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FG begins payment of ASUU’s withheld salaries
The Federal Government has commenced the payment of the withheld salaries of academics under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, PUNCH Online has learnt.
Multiple sources in the academic sector confirmed the development to our correspondent in Abuja on Monday.
The chairperson of ASUU at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Prof. Gbolahan Bolarin, who confirmed the development on the record, said, “Yes, it is true. Payment has started rolling in.”
President Bola Tinubu Tinubu had in October 2023 approved the release of four of the eight months’ ASUU withheld workers’ salaries.
The salaries were withheld when the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari invoked a ‘No Work, No Pay policy’ against some university-based unions that embarked on a strike that lasted eight months in 2022.
The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, recently said the government has increased the university workers’ salaries by 35 per cent.
The minister also said the government has granted autonomy to the universities by removing them from the Integrated Payment and Payroll Information System.
He added that the universities no longer need a waiver to recruit and fill vacancies.
These resolutions were reached through informal consultations with the unions based in the tertiary institutions, Mamman said
N47bn Debt: Electricity Distribution Company To Disconnect Presidential Villa, National Assembly, Ministry Of Finance, Others (Full List)
The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has issued a disconnection notice to 86 various government agencies and departments over outstanding electricity bills amounting to N47.1 billion.
The AEDC, in its notice issued on Monday, said the affected ministries, departments and agencies have ten days from the date of notice to pay up or be disconnected.
Some of those listed include the Presidential Villa, CBN Governor, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), several federal ministries, including the Ministry of Finance and state liaison offices in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The notice falls due on Wednesday, 28th February, 2024, according to the statement issued by the AEDC.
“The Abuja Electricity Distribution PLC is constrained to do this publication with the details of Government, Ministries, Departments and Agencies with long outstanding unpaid bills for services rendered to them through the provision of electricity supply in that our previous attempts to make them honour their obligations have not achieved the desired results.
“The relevant MDAs are hereby given notice that the AEDC shall after the expiration of 10 days from the date of this publication, that is, after Wednesday, 28th February, 2024, embark on the disconnection of our services to them until they discharge their obligations to us by paying their debts,” the notice read.
Yul Edochie’s daughter removes surname from social media account
Danielle Edochie, daughter of actor Yul Edochie, has removed her father’s surname from her Instagram account.
A check on her Instagram page on Monday, February 19 revealed that Edochie has been removed as her Instagram username and bio.
Danielle, formerly Danielle Yul Edochie, now bears Danielle Diana Dubem.
While it remains unclear why Danielle made the sudden decision, many have speculated that it is connected to her father’s actions on social media.
See screenshots below:
Yul unsettled the peace in his home in April 2022 when he announced he had married actress, Judy Austin Moghalu as his second wife and that they have a son together.
The drama heated up when the actor justified his marriage to Judy which led to backlash from fans, celebrities and his brothers who distanced themselves from the actor and his second wife.
On her part, Yul’s first wife May Yul-Edochie made it clear that she would not be cajoled into accepting her husband’s choice of polygamy.
In 2023, May reacted to a threat against her daughter from a Facebook account allegedly run by a woman named Ukawike Sandra.
During the marriage crisis, Danielle warned her followers to stop tagging her in posts related to her father as she has no interest in pursuing a career in acting.
She wrote:
“Please I’m NOT an actress, I have no business with acting and Nollywood, no dey force career on me abeg. I don’t act and I’m not interested in acting.
“Acting is for him and not for me and I am a whole different person, I am my own identity.
Please stop tagging me in posts related to him/Nollywood/films/actors. I am not interested in Nollywood. Know these and know peace.”
Yul Edochie is the last child of veteran actor Pete Edochie.
EFCC grills ex-Kwara governor, Ahmed over alleged corruption
A former Governor of Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed, is currently being held by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The anti-graft agency is interrogating Ahmed over how some funds running into billions of naira were expended during his time as governor of the state.
It’s gathered that he was invited by the EFCC and is currently answering questions as to how these monies under his administration were expended.
The former Kwara governor arrived at the Ilorin office of the anti-graft agency on Monday morning.
Provide account of money saved from fuel subsidy removal, catholic bishops tell Tinubu
Ahmed succeeded Bukola Saraki as the governor of the Kwara state and ruled between May 2011. He handed over to Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq in May.
He was once quizzed in May 2021 by a crack team of operatives at the EFCC headquarters in the Jabi area of Abuja, the nation’s capital, in connection with the alleged diversion of funds to the tune of about N9 billion from the coffers of the Kwara State Government.
The money was alleged to have been diverted during Ahmed’s tenure as governor of the state, and when he served as the Commissioner for Finance in the administration of ex-Governor Bukola Saraki
PDP lacks right to demand Tinubu’s resignation – FG
The Federal Government, on Sunday, clapped back at the governors elected on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party for asking President Bola Tinubu to resign from office if he had no answer to the nation’s myriad problems.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, questioned why the PDP failed to turn the country around during its extended shot at power.
He described the PDP governor’s resignation call as a distraction.
The PDP governors, under the leadership of the Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, had last week said Nigeria under Tinubu was on the path to becoming like Venezuela.
AFCON 2023: Super Eagles Ends Continental Cup Campaign With Silver Ware0.00 / 0.00
On Saturday, the PDP governors advised Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress to resign over the state of the nation if they could not provide sustainable solutions.
But responding on Sunday, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, in a statement signed by his media aide, Rabiu Ibrahim, knocked the PDP governors.
He said, “It is our considered view that the PDP and its governors should not be seeking, through the back door of intimidation, what they have consistently failed to achieve by democratic means, since 2015.
I would rather stay with Moses through wilderness, Seyi Law reaffirms support for Tinubu
“Those who could not bring transformational change when they had a lengthy chance to, should not seek to interrupt or distract those who are busy at work on the presidential vision that Nigerians elected them to implement.”
Explaining what the present administration was currently working on, the minister explained, “The administration of President Bola Tinubu has, since inception, generously extended financial support to all the state governments, regardless of partisan affiliation. In addition, the removal of the petrol subsidy —which, incidentally, was one of the main planks of the PDP presidential campaign—has swelled the revenues of all states, including the PDP states. To whom more has been given, more is therefore expected.
“The President and his administration recognise the unfinished business of revamping our national economy kickstarted by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, through programmes focused on large-scale infrastructure, social welfare, prioritising the equipping and welfare of the military and security agencies, and reclaiming Nigeria’s strategic place in the comity of nations.
“Boko Haram and its affiliates, on the ascendancy in 2014/2015, have since been decimated, and similar bold gains are now being made with bandits and other criminals.
“Nigerians have not forgotten that it was the APC administration that cleared several liabilities left behind by the PDP government, such as subsidy claims by oil marketers, Paris Club refunds, unpaid pensions, gratuities, and salary arrears owed various categories of pensioners from liquidated and existing state-owned enterprises.”
Idris said Tinubu would never be overwhelmed by the current challenges facing the country.
“He will not abdicate his responsibilities. He will courageously continue to wrestle with the challenges and surmount them, laying a durable foundation for the new Nigeria that is emerging,” the minister.
Nigerian goalkeeper Nwabali honoured with chieftaincy title in his hometown
Nigeria’s Super Eagles’ goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali has been bestowed with the prestigious chieftaincy title of Ugo Egbema, which translates to “The Pride of Egbema Kingdom.
The prestigious chieftaincy title was conferred upon him by His Royal Majesty, Nzeobi Evaristus Amida, the traditional ruler of Mgbede community.
The traditional ruler expressed the significance of the honour, attributing it to Nwabali’s exceptional performance that led Nigeria to the 2024 AFCON finals.
His Royal Majesty acknowledged the goalkeeper’s outstanding saves, which not only contributed to the success of the Super Eagles but also brought immense pride and honour to the Egbema Kingdom.
Recalling Nwabali’s stellar contributions to the Super Eagles, the traditional ruler emphasized the need to celebrate individuals who bring honour and glory to their people.
In addition to the chieftaincy title, Stanley Nwabali was also rewarded at the state level.
Nigerian goalkeeper Nwabali honoured with chieftaincy title
The Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, acknowledged the goalkeeper’s achievements by conferring a state honour upon him and presenting a generous gift of N20 million.
The governor commended Nwabali for his outstanding contributions to Nigerian football and his exemplary representation of Rivers State on the national stage.
Dangote Cement Trucks Wrongfully Intercepted In Adamawa
…We don’t need to export to Cameroun where we have an existing cement plant
The management of Dangote Cement Plc has stated that two of its trucks that were wrongly intercepted in Adamawa State have been released. The company stated the two trucks loaded with 900 bags of cement each from the Obajana Cement Plant were on their way to Jamtari, Maiha Local Government, Adamawa State, based on a customer’s request.
However, they were intercepted by security agents who accused them of trying to export banned products to the Republic of Cameroun through the Adamawa routes. The interception, on Friday, February 9, 2024, followed an executive order banning the transportation of food and building materials across the country's border through Adamawa routes by the Adamawa State Government.
A statement signed by the Group's Chief Branding and Communication Officer, Mr. Anthony Chiejina, revealed that the company has a functional cement plant in Cameroun and that, the allegation of attempting to export cement there is false and malicious.
Chiejina explained that the two trucks were on their way to deliver products requested by a customer and wondered why the security agents would intercept and accuse them of attempting to divert their load to the Republic of Cameroun.
Mr. Chiejina said: “It was surprising that on their way to deliver the products to the stated address, the security agents on that particular route intercepted them at a village called Wurolabi.”
He said the officers who made the arrest insisted the trucks were on diversion since they apparently did not pay attention to details of what was written on the Waybill. The company said the two drivers tried to explain to the soldiers but to no avail.
He added: Our officials were thereafter invited by the DSS Adamawa State, and we explained to them the true position of things. We had to show them the tracking movement of the trucks from the DCP Obajana to the last point where they were arrested by the soldiers, to convince them that the trucks were not crossing to the republic of Cameroon as was being wrongfully insinuated by some media.
In the same vein, the Government of Adamawa State, in a press briefing with the Adamawa State Police Headquarters, also on Friday 16th Feb confirmed that both trucks were intended to deliver within the state and were escorted by police to deliver the products to the customer.
[OPINION] Nigeria: A Corrupt Nation In Depression - Richard Odusanya
[OPINION] Our president’s love affair with the IMF - Lasisi Olagunju
“In January 2012, today’s President Bola Tinubu as opposition leader rallied his economists and got them to tell him the implication of fuel subsidy removal. They wrote it for him. He read it and liked it; he signed it and put his name on it. Conscious of the verdict of history, of posterity, and for emphasis, he got it published – one and a half pages – in his newspaper, The Nation of January 11, 2012. Check the newspaper’s pages 43 and 44. The grim summary of Tinubu’s economists’ damning opinion was that if petrol subsidy was withdrawn in Nigeria, the poor would stop breathing and the rich would suffer. The prophets’ exact words are that “there will be less food, less medicine, and less school across the land. More children will cry in hunger and more parents will cry at their children’s despair…. Poor and middle class consumers will spend the same amount to buy much less. The volume of economic activity will drop like a stone tossed from a high building.”
A colleague yesterday shared a 1992 campaign video of Chief M.K.O. Abiola promising to demystify governance in Nigeria and stop “people’s heads” from being “shaved in their absence.” A professor friend (political scientist) commented that “that’s partly why he never became president.”
Becoming president or king comes with a price. When ‘The Price of Kings’, a political documentary on Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was released in 2011, the Financial Times titled its review of the film: ‘All about the art of compromise’. The reviewer describes the film as a portrait of leadership; he talks about “years of gritty compromise and the abandonment of previously held principles.” He goes on to ask: “What sacrifices would you make for what you believe in? What, in other words, is the collateral damage, personal and political, of statesmanship?”
In January 2012, today’s President Bola Tinubu as opposition leader rallied his economists and got them to tell him the implication of fuel subsidy removal. They wrote it for him. He read it and liked it; he signed it and put his name on it. Conscious of the verdict of history, of posterity, and for emphasis, he got it published – one and a half pages – in his newspaper, The Nation of January 11, 2012. Check the newspaper’s pages 43 and 44. The grim summary of Tinubu’s economists’ damning opinion was that if petrol subsidy was withdrawn in Nigeria, the poor would stop breathing and the rich would suffer. The prophets’ exact words are that “there will be less food, less medicine, and less school across the land. More children will cry in hunger and more parents will cry at their children’s despair…. Poor and middle class consumers will spend the same amount to buy much less. The volume of economic activity will drop like a stone tossed from a high building.”
Eleven years after what has turned out to be an accurate reading of the future, the man who signed the prophecy became president and proceeded to feed to the nation what he had pronounced as poison. A minute after swearing an oath to work for the welfare of the people, Tinubu became a victim of his own prophecy. What happened? You think he did not know the implication of ignoring his seers? He did. Was it sheer self-destructive wickedness? Again, I say no. So, why? The truth is election alone does not make a president here. Our presidency is by election and affirmation. Our votes are subject to affirmation by the kingmakers in London and Washington. The principal does not appoint an agent so that the agent would be master of himself. As opposition leader, Tinubu could independently hire economic advisers who told him the truth. As president, he cannot and dare not choose advisers whose views are at variance with the kingmakers’. The president is endorsed to act strictly the script as given to him by the film director. The script writers are the choice makers. They are the double ‘monsters’ headquartered on Pennsylvania Avenue and H Street, Washington DC.
Mr. Femi Falana, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, last week asked President Tinubu to stop obeying the IMF. He asked the president to reject IMF’s latest advice asking him to further increase the prices of fuel and electricity in Nigeria. Falana will not get a response from the president; the presidency will ignore him. The Senior Advocate ought to know better. The Nigerian government cannot glare down behemoths who hold the knob of life. No poor president has ditched the IMF and the World Bank and slept well since the two were born in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944. If you know you won’t sleep with them, do not take their money – and power. If you can’t run errands, never apply and accept to work for them. The presidency of Nigeria is not a detached power house; it is some people’s gate house.
Falana in his intervention wondered why the IMF kept quiet when the British government, last year, paid almost 40 billion pounds ($50 billion) in energy subsidies. He asked why the United States’ doubled its subsidies for renewable energy from $7.4 billion in 2016 to $15.6 billion in 2022. He wondered why the IMF did not ask these countries to stop what they were doing with subsidies. Falana noted that the French government had announced that it would continue to subsidise electricity bills into 2025. Falana said: “The IMF has not called on France to stop subsidising electricity and increase electricity tariffs. So, the IMF’s anti-subsidy campaign in Nigeria should be flatly rejected.”
Tinubu cannot obey Falana and disobey the IMF and its brother, the World Bank. If he tells them no, he will pay. Whatever the earthworm tells the ground is what the ground does. The president is the ground, the Bretton Woods are the earthworm. There is an old video of President Olusegun Obasanjo saying his Central Bank governor, Charles Soludo, “was not really a fan of the World Bank” and was always showing it in words and deeds. The president said he, one day, warned Soludo: “never you say no to the World Bank; otherwise, they will rub your face on the ground – but never you do their bidding.” That is how tough it is – say yes without doing yes. Either way, you will pay.
Shaving people’s heads in their absence is the simple meaning of international politics and global finance. Two of the barbers – the ‘head cutters’ – are the IMF and the World Bank. They are the ones we are asking this president to disobey. The man knows why he is putting his feet where he is directed to put them. If he does not, to which god will he run when trouble comes? But he is wrong. Why has he not read what became of those who did what he is doing? He should read BBC’s Budget Blunders, UK’s ‘Dash for Growth’ budget of 1972/73, the 1976 Pound Sterling crisis, the tragedy of Keynesian measures and IMF’s involvement.
Before this Tinubu, there was a Tinubu in Lagos who made and unmade kings in that city. Lagos of the mid-19th century belonged to big boys from the colonial office, rich returning slaves and a few homegrown wealthy merchants. Madam Efunroye Tinubu not only belonged to the latter group; she literally had the balls of everyone in her firm grip. She was the female, local version of the 16th Earl of Warwick, the overbearing power and property baron “who carved out a position for himself by the strength of his sword.” This Earl had neither the authority nor the right to raise or depose kings” but he did both with cruel equanimity. He did, and P. C. Dharma gives him a generous mention in her 1947 article on ‘Kingmakers of India.’ Madam Tinubu was exactly the Earl in Lagos of the mid-1880s, an arbiter of royal and economic powers. Bold, courageous, no-nonsense, ruthless, her history in Lagos and, later in Abeokuta, is about making kings and using kings. The ones who demurred, who raised objections or showed reluctance, suffered loss of crown and scepter.
Falana asked why the two finance institutions are not giving first world countries the same drugs they are prescribing for us. I think I can answer that question. Small gods do not teach Sango how to inflict maximum damage. Besides, chief priests of the sacred grove are beyond the canes of masquerades. The masqueraders who tried that in the past lost their costumes. I use Madam Tinubu again here to illustrate this. The lady without means transited from poverty in Abeokuta to power and wealth in Lagos. Tinubu was made very rich by the colonial economic system. She was very useful to the government and the business community. She traded in men and goods for her profit and for the good of the powers-that-be. She made very good money. She loved and coveted the white man’s trade and riches but later detested the meddlesomeness of the alien in Lagos affairs. She started plotting the downfall of the masters. The first was in January 1855; it failed. The second was in March 1855. The grand plan was to expel or neutralize all the European merchants in Lagos. The plot was called off, last minute, because two British warships showed up fortuitously in Lagos waters. A deadly disturbance two months later got the British to expel Madam Tinubu from Lagos, never to come back.
No one on the mountain top desires such a fall. ‘Expulsion from Lagos’ is the title of the chapter that tells this part of Madam Tinubu’s epic story in her biography ‘Madam Tinubu: Merchant and Kingmaker’ by Oladipo Yemitan. I read it (starting from page 54) and thought the woman who later rose again and became the first Iyalode of Egba got what he gave her victims. Her boat met every furious tide with fury. The intrigues, the shifting and shifty loyalties on those pages present good lessons in compromise and consequences.
We will be asking our president to hate himself if we insist he must spurn the orders of those that give life to his government. If we would ask anyone to say no to the IMF, it would not be this president. His bones are weak; we should leave him alone. Why can’t we make the rejection by ourselves? The Yoruba say a man uses his own mouth to reject a meal. They also say no one begs another into slavery. Everywhere the Bretton Woods have been successfully glared down and shown to be dumb, it has been the people themselves who did so. But we are not normal people. We always look for king-size heads to help us break our coconuts. If we can’t find one, we simply withdraw into our prayer houses and intensify supplications for ‘divine intervention.’
Normal babies cry at the sight of injections. There is a trending WhatsApp video that shows an unbelievably calm baby while being inoculated. With that video is a caption mocking how we suffer pain here without crying. The baby betrayed neither pain nor anxiety. That baby is Nigeria and its long-suffering people. We take and endure knocks and, like Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist in the workhouse, we ask for more. American abolitionist and fiery anti-slavery orator, Frederick Douglass, in August 1857 warned that the extent tyrants go is set “by the endurance of those they oppress.” Douglass added that victims of power would be hunted in the north and flogged in the south “so long as they…make no resistance, either moral or physical.”
For millions of my countrymen, life is literally nasty, brutish and short. Every home sobs. Rice was N70,000 per bag last week. This week opened with rice becoming N80,000. Cement sold for N10,000 per 50kg bag on Friday. Naira slid to N1,700/dollar at the weekend. Our minimum wage of N30,000 equals $17. How did we get here after the experience of previous disasters? The IMF gave us some prescriptions some forty years ago. The calcifying effects are still in our blood system. In 2023/2024, that same Doctor Death came back into our embrace. Ola Rotimi wrote ‘Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again’. Why should people’s head go bad more than once? Madness and insanity are synonyms. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Frank Wilczek, theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States and 2004 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, examined that quote and called it the “Einstein Insanity”— because the quote is attributed to Albert Einstein. Einstein was that thinker who held that if we are not insane, we should be able to predict the consequences of our actions. He was the physicist who believed that human stupidity is one of the two infinite things in the world. He refused to accept that the world is inherently unpredictable. He strengthened his argument with a sound bite from the celestial: “God does not play dice with the universe.” But, here, we are being ruled by dice players – poor players; people who roll the dice, and roll it again – and again, because the results they expect are not what they get. What they do with Nigeria is what my childhood called tokíní tokéjì. They use the people to play Baba Ijebu; they bet with people’s destiny.
Amid all these came from the north last week a regional threat to the president by traditional and religious leaders. They said their people were hungry and restive and that they could no longer control them. Every sentence they uttered sounded like a threat of Armageddon. Their concern would have carried weight if the shouters had done so when their Muhammadu Buhari was in power and was messing up everyone, everything, everywhere. But they maintained complicit quietude and passivity when their evil reigned. Because of their past of unholy silence, their present angst could not resonate with the street in the south. I saw and heard people mocking these northern leaders and their groans. They lost it. Ironically, the Yoruba content of the south is working hard to follow that same road of vicarious infamy. There is an insidious, invidious campaign for indifference going on. I was called “a perennially sulky bad boy” last week by a gentleman who claims to be a ‘Yoruba leader.’ That was because I had the audacity to speak about hunger and pain in the land. The ‘Yoruba leader’ thought Yoruba brotherhood with the president should have stitched my mouth. I thought if he was truly Yoruba, he would be familiar with the causal relationship between criminal, idiotic silence and a bad head.
The rain has not stopped; nobody should say that it is not as heavy as yesterday’s downpour. Things may still get worse. Today, staying at home is hot as hell and there is no safety on the road. It is the perfect Yoruba situation of Ilé ò gbàá, ònà ò gbàá (the home rejects him, the road won’t accept him). Uproars daily follow naira’s death by installment. We sob as if we do not know that the illness that won’t heal will kill. Unfortunately, you feel pain only if you wear the shoes. Those assembled by Tinubu to halt the drift do not have their wealth in weakness. Every fall of the naira swells their bùgá. But they may be wrong. My political economics teacher told me that the way these things are going, every soul in this ship is in danger. He said life vests won’t help and escape boats may be useless.
Tinubu's Policies Are Counterproductive, Inflicting More Pains On Nigerians – Catholic Bishops
Catholic Bishops in the country, under the auspices of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), have told President Bola Tinubu that his policies are inflicting untold hardship on Nigerians.
The Bishops lamented that there is increasing hunger in the country, unemployment, kidnapping, general insecurity and other crimes are on the increase, and there is a high cost of food and living.
Speaking on Sunday through the CBCN President, Most Rev. Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, the Bishops said the reforms initiated by President Tinubu have so far been counterproductive, with more Nigerians being plunged into poverty.
Ugorji made the position of the Bishops known when he delivered a speech at the opening session of the 2024 First Plenary Assembly of the CBCN held at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria Resource Centre, Durumi Abuja.
The cleric said the fuel subsidy removal, coupled with the floating of the naira, has not yielded any positive result so far, and the government is only asking people to make sacrifices and exercise patience while no corresponding action on the part of the leaders is been seen.
He said: “Evidently, the reform agenda of President Tinubu has added to the plight of Nigerians. With the withdrawal of fuel subsidies and the unification of the foreign exchange market, there has been a sharp increase in the pump price of petroleum products, and a steady decline in the value of the Naira.
“High spiralling inflation has made it difficult for the average Nigerian to access basic commodities, including food items and medication. Millions of Nigerians have been reduced to a life of grinding poverty, wanton suffering, and untold hardship as never before in our national history. In a bid to survive, an increasing number of poor people have resorted to begging. With more than 80 million Nigerians living under the poverty line of less than two dollars a day.”
Expressing further dissatisfaction with the policies of the Tinubu government, Ugorji added that: “If we have to be very frank with ourselves and not wallow in self-delusion, we must admit that we are faced with a case where therapy is worse than the disease. The government’s reform agenda is turning out to be counterproductive. Despite the efforts of the government to boost our economy, our nation has continued to sink economically deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit.
“In withdrawing the fuel subsidy, the government assured Nigerians it would save a lot of money to be injected into other national development sectors. Rather than give evidence of money so far saved from the withdrawal of subsidies for which Nigerians are being afflicted with untold hardship, all we hear is the government’s accumulation of more and more foreign debts to balance its budgetary deficit, thereby mortgaging the future of our nation and generations yet unborn.
“We must also be frank to admit that government’s efforts to fight corruption have remained prostrate, and as a result, Nigeria is rated as one of the most corrupt nations in the world. The crusade against corruption needs to be more proactive. Adequate checks and balances need to be implemented in our public financial management to prevent dishonest and greedy public servants from stealing public money with case and impunity.
“A financial management and accounting system that allows fraudulent government officials to freely loot huge sums of money from public coffers needs total overhauling. Though ICPC and EFCC have recovered billions of Naira from corrupt government officials, but it has failed to win most of its cases before the Court of Justice due to poor investigation and presentation of corruption cases.
“Until our anti-corruption institutions can successfully prosecute and jail corrupt government officials, corruption will continue to thrive in Nigeria. So, the government should rise to its primary responsibility of securing the lives and property of its citizens.
“The government does not need to reinvent the wheel since it can easily learn from what other nations do to provide adequate security for its citizens. It goes without saying that there cannot be any meaningful development in any country without adequate security. It will be belabouring the obvious to state that security in our country will remain a tall dream if mass unemployment exists among our youths.”