With Kokori

 By Owei Lakemfa

I was a young Labour Reporter when I had my first encounters with Frank Ovie Kokori in 1984. He was a 41-year-old trade unionist who had been more of an industrial relations personnel. He had attended the University of Ibadan and worked with an industrial relations company owned by socialite and former trade unionist, Alhaji Babs Animashaun.

*Kokori 

The latter had set Kokori on a life-long path of trade unionism when he assigned him to service the now defunct British Petroleum Workers Union. When the house unions were reorganised in 1977 into industrial unions, the union he serviced was scrapped and infused into the new National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG.

COP28: Tinubu’s Hypocrisy On Climate Change

 By Olu Fasan

So, Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s new president, believes that climate change is a Nigerian problem after all. In fact, so much does he believe Nigeria has a climate-change problem that he led a delegation of 1,411 people to this year’s United Nations climate summit, COP28, which took place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from November 30 to December 12. Yet, just a few months ago, Tinubu was cynical and dismissive about climate-change mitigation in Nigeria.

*Tinubu with some members of the large Nigerian delegation to COP 28

In October last year, during the presidential election campaign, Tinubu spoke at the interactive session of the Arewa Joint Committee in Kaduna. Asked about climate change, he responded: “It’s a question of how you prevent a church rat from eating poisoned holy communion.” He then added: “We need to tell the West, if they don’t guarantee our finances, we are not going to comply with their climate change.”

Tinubu’s First Six Months: Redemption Way Or Road To Golgotha?

 By Kalu Okoronkwo

President Bola Tinubu’s assumption of office on May 29, 2023, marked a critical moment in Nigeria’s political landscape, evoking both expectations and scrutiny.  His landmark speech during his inauguration that brought about the much-touted oil subsidy removal was a turning point in the country’s economic policy.  This is because many perceived the issue of subsidy removal as a hard nut to crack hence previous administrations only paid lip service to it.

*Tinubu 

Six months in the life of a new administration is very much early day for a four- year tenure but the augury mirrors what lies ahead.

An unbiased and dispassionate assessment of Tinubu’s first six months in office can only return one verdict: it has bought unmitigated hardship and thrown more Nigerians into multidimensional poverty. Food inflation is at its highest ever that even a bulb of onion has become a gem stone to be pampered and cherished.

Tinubu Renewed Or Delayed Hope?

 By Dele Sobowale

“History does not repeat itself; man does” – Harvard Prof. Barbara Tuchman

My heart sank after reading the summary of the 2024 Budget and the promise by the Tinubu government to create a $1 trillion economy in ten years. Now, I am inclined to believe that Nigeria will never become the global economic power we yearn for as long as we continue to elect men seventy years and above as Presidents.

*Tinubu 

They all belong to the same generation making empty promises; thinking that they were inspiring their listeners.

All our Presidents, since 1999, including Jonathan, are far less informed about economics and social trends than many of their own citizens with good Master’s Degrees from reputable universities.

75 Years Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights

 By Chidi Odinkalu

On this day 75 years ago, on December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations”. Forty-eight of the 58 countries eligible voted to approve the Declaration. The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Soviet Union, South Africa, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia abstained, while Honduras and Yemen absented themselves from the vote altogether. There were no votes against its adoption.

  The previous day, on December 9, 1948, they had adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and just three and a half years earlier, in June 1945, 50 countries had signed the Charter of the United Nations establishing the foundations for a new global order at the end of a profoundly ruinous war. In the three years separating the adoption of the UN Charter from the Universal Declaration, more countries emerged to independence, including Korea, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan, Syria, and Vietnam. In the decade that followed, the cascade of decolonisation arrived Africa.

Journalism’s Future At Risk

 By Ray Ekpu

Last week my colleagues in the media industry bestowed on me the treasured trophy of honour twice, first on Thursday in Lagos and next on Friday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. The Lagos event was organised by the National body of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), led by its president, Mr. Chris Isiguzo.

About 20 of us were given what was elaborately called media icon awards. And the awardees included such a renowned journalist as Senator Bala Mohammed, Governor of Bauchi, a former minister and a former Senator, Mr. Henry Odukomaiya who in addition to being a well-known practitioner was also a creative manager of the newspaper business and Professor Ralph Akinfeleye, an eminent teacher of journalists, among others.

Methodist College Uzuakoli: 100 Years Of Excellence In Education

By Chima Mbubaegbu

On December 10, 2023, a thanksgiving service in the College Chapel will kick-start the  year-long centenary celebration of Methodist College, Uzuakoli (MCU), that will culminate in a week of activities in December 2024.

Why should this celebration matter to anyone other than MCU students and alumni?
It matters in this case because, established in 1923, MCU was the first secondary school in the present South East of Nigeria and the third or fourth, east of the Niger.

Henry Kissinger: A Curse On Africa, Asia And Latin America

 By Owei Lakemfa

Henry (Heinz) Alfred Kissinger, the most infamous United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, passed away  peacefully  at 100 on November 29, 2023 and is guaranteed a marked grave. Not so for the tens of thousands Africans, Latin Americans and Asians who experienced violent deaths in their youth and had no tomb stones in their names due to the policies formulated and implemented by Kissinger.

*Kissinger 

A prolific author, brilliant academic and highly cerebral intellectual, he, like his fellow German, Adolf Hitler, used his knowledge and skills to perpetuate unspeakable crimes against humanity.