President Bola Tinubu, on Friday in Abuja, reaffirmed Nigeria’s strategic position in Africa as a bastion of peace, saying the nation will continue to play its role as a stabilizer on the continent.

Receiving a letter of credence from the Egyptian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mohamed Ahmed, President Tinubu emphasized the shared commitment of both countries to promoting global peace and stability through collaboration within international organizations, such as the United Nations. 

President Tinubu noted that since establishing diplomatic relations in 1961, Nigeria and Egypt have collaborated on key international priorities, including promoting regional peace, security, and stability. 

The discussions at the meeting also touched on the situation in the Sahel and Sudan.

Acknowledging Egypt’s role towards a truce in the crisis in Gaza, President Tinubu said: ''We need to do more. Stability in the region is of paramount importance.''

Ambassador Ahmed conveyed President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's willingness to bolster economic partnership with Nigeria, emphasizing Egypt's interest in increasing trade and investments between the two countries. 

''We need to complement each other on investments. Many Egyptian companies are interested in coming to Nigeria to invest,'' the Egyptian Ambassador said. 

In discussions with Major-General Sohail Ahmed Khan (retired), High Commissioner of Pakistan, President Tinubu described the Ambassador’s military background as invaluable for exchanging ideas to expand security and defence cooperation. 

He underscored the need for global cooperation in combating terrorism and violent extremism. 

''We must do more to stop extremists. We need to enhance our collaboration and exchange of ideas and knowledge in these areas. 

''As a government, we will keep an open-door policy with countries and development partners on enhancing cooperation on security, economy, education, and the information and communication technology sector where the Minister is doing very well. How can we improve our bilateral relationship? We must do more,'' the President said. 

The High Commissioner of Pakistan noted the demographic similarities between the two countries and expressed a desire to elevate the relationship to new heights. 

''Pakistan has the fifth largest population in the world while Nigeria is the sixth largest. We have a significant youth population, and our national flags are similar. I would like to take our relationship to a new level, from strength to strength,'' the High Commissioner said.                                                       

In a separate meeting with Ambassador Athanasios Kotsionis of Greece, President Tinubu reiterated his administration’s commitment to an open-door policy that encourages collaboration and progress for the benefit of all.  

He restated Nigeria’s commitment to strengthening bilateral relations with Greece and building bridges of cooperation to address common challenges.  

The President assured the Greece Ambassador of Nigeria’s commitment to creating an environment conducive to socio-economic growth and development.

''Nigeria and Greece have good historic ties. We have shared priorities, including promoting democracy, and there is room to expand cooperation. 

''The economic situation in Africa and Europe is still very unbalanced. We should build on the opportunities from our challenges and strengthen relations between the two countries. 

''What I expect is an improvement in the relationship between both countries, and I look forward to us working on that. 

''Our government is about renewed hope. Nigeria will continue to play its role as a stabilizer on the continent,’’ the President said.  

Ambassador Kotsionis outlined Greece’s efforts to finalize agreements with Nigeria in the areas of tourism, scientific exchange, technology, and maritime. 

''We are ready to sign the agreements with Nigeria as soon as they are ready. There is a lot to be done between the two countries, and we will need the support of your government. We hope to achieve incredible things in Nigeria during my stay,'' the Ambassador said. 

Chief Ajuri Ngelale

Special Adviser to the President 

(Media & Publicity) 

May 10, 2024

Africa is always in perpetual struggle for survival. It is the world’s second largest and second-most populous continent after Asia, but its past and future always seem to be in constant collision. In the past, our forebears confronted slavery, enslavement and colonialization, and this gave birth to pan Africanism. Now, the continent is at the crossroads of historical occurrences. The clash of civilizations between Islamic fundamentalists and the West; the fight for geopolitical dominance between China and the US; the breakout of war in Europe for the first time since the end of the Second World War and the growing wealth gap between the global north and global south are some of the forces that African leaders have to deal with to chart the continent’s socioeconomic direction in the coming decades.

Africa is also facing what appears to be another round of colonialism characterized by massive exploitation of its natural resources by agents of foreign countries notably, China and Russia. Illegal mining of natural resources in many African countries, including Nigeria, DRC, Niger Republic, Chad and many others are the major causes of insecurity, violence and poverty. A new wave of migrant from the continent pours into Europe and America every day. Without a doubt, our continent remains the most exploited continent in the world. In the welter of all these, the continent suffers from incompetent, corrupt and weak leadership.

Worried by the fate of their continent, a group of African academics, professionals and civic society activists have come together in search of a new generation of pan Africanists who will save their continent from collapse. Although Pan Africanism was born in the struggles of African people against enslavement and colonization, and this struggle goes back to the rebellions on the slave ships and plantations across the West, the new generation of pan Africanists are fighting at intellectual level, trying to decolonize the minds of Africans. They have established an organization known as The Pan African Dialogue Institute (TPADI). It was conceived in 2016 by a couple of African academics and professionals led by Nigeria’s Dr. Effiong Udo of the University of Uyo and Prof. Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha, a US citizen originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. TPADI is headquartered in the University of Uyo. Dr. Udo has unfathomable passion for pan Africanism. I caught up with him in his office at the University of Uyo last week as he was preparing for hosting an international conference on Dialogue and Pan Africanism.

 TPADI, he says, is a network of academics, professionals, civil society and grassroot leaders in different fields of life, within Africa and the diaspora, who are motivated by the best principles of Pan Africanism to serve the continent and its people worldwide. It is a civil society think tank for the study, practice and propagation of Pan-Africanism. Its programs and activities revolve around three thematic areas: education, policy and projects. On education, the institute hopes to create programs to educate ourselves, all Africans and other interested persons in Pan-Africanism. It offers certificate, executive and postgraduate programs in Pan-Africanism and create public awareness through seminars, workshops, webinars and convoke cultural events and academic conferences on dialogue and Pan-Africanism. On policy, it engages in local, continental, and global policy analysis, formulation and advocacy, within the threshold of Pan-Africanism. The aim is to inform and advise stakeholders and decision-makers on resolving African problems with African solutions.

 On projects, TPADI conducts needs assessment to identify, design and implement projects to build and advance the living conditions of African communities and empower our peoples. ‘’Our educational, policy and project engagements intersect under social, economic, political, religious and cultural issues, as well as scientific, environmental, educational, legal, gender and business domains’’, he said, gesticulating frantically. ‘’This is why we have 10 dialogue commissions who regularly engage with these issues. So far, we have members from 22 African countries. Some of them are based in the Americas, Europe and United Kingdom’’. Dr. Udo said he was inspired into Pan-Africanism when he attended a program at the University of California in 2016 and had to team up with many Africans in diaspora on a research program. ‘’The experience opened my eyes to what is wrong with Africa and the fact that it is only Africans that can create African solutions to our problems’’, he told me.

Pan Africanism emerged as a response to the long history of the indignities of colonization, enslavement, and systemic oppression and exploitation faced by African people across the globe. The African Union defines Pan-Africanism as: “… an ideology and movement that encourages the solidarity of Africans worldwide. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social and political progress and aims to ‘unify and uplift’ people of African descent. The ideology asserts that the fates of all African peoples and countries are intertwined. At its core, Pan-Africanism is “a belief that African peoples both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny.” From the early days of Pan Africanism till today, the advocacy for the unity, solidarity, and empowerment of people of African descent worldwide continues to be a potent force driving discussions on identity, liberation, and socio-political progress of the continent and its people.

The Pan African Dialogue Institute (TPADI), according to Dr. Udo, is therefore established to pursue the decolonization of the mind through education, policy analysis, policy building and advocacy around multi-faceted issues within the threshold of Pan-African principles. He said, ‘’Our job is to inspire excellence and best practices in Pan Africanism, promote African values of community, hospitality, respect for human and environmental dignity, unity in diversity, love and solidarity with all, as encapsulated in the Ubuntu philosophy. We are seeking to reverse the mentality that Africans are not capable of helping themselves and solving their problems’’.

‘’We want to reverse that culture of dependency on external assistance that unfortunately still prevails on the continent. If people become too reliant on getting their support, their nourishment and their safety from outside sources, they do not strive to find the power within themselves to rely on their own capacities. Pan Africanism calls upon Africans to drawn on their own strengths and capacities and become self-reliant. Again, we are seeking to celebrate our Africanness, the unity, resilience and collective identity as Africans. And, we want to achieve all these by using dialogue and collaboration among individuals, communities, institutions and nations’’, he said.

The institute is marking the 2024 International Africa Day with pomp and pageantry. Nigeria is among the multitude of African countries that have never celebrated Africa Day which is May 25. It was on May 25, 1963, that leaders of the then 32 independent African States signed a founding charter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which brought the Organization of African Unity into existence. In 2002, the OAU established its own successor, the African Union, and adopted May 25 every year as a day to celebrate Africa and highlight the continent’s continued struggle against neocolonialism, exploitation and adversity. Surprisingly, ever since the day was declared, only nine African countries (The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) are known to observe May 25 as public holiday with celebrations. The other 46 countries, including Nigeria are less aware of this very important day. By marking the day with many festivities next week, TPADI is has made Nigeria join the other nine countries to celebrate Africa Day for the first time ever.

‘’Our institute will be formally launched on May 25 in a grand ceremony at the University of Uyo with former President Goodluck Jonathan as the chairman of the occasion. Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Uyo, Prof. Ndaeyo and hundreds of distinguished personalities from Nigeria and outside the country will be present. Gov. Umo Eno will lay the foundation for the International Headquarters of the Institute at the University. There will be speeches, fairs, cultural displays and other events on the Africa Day’’, Udo enthused. Between May 23 and 26, 2024, the institute will host the first international conference on “Dialogue and Pan Africanism’’. The conference is held in collaboration with Centre for Deep Dialogue and Critical Thinking, Directorate of International Programmes and faculties of Arts, Law, Social Sciences, and Communication and Media Studies of the University of Uyo.

Already, Professor P.L.O Lumumba has confirmed his participation as the keynote speaker at the conference, while plenary speakers will include Prof. Wole Soyinka; Prof. Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha (DR Congo/USA), Prof. Mary Nyangweso (Kenya/USA), Prof. Emmanuel Akpabio (Nigeria), Amb. Daniel Guttierez (Rep. of Belize), Prof. Joseph Ushie (Nigeria), Dr. Donatus Ukpong (Nigeria), Prof. Chris Ekong (Nigeria), Prof. Peter Esu (Nigeria), Dr. Jean-Louis Ikambana (USA), Prof. Aniekan Brown (Nigeria), Prof. Mojisola Iseyin (Nigeria), Prof. Gabriel Umoh (Nigeria), Dr. Ubong Essien Umoh (Nigeria), among others. The conference seeks to provide informed Pan-Africanist perspectives on a wide range of issues affecting Africa and its people everywhere in the world. Presenters are expected to explore the trajectories of development in the continent from the lens of Pan-Africanism. They will probe the different approaches, theories, philosophies or ideologies that have been adopted at community, national and continental levels by key players to drive developmental efforts.

The reality today is that Nigeria’s total debt, comprising both local and external stocks, is, according to Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO), a whopping N107 trillion, which is humongous. The culprits for the ballooning of the debt are hugely the policy of subsidizing petrol pump prices and propping up the naira, origins of which date back about four decades ago, but were ended by President Bola Tinubu during his inaugural speech on May 29 last year.

Subsidizing electricity is another scam that has set our country back. The government was spending as much as 67% of the total cost of generating electricity in sustaining the regime of low tariff payment. According to NERC, N2.9t was being expended at N240b per month. That is prior to the current regime of withdrawing subsidy from 15%( 12m) consumers who will be paying a whooping 240% more per kilowatts. Even then, it is being claimed by NERC that the subsidy still being paid by government for those on Band B to E would be up to the tune of N1.6 trillion or N120b per month. A gradual withdrawal of subsidy in that utility had just commenced on April 3rd, with the 15% of electricity customers (12 million) consumers bearing the brunt by being billed what has been termed cost-reflective charges of N225 per kilowattss. That is over and above the N68 previously charged premium consumers now tagged Band A.
If the new price regime set by NERC prevails, subsidy for electricity consumers would in the process of coming to an end by beig unravelled. The third issue is the high level of corruption in the country, which is wreaking havoc on the economy and on society at large. Currently, according to Transparency International (TI), an international corruption monitoring agency, Nigeria ranks as number 145 out of 180 countries on the list of nations ridden with graft.

There is no need to dwell further on that since it was the fulcrum of the last administration which boasted of having zero tolerance for corruption. But it ended up crashing the economy, which slipped into recession twice in 8 years, unprecedentedly. That regime did so by commission or commission by chasing a bull into a China shop, and as it were, and ended up doing more damage than good to the economy as  investors took flight due to the hostile investment climate.

But thanks  to the recent deft moves of both the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Yemi Cardoso, and Finance/Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, confidence is returning to the nation’s economy, with investors showing interest, particularly via portfolio investors taking stakes in our treasury products owing to the offer of attractive rates reminiscent of the days of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, currently Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Another scam, which is the fourth (4th), is the high cost of governance as reflected by the huge size of the national budget dedicated to servicing a burgeoning bureaucracy. In that respect, the Executive branch of government is making some efforts, for example, by reducing the number of officials in the entourage of top government officials traveling abroad. It has  even gone further by banning non-essential foreign trips by public servants, as well as aiming to implement the Oransanye Report on rationalization of government agencies bloating recurrent budget owing to too many civil/public servants.

Having put in array the multiple scams hindering Nigeria from attaining her potentials, it is appropriate to commence a thorough dissection of the issues focused on in this discourse by taking a deep dive into the four (4) identified scams.
The first is  subsidy on petrol and the naira, which is a practice perpetrated by the immediate past administration under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari, which created a Ways and Means debt-an indiscriminate  printing of the naira without financial backup, to a monumental tune of N30 trillion.
 Apparently, that administration seemed hell-bent on retaining the decades-old petrol subsidy policy and was determined, as it were  to zealously defend the naira with our country’s hard-earned dollar income while borrowing to carry out its primary and basic duties of paying civil/public servants’ salaries and providing infrastructure such as roads, airports, railway lines, etc.

The abuse of subsidies reached a point that income from the sales of oil/gas could no longer net off the burden of subsidy, such that the nation had to embark on unbridled printing of money that nearly made the Nigerian currency – the naira, look like ‘shit’ money in the manner that the Central Bank of Uganda Governor resisted printing more money at the command of then military head of state, Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada. As it may be recalled, by pointing out to his boss that “Ugandan money is now like shit money” he angered the autocratic head of state to the extent that he had to send the apex bank governor to the gallows as documented in the movie about the infamous reign of the dictator, Idi Amin Dada in Uganda.

So, when I hear critics of the removal of subsidy on petrol and merging of foreign exchange rates of both official and parallel markets for foreign currencies, demanding that President Bola Tinubu should produce the savings from ending those economically debilitating policies, I simply grimace and shudder at the level of misunderstanding of the concept of subsidy and its removal by pundits pontification and advocating for the retention or return of subsidy.

The truth is that no money is being gathered and saved in any particular account. That is because there is none to be saved in the first instance, since it is a case of applying the funds that could have been literally flushed down the drain in the name of subsidy on petrol and naira into interventions in other critical areas of governance needing a shot in the arm to be energized. Take for instance education loan, which is a program recently launched by the incumbent administration.
 Opening up the space for all Nigerians to have access to education up to whatever level they have capacity for is such a big deal, that in my view it is being understated. In my reckoning, it is equivalent to the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s declaration of and implementation of free education policy in the western region of Nigeria back in the days.

It is needless restating the fact that it is that policy of free education that is largely responsible for the leapfrogging of the Yoruba nation into the pole position of leadership in education amongst the ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria. Without education loan, only God knows the number of current street urchins across the nation, particularly Lagos state, that could have been potential Robert Einsteins.

But they have become wasted and a threat to society because their parents had no financial means to put them through school to acquire education that could have enabled them to meaningfully and positively contribute to society.
In fact, if not for scholarship awards,(a variant of free education) most of the incredible professionals that dot our corporate and public sector landscape today would not have had the priviledge of obtaining Western education.

Arising from the above, I would argue that democratizing education by making it accessible to all Nigerians that are keen on obtaining academic knowledge is a big deal. Although its justification would not come to full positive manifestation in the lifetime of President Tinubu’s administration. But in another decade or two, the potential geniuses hitherto compelled to become ‘area’ boys and girls (thugs and prostitutes) who are empowered through student loans initiative to be processed into medical doctors, nurses, accountants, aeronautical and space engineers as well as artificial intelligence experts, would boost the human resources capital of Nigeria such that the country would be poised to be amongst the world’s top five economies by 2075 as recently predicted by Goldman Sachs analysts.

What those criticizing the end of subsidies seem oblivious of is the fact that in the past two decades or so, the handlers of our economy had been engaging in deficit financing. In other words, they have been borrowing financial resources locally and from abroad to fund the national budget because the projected incomes for each fiscal year being budgeted for have been falling short of the proposed expenditure.
 Effectively, the benefits of the removal of subsidies are that the humongous funds hitherto provided in budget heads to subsidize some sectors deemed to be critical – maintaining low petrol pump price and low naira/dollar exchange rate – are being channeled into other areas considered to be equally critical and productive such as education instead of the profligacy of subsidizing consumption which petrol and naira amount to.

Apart from the fact that the action of President Tinubu has resulted in the reduction of petrol imported into our country by about 50% or one million litres per day, according to government sources, which has enabled the stemming of capital exportation out of our country to European suppliers of the commodity that was causing massive hemorrhaging of our treasury, it has boosted employment creation. That is in light of the fact that a huge chunk of our country’s imports, even up to 60%, by some accounts, are petroleum products and food based. As we can all attest, the end of petrol subsidy has also spurred investments in local refineries led by Dangote refinery with 650 million barrels per day capacity.

That is alongside a plethora of modular refineries springing up in the oil/gas-rich Niger Delta region stretching from around Benin City in Edo State to the Warri environs in Delta State, all the way down to Owerri in Imo State axis and the Port Harcourt zone in Rivers State, whose combined capacity is already leading to a crash in the price of diesel fuel for powering electricity generating sets that power manufacturing plants in factories and our homes.
 How could all the aforementioned employment-boosting investments have been made possible without the end of petrol subsidy pronounced by President Tinubu at his inauguration on May 29 last year?

Furthermore, in the past couple of weeks, we have seen Dangote Refinery, which has come on stream and is now supplying Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) into the Nigerian market, crash the price of the commodity by about 30-40%, from N1,650 per litre to N1,000 per litre  from the factory. The retailers are currently selling at about N1,350 per litre, which is presently the prevailing rate reflecting about N300 saving to consumers.

Since AGO is critical to transportation cost, referred to as logistics, and it constitutes about 30% of the input in the production and supply of goods, the hardships currently being experienced by the masses triggered by the spike in the cost of commuting and the resultant hike in the cost of living may soon start easing off in the coming weeks and months, all things being equal.

While envisaging the positive developments above, I had advocated that President Tinubu should sell off the government-owned refineries that have been undergoing turnaround maintenance at a humongous cost burden to our national treasury. That case was made in an article titled “Tinubunomics: Time to Sell Nigerian Refineries” which was published in my column of August 10 last year and widely reproduced in numerous traditional and new media platforms.

One would like to double down on that proposition of selling down the state-owned refineries contained in the referenced article, and the assertion is based on the dictum ‘government has no business being in business’ which implies that government must cease to engage in the business of running or operating refineries, which will be more efficiently and effectively carried out by the private sector, as evidenced by the advent of Dangote Refinery in the business of refining crude oil and distributing petroleum products cost-effectively and efficiently to Nigerians.

Capitalizing on the success recorded by Dangote Refinery and the handful of modular refineries now dotting the landscape of the Niger Delta, I am further proposing that the government-owned refineries in Port Harcourt and Warri in Rivers and Delta states should be sold to Mr. Jim Ovia or Mr. Tony Elumelu, founders, majority shareholders, and chairmen of Zenith Bank Plc and UBA Plc/HEIRS, or any other entrepreneurs who hail from that zone and have the capacity to acquire majority stakes in the three refineries in Port Harcourt and Warri and possess the ability to operate them.

By the same token, the refinery in Kaduna currently owned by the government should be sold to the likes of Alhaji Samad Rabiu of BUA Group and Alhaji Sayyu Dantata of Dantata Group, who currently operate conglomerates and appear to have the financial capacity and ability to operate them more efficiently and effectively.

To source the necessary expertise and personnel to operate the Nigerian refineries after purchase, there is a plethora of refineries located on the coastlines of Europe that target West African countries, including Nigeria, as the market for their products.

Fortunately for potential buyers of the local refineries as being proposed, refineries on the coast lines of Europe are now, according to a recent report by the international news agency Reuters, on the verge of shutting down following the arrival of Dangote Refinery that is poised to take over the markets hitherto controlled by the European firms.

The soon-to-be-laid-off personnel in the European refineries on the verge of becoming moribund would be available human resources that could be tapped into by Nigerian investors in the refineries. What is more, Nigerian local investors in the refineries being proposed for sale to local entrepreneurs could even offer the owners of the embattled and about-to-be-shutdown refineries in Europe stakes in the Nigerian refineries that has to be sold off by government to private investors.

Another scam that nearly brought Nigeria to its knees is the subsidy on electricity, estimated to be in excess of ₦2.9 trillion.

On multiple occasions in the previous years, and several times this year alone, the national electricity grid has collapsed. That is largely owed to the fact that the infrastructure for the transmission of electricity in our country dates back to the colonial days.

At some point, the utility firm was known as the Electricity Company of Nigeria (ECN) before it transformed into the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), and finally, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). It was centrally operated and was a sort of omnibus involved in generating, transmitting, and distributing electricity.

Those roles were performed abysmally, earning the organization the negative sobriquet “Never Expect Power Always” (NEPA) until 2013 when NEPA, through a privatization exercise, was split into three autonomous components, with each entity assigned the role of generating, transmitting, and distributing.

With the GENCOs engaging in generating electricity and DISCOs distributing the generated power firmly under the control of private sector investors, there were slight improvements in electricity supply. But there remains a snag and drag on the rest of the chain, which is that the transmission of electricity generated remained under the control of the government because unlike the generating and distributing aspects that were hived off and handed over to private investors in 2013, the government held onto the transmission aspect through an agency known as the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

That is where the national grid collapse has been occurring, manifestly the broken chain in the electricity supply sequence. That is  because even though GENCOs currently generate about 12 megawatts, only about 4 megawatts can get to our factories and homes owing to poor transmission infrastructure coupled with the bureaucratic nature of civil servants operating the system. Why the TCN was not privatized at the time with the generating and distributing functions in 2023 beats me hollow.

When President Tinubu signed the new electricity act into law on 9th February this year, I had cause to interrogate the electricity power system in Nigeria with a view to identifying the clogs and proposing possible ways out of the conundrum in an article published in my column on August 4 and subsequently on other media platforms titled “Tinubunomics: Electricity Act 2023 As Nigeria’s lndustrial Game Changer”’

Obviously, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, is working assiduously to unravel the conundrum of graft surrounding the electricity supply system in Nigeria, which dates back to the ECN days when equipment was presumed to have been supplied to the ECN but the equipment turned out to have been round-tripped. It is disheartening that
the practice of corruption and inefficiencies still pervades the electricity sector even after it has changed hands from public to the private sector.

The Minister of Power, Adelabu, may be in a quandary as to how to rejig the system so that a single investor can be a player in all three aspects: generating, transmitting, and distributing aspects of the business, which is the practice all over the world but currently not the case in Nigeria since investors are limited to only single functions such as GENCOs and DISCOs, with TCN remaining in the purview of the government.

Apart from concessioning or selling off TCN to private investors to enable it to have funds to boost its infrastructure (now in deplorable condition) to forestall future grid collapse, how can investors be realigned to engage in all three aspects and be assigned zones to compete with each other as is the practice in other climes?

Cost-reflective tariff has already been introduced to about 15% of consumers designated as being on Band A by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC). It  has promised that a minimum of 20 hours a day will be available to consumers on the A Band. Further  promising that Bands B to E would be added in the cost-reflective charges in a graduated manner.

For Band A customers, the tariff has tripled from N68 to N225 per kilowatt-hour; hence, the matrix applied in arriving at that rate is being questioned. As things currently stand, it is only when that complex web, which appears as complicated as decoding the famous DA VINCI code, (that the electricity system seems to be tangled in) is resolved, that the sector, critical to the industrial takeoff of Nigeria, can be fully unraveled.

On corruption, the Nigerian federal government, under the auspices of the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination and Head of the Central Coordination Delivery Unit (CDCU), Ms. Hadiza Bala-Usman, on April 8th, launched a website for tracking and monitoring performance and delivery of services by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) of the government. I have had cause to write about the need for citizens’ involvement in fighting corruption by tracking the activities of government via its agencies’ actions and inactions.

That was extensively dwelt on in an article titled: “Killing Corruption With People, Power, and Technology In Nigeria,” published on August 9, 2016, in my column and also on other traditional and online platforms. The piece is also reproduced on page 454 of my new book: “Leading From The Streets: Media Interventions By A Public Intellectual, 1999-2019.”

In the piece, I referenced a similar app used by the World Bank for the same purpose of combating corruption in other jurisdictions by noting that:

“One veritable tool that Nigeria is yet to fully harness in fighting corruption is technology. The blame could be placed squarely on the unstable electricity supply. Nonetheless, this would change soon with the ongoing privatization of power supply in Nigeria.”

To buttress my point, I referenced a report published by Huffington Post on 12/9/2011 and titled “Technology Is Helping The Fight Against Corruption.” The report was authored by Caroline Anstey, Managing Director of the World Bank Group, and Leonard McCarthy, the World Bank’s Integrity Vice President.

The duo noted that “There is no single quick fix for curbing corruption. But there are steps that can and should be taken to raise the cost of being corrupt to send a powerful message that corruption doesn’t pay. The World Bank executives concluded by stating that: “We already see how technology can make a difference. Take Indonesia, where an Urban Poverty Program, which distributes $150 million annually in World Bank and government funding, has successfully harnessed the Internet and Mobile phone technology to enhance project monitoring, transparency, and overall effectiveness.”

So, Ms. Bala-Usman, by launching the tracker (alongside other anti-corruption measures being undertaken by anti-graft agencies EFCC and ICPC), government appear to be on the right path to combating corruption with technology as opposed to naming and shaming that defined the immediate past administration. To that extent, corruption, as a scam on Nigeria and Nigerians, can be said to be in the process of gradually being unraveled.

Finally, high governance cost is another scam causing Nigeria to as it were punch below its weight. Following an uproar by Nigerians, President Tinubu has commenced the reduction of costs in the bureacracy by pruning the number of people in top government official’s entourage and even suspending non-essential travels by public servants.

Although it is not far-reaching enough, hopefully, the Special Adviser, Ms. Bala-Usman, will monitor and ensure that the executive order is adhered to . The FGN is also believed to be on track to implement the famous Oronsaye Report on streamlining of MDAs, which have overlapping functions and therefore constitute a drain and burden that result in high cost of governance. But the Legislative branch of government, which has not been as responsive as the Executive arm, has been receiving flak from the public as it remains a culprit.

That is principally because the majority of Nigerians believe that the cost of sustaining the National Assembly (NASS) is too high in terms of salaries and emoluments, which they deem as staggering. Remarkably, the negative perception got worse when it was revealed that an average of N160m was expended in procuring Toyota brand SUVs for each lawmaker numbering 469. Majority of Nigerians would have preferred that made in Nigeria SUVs were procured to reduce the exportation of capital and jobs from Nigeria to other countries from which the vehicles are imported.

Arising from the above, if NASS wants to become the darling of Nigerians, it must wean itself off the unbridled taste for imported items, which the masses believe is leading to the hemorrhaging of our already very lean treasury. When that happens, it would regain the respect of Nigerians, and that scam on Nigeria and Nigerians would also be on track to being unraveled.

To that end, the necessary first steps would be for both the Executive and Legislative branches to pass a law compelling MDAs and public officers to patronize Made-in-Nigeria products and services over and above  imported ones. That would be in consonance with the popular dictum: charity begins at home. It also speaks to the general belief that if we do not patronize our home made products and services, nobody else will do so.
The concept is not novel since it has been done in the past when peugeot was adopted as official car of government.
So, NASS and the Executive arm must lead by example by patronizing Made-in-Nigeria products and services to boost local production, improve Gross National Product (GNP), by extension  Gross Domestic Product (GDP), resulting  in jobs creation  that would lead to prosperity and better standards of living for all.

That is the surest way of unraveling the high cost of governance and other ills or negative factors currently besetting our beleaguered nation and preventing her from being on even keel to leapfrog in socioeconomic and political development as the world has been anticipating.

Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, and a former commissioner in the Delta State government, sent this piece from Lagos, Nigeria.

Experts have urged Nigeria to learn from the debt crisis of Egypt by embarking on spending that will make a positive impact on the nation’s economy.

According to experts, Egypt’s economic bold reforms were held up as a model country for Nigeria as the country became the darling of investors. However, the country later undone the gains of those reforms with huge spending of borrowed funds on megaprojects from a new capital city to presidential palaces that have not delivered economic gains.

An economist familiar with the matter said that the spending spree, financed mainly by foreign loans, has put Egypt at risk of a rare bond default. He said Egypt’s case shows reform is not enough, if it is not complemented by purposeful leadership.

A public finance expert, Musa Adekunle said Nigeria can learn from some mistakes made by Egypt such as failed industrial development due to poor planning and heavy bureaucracy, and export policies that created a persistent trade deficit.

He said, “A borrowing spree under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi left Egypt with heavy foreign debt. Foreign creditors have been shying away, pushing the Cairo government to borrow domestically even as interest rates surge, spawning bigger deficits. This, and an expansion of the money supply, have fuelled currency depreciation and higher inflation.

Over the past two years, an acute dollar shortage suppressed imports and caused a backlog at ports, with a knock-on effect on local industry. Prices for many staple foods rose much faster than headline inflation, which accelerated to a record 38%. Economic growth has slowed, and many Egyptians say their standard of living has been eroded.”

Fresh data released by the Central Bank has shown that Egypt’s foreign debt increased by $3.5 billion in the last three months of 2023 which has deepened her debt crisis as the country’s foreign debt now amounted to 43 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product. According to Business Insider Africa, total foreign debt in the country climbed to $168.0 billion from $164.5 billion at the end of September and $162.9 billion at the end of December 2022.

Egypt has quadrupled its external debt since 2015, using it to finance various initiatives such as constructing new capital, developing infrastructure, procuring weaponry, and sustaining an overvalued currency, Reuters reported.

The central bank reported that the foreign debt, of which 82.5 per cent was long-term, amounted to 43 per cent of the gross domestic product.

Following the Ukraine crisis, which resulted in a chronic shortage of foreign currency and prompted an exodus of foreign investors, the government of Egypt sought assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The country deliberately allowed its currency to weaken by over 35 per cent in a much-anticipated devaluation, potentially opening the door for additional loans from the IMF.

In March, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $5 billion augmentation to its loan programme for Egypt. The approval increased the Extended Fund Facility arrangement from the initially approved $3 billion in December 2022 to $8 billion.

The IMF has consistently advocated for Egypt to implement tighter monetary policies to address nearly 30% inflation and adopt a more flexible official exchange rate.

As part of the agreement, Egypt committed to reducing spending on large government projects. Also, in March, Egypt raised the prices of various fuel products, fulfilling a commitment made to the IMF as part of the financial assistance agreement.

 [Ledadership]

John Makina, the Country Director of Oxfam, has announced significant progress in fostering social cohesion among 16 wards and 80 communities in Michika Local Government Area, which suffered greatly during the insurgency in Adamawa State.

The initiative aims to foster unity and reduce crises in the region.

Addressing journalists at a close-out review and dissemination workshop in Yola, themed “Support to Improving Social Cohesion through Community Development Planning in 16 Wards of Michika LGA,” Makina outlined that the 11-month intervention was conducted in collaboration with CRUDAN, GIZ, and CEPAD.

Makina emphasised that the intervention focused on enhancing participatory engagement and planning among local communities, governmental bodies, and stakeholders. This collaborative effort is anticipated to yield better socio-economic outcomes for the affected communities.

“The aftermath of the insurgency in Michika LGA has led to widespread distrust among residents, internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees, and returnees, underscoring the urgent need for social cohesion,” he said.

[DailyTrust]

Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has said that it was not on the front burner of his administration to employ new people into the state’s civil service.

The governor made the disclosure during the monthly interactive session with the media on Thursday in Umuahia.

According to him, the issue of employment would arise when the government finished dealing with what it met in the civil service.

He added that there was an embargo that he made, stressing that it was still in place.

He complained that the number of persons in the civil service was still very high even after verification.

Otti decried the huge wage bill of about four billion naira for both local government and state on a monthly basis.

The governor, however, assured that the government was working assiduously on improving and enhancing the pay for the civil servants.

He said that government was aware that there were quite a lot of people in the service who might not be contributing at optimal levels and would need to do something about it.

He said: “So, it may not be a priority at this time to open up the doors to bring in new people, except if we have a way of exiting a few people.

“But you know with the civil service rules, it is not going to be very easy to exit people.

“What we are trying to do with the establishment of the Civil Service Commission and resumption of the new Head of Service and new Permanent Secretaries is to ensure that our people are adequately trained.

“This is to enable them operate their skills and perform better.”

[DailyPost]

The Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Gani Adams, has asked the Federal Government to address Nigerians’ sufferings caused by the fuel subsidy removal and increased electricity tariffs.

Adams disclosed this while speaking during the 2024 edition of the Oke Ibadan festival, organised by the Olokun Festival Foundation, which was held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Thursday.

He noted that Nigerians are concerned about the present situation in the country.

He also pointed out that the idea of states having independent power supply was one of the policies of this administration that he had applauded, adding that there are a lot of advantages the states can get from this initiative.

He said, “One of the major policies of this administration that I applauded at the onset was the idea of having an imdependent power supply in the states.

“There are a lot of advantages the states can get from this initiative.

“Nigerians have continued to raise their voices against the policy, even as power outages persist in the country. The new tariffs have become a big problem for Nigerians.

“The increase in electricity tariffs had taken a huge toll on the entire system. It has affected all the sectors of the Nigerian economy.

“Like the growing pain experienced through the hike in the electricity tariffs, the fuel subsidy removal has continued to bring more hardship to Nigerians. It has also affected the Nigerian economy, drifting the country to further inflation.”

Adams has always pledged his support for President Bola Tinubu’s administration, saying his Presidency represents a new chapter for Nigeria.

He stated this in a congratulatory letter to the President on his recent victory at the Supreme Court.

Noting that “Nigeria is going through a lot at the moment,” Adams said Tinubu’s “victory has given rise to a leadership that this time demands. And we must agree with the fact that this is truly a new chapter in the political trajectory of Nigeria.”

He, however, urged Tinubu to make the best of his Presidency to, especially, heed the widespread yearning for the restructuring of the country.

[Punch]

Bandits on Thursday night invaded the Confluence University of Science and Technology, Osara, Okene in Kogi State and abducted some students.

An eyewitness account indicated that the bandits swooped on the university around 9pm while the students were reading for their upcoming exams.

The source said that the bandits came in through the bush, went into three lecture halls and began to shoot into the air to scare the students.

“They trapped the students inside the halls and started taking them; the school was thrown into total confusion as fear-stricken students in other halls scurried to safety, scampering in various directions. 

“By the time local security guards and the conventional security men at the gate engaged the bandits, they had already succeeded in abducting some students.

“But the efforts minimised the damage as the attackers didn’t go beyond the first three halls,” the source said.

According to the source, the students were preparing for their first-semester examination expected to commence on Monday, May 13, when the bandits struck.

A student, who craved anonymity, said that he and some colleagues ran to the bush and hid there for “more than an hour”.

“We only ventured out when everywhere became quiet,” he said.

Contacted, CUSTEC Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abdulraman Asipita, confirmed the incident but refused to give details of the number of students abducted.

“I don’t talk to journalists on incidents like this, but I want you to know that we are on top of the situation,” he said.

Efforts to reach the Commissioner of Police in Kogi, Mr Bethrand Onuoha, were not successful.

Retired Cdre Jerry Omodara, State Security Adviser, could equally not be reached for comments as calls to his line were not picked up nor returned.

Like in several parts of the country, abduction for ransom is the new normal. In February, gunmen reportedly kidnapped nine travellers in Oshokoshoko, along the Kabba/Obajana/Lokoja Road in Kogi State.

(NAN)

Organised Labour has justified its proposed N615,000 minimum wage demand.

The request is based on a conservative analysis of what an average Nigerian family needs to survive.

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Joe Ajaero stated this yesterday during his visit to the headquarters of The Nation in Lagos.

He was accompanied by some national officers and officials of the Lagos State council of the union.

Some of these are the National President, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Ambali Akeem Olatunji; NLC Lagos State Chairman Funmi Sessi and NLC National Trustee, Akporeha Williams.

The delegation was received by senior editorial figures led by Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief Victor Ifijeh.

Ajaero, a former Labour reporter, who is one year old in office, described the visit as “home-coming”.

He said he would have visited media houses before now but for the pressure of office.

Although Labour was not opposed to a negotiated wage for workers, Ajaero said the prevailing economic realities informed its decision to put forward for negotiation the proposed N615,000 wage demand to the Federal Government’s Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage.

Labour made public the amount on May Day, saying it had tabled it before the Tripartite Committee, whose meetings are ongoing to reach an agreement on the minimum wage.

Ajaero said there were misconceptions about the proposal, but the NLC was left with no other choice than to arrive at the figure based on prevailing economic indices and realities to make life better for Nigerian workers.

“We presented N615,000 as minimum wage to the Federal Government. But if you ask us to present again today, it is going to increase because when we were presenting that figure, things like electricity tariff had not increased. And there was no cybersecurity levy,” he said, asking: “Where are we going to get money to pay for these?”

Ajaero said this was why the NLC gave the Federal Government, through the Tripartite Committee, a proviso that “If the indices remain the way they are, this N615,000 demand stands, but if they come down as we are negotiating, we will look at it.”

Explaining how NLC arrived at the N615,000 minimum wage, Ajaero said: “We looked at accommodation, food, medicals, education, and other utilities. We didn’t make provisions for communication, offerings, tithes and the like. Those are some of the things we took into cognisance before we arrived at N615,000.”

On accommodation, for instance, Ajaero said the NLC pegged it at N40,000 for a room and parlour apartment for a family of husband and wife and four children.

“This means that if you have a grandmother or mother-in-law, you are on your own because we did not calculate those,” he said.

NLC calculated feeding based on N500 per person per meal for a family of six.

“So, N500 per person is N1,500 per person in a day. For six tables in a month, we are going to have N270,000 for feeding,” he said, adding that N50,000 is for education and medicals each, assuming a worker does not go for surgery or send his or her children to private school, for instance.

For utilities like electricity bills and gas, Ajaero said while N20,000 was allocated to the former, even before the tariff increased, about N16,000 or N17,000 was for gas, which does not last for more than two weeks.

This, he said, means that in a month, some families buy gas at least twice, spending between N30,000 and N35,000.

“Based on our calculation, a worker is not supposed to own a car, not even a motorcycle, because he or she can’t fill a car tank with N30,000; he can’t service a vehicle,” Ajaero said.

He noted that these are some of the things the NLC took into consideration before coming up with N615,000.

“We have placed it (N615,000) wage demand before the government for negotiation because when there is an offer there is usually a counter-offer to say no, this one you are asking is out of it,” the labour leader said.

He pointed out that while inflation remained high, wages have also remained constant and all other costs are going up, whether it’s housing, transportation or school fees.

“So, should wage remain constant and still take care of other variables?” Ajaero asked.

“If all these factors are checked, we will be arriving at another figure.”

The NLC boss also said the removal of petrol subsidy pushed up prices of goods and services across the country.

He said if the fuel subsidy was not removed, “probably we would have suggested N80,000 minimum wage.”

Asked about state governments not even paying the current N30,000 wage, and whether the Federal Government can afford the proposed N615,000, Ajaero was emphatic.

“States can pay if they get their priorities right,” he said, noting that it’s only a few state governments that are not paying the N30,000.

He said: “I think a few state governments are not paying; just very few or some are paying in breaches.

“But on the issue of whether the states can pay, yes, they can if they get their priorities right.

“In fact, National Assembly’s wages have almost tripled. If you come to an economy and we are having this argument of affordability, everybody must be disciplined.”

Besides, he argued that the issue of minimum wage is a benchmark and a product of legislation such that if left open, some states will not even pay N10,000.

“If this N30,000 was not a product of legislation, the state governments that have been kicking that minimum wage be sent into the concurrent list so that they can decide whether to pay N5,000 or not would have succeeded,” he said.

Ajaero, however, said all over the world, it is called minimum.

In other words, states are supposed to pay beyond the minimum.

“If you check states like Edo, while some are paying N30,000, they are paying N40,000; some others are paying N35,000. Most states are paying more than N30,000,” he said.

He also pointed out that when this same complaint about the payment of 30,000 came up during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s era and he released money from the Sovereign Wealth Fund for state governors to pay salaries, they did not use it for the purpose but diverted it.

On the ongoing negotiations at the Tripartite Committee, made up of Federal/state government officials, labour unions and the organised private sector, Ajaero said the labour centres were asked to harmonise their positions, which he said had been done.

He said another meeting of the committee had been fixed for May 15. It will be held via Zoom.

He expressed reservations about using Zoom for such a serious negotiation, saying many factors could make it inappropriate.

He also said if the Federal Government makes good its promise to provide Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses, which, according to him, is not rocket science as it only requires a conversion kit to switch over to PMS, transportation costs will significantly reduce.

“If we had achieved that, you don’t need to tell anybody and you will see that transportation will just crash. Transportation is central to our demand.

“If CNG buses are put in place, we won’t be talking about this. We are looking at it holistically. If all this is done, Nigerians will live happily,” Ajaero said.

FBN Holdings Plc, has announced the exit of Mr Tunde Hassan-Odukale as Chairman of its subsidiary, First Bank of Nigeria Ltd., following the completion of his tenure.

The Board of First Bank appointed Mr Ebenezer Olufowose, a Non-Executive Director, as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank.

Company Secretary, FBN Holdings, Adewale Arogundade, said this in a notification sent to the Nigerian Exchange Ltd.(NGX) on Thursday in Lagos.

Arogundade explained that Hassan-Odukale completed the cumulative number of years, which is 12 years for a Non-Executive Director, in line with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBNs) corporate governance guidelines.

He said Olufowose was appointed to the Board of Directors of First Bank on April 29, 2021.

Olufowose is the Group Managing Director of First Ally Capital Ltd., an investment banking firm based in Lagos.

With over 35 years of working in the financial services industry, Olufowose brings skills from corporate finance, project finance and investment banking to the board.

Before joining the First Bank Board, he was Executive Director at Access Bank Plc and Citibank Nigeria, where he led Citigroup’s origination, structuring and execution of corporate finance and investment banking transactions in Nigeria.

He started his banking career in 1985 at NAL Merchant Bank Plc (NAL), working in the Corporate Planning and Finance Departments.

A first-dass honours degree holder in Economics from the University of Lagos, Olufowose holds an MA in International Economics from the University of Sussex, England.

He has attended several management and leadership training programmes at leading institutions, including the Institute of Management Development, Switzerland, Harvard Business School, Boston, U.S., and INSEAD Singapore.

He is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School and the Lagos Business School and an Honourary Senior member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.

Olufowose is also a Fellow of the Institute of Credit Administration and a Fellow of the Association of Investment Advisers and Portfolio Managers.

(NAN)