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.”

Fresh facts have emerged how the national leadership of All Progressives Congress and other stakeholders were arm-twisted by the Presidency in the Edo governorship primary election.
Presidency and the National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (NWC-APC) had toed different lines over the choice of the candidate of the governing party for the forthcoming gubernatorial election in Edo State slated for September, this year.

APC had scheduled the intra-party election to pick its flag-bearer for last Saturday, amidst divergent interests by critical stakeholders from within and outside Edo State.
Loyalists of the key players in the Presidency and NWC fought dirty in Benin City, the Edo state capital, on Saturday, as they pushed for the emergence of the preferred candidate of their benefactors to fly the flag of the ruling party in the crucial off season September 18 government election.
The ill-fated primary produced “two winners” in the persons of a member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dennis Idahosa, who represents Ovia South/West-Ovia North/East in Edo South senatorial district of the state and Senator Monday Okpebholo, who is representing Edo Central in the 10th Senate.
LEADERSHIP learnt that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had succumbed to pressures from his chief of staff, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, to endorse Idahosa in the countdown to Saturday’s election.
Gbajabiamila, the major promoter of Idahosa, after securing the presidential nod, recruited a former governor of the state, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, as the arrow-head of the deal to clear all hurdles against Idahosa at the state level.
Oshiomhole later set the stage for Idahosa’s emergence in the three senatorial districts of the state.
In the emerging scenario, Oshiomhole was compelled to abandon some of his lieutenants, who had shown interest in the election and touted their relationship with him as an asset to clinch victory in the intra-party election.
Besides, some of Oshiomhole’s loyalists, including his former deputy, Chief Pius Obudu, were tactically eliminated from the race, for lacking financial muscles to prosecute the general election.

Oshiomhole reportedly persuaded some of them to drop their aspirations since they could not withstand the financial war-chest, which Gbajabiamila had promised to deploy in aid of Idahosa to clinch the highest political office in Edo state.
One of our sources in the Presidency said Gbajabiamila, peddling presidential influence, also got some front-runners in the election to back out in order to pave the way for Idahosa. He promised some of them juicy federal appointments as reward.
The source told LEADERSHIP that the party’s NWC was oblivious of the game plan by the Presidency to install Idahosa.

LEADERSHIP was told that the NWC, since it was not taken into confidence by Gbajabiamila, was working to deliver Okpebholo, who hails from Edo central, an area which has been denied governorship seat of the state since the advent of the current political dispensation in 1999.
The tenure Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor, an indigene of the area, who was inaugurated on May 29, 2007, to succeed Chief Lucky Igbinedion (Edo South), was cut short by judicial pronouncement on November 11, 2008.
Osunbor’s fate paved the way for Oshiomhole’s (Edo North) governorship till 2016, and he was succeeded by the incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki, also from Edo South.
The Abdullahi Ganduje-led NWC was working on the permutation that it would only be fair to accord Edo central the deserving opportunity, more so that Obaseki was planning to pick his successor from the zone, on the banner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
This, in the wisdom of Ganduje and his colleagues in the NWC, would engender healthy competition between two frontline political parties in the general election.
It was also gathered that Senate President Godswill Akpabio, in a bid to push Okpebholo through, also dropped the name of President Tinubu before the national chairman of the party, Ganduje, to help the cause of his colleague in the Senate.

Akpabio was quoted to have told Ganduje that Okpebholo was the person favoured by the president. One of our sources said Ganduje fell for Akpabio’s subtle blackmail.
The source said Akpabio’s revelation also strengthened the resolve of the NWC to back the Edo senator.
However, findings by LEADERSHIP revealed that Ganduje only got wind of Gbajabiamila’s clandestine plans less than 48 hours to the primary election, in the early hours of Thursday.
As the rumours filtered to him, Ganduje raced to Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, for an audience with Tinubu, who was billed to travel to Addis Ababa, for clarification on the festering issue.
One of the sources told this newspaper that “as Ganduje struggled for recognition for a handshake, Mr. President sauntered forward, facing the national chairman frontally, he said ‘has Femi (Gbajabiamila) delivered my message on the Edo primaries to you? But if he has not told you, this is my position: go and deliver Dennis Idahosa.’

“The NWC had programmed all human and material resources in favour of Senator Monday Okpebholo and some of the arrangement could no longer be altered to accommodate the now glaring interest of Mr. President. The national chairman’s frantic calls and contacts to the various committees to change the course of action were futile. The committee members were either unreachable or they refused to budge and listen to the fresh order.
Already, the controversial intra-party election has produced three winners.
Imo State Governor and chairman of the APC governorship primary committee, Hope Uzodinma, announced Idahosa winner of the primary.

According to the governor, Idahosa polled 40,453 votes to defeat Okpebholo, who garnered a paltry 100 votes.
In another twist, the NWC-appointed returning officer for the election, Dr. Stanley Ugboajah, announced Okpebholo winner having polled 12,145 votes to defeat Idahosa who got 5,536 votes.
Meanwhile, the APC Critical Stakeholders Group has called on party’s national chairman, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje to disregard the declaration of Hon. Dennis Idahosa by Governor Hope Uzodinma as APC governorship candidate for the September 21 Edo State Governorship election.
The APC Critical Stakeholders led Hon. Emmanuel Godwin who made the call at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, insisted that Anamero Sunday Dekeri, popularly called Danco was the validly nominated candidate governorship at the party’s primary election held on Saturday.

Ganduje Succumbs to Presidency, Congratulates Idahosa
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje, has congratulated Rep. Dennis Idahosa (APC-Edo) over his emergence as the party’s candidate for the upcoming governorship election in Edo State.
Ganduje said this in a statement by Edwin Olofo, his Chief Press Secretary on Sunday in Abuja following the primaries.
He also commended Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, who was the Chairman of the APC Edo State Governorship Primary Election and Appeal Committee, for conducting a credible exercise.
“At this point, I want to call on all the aspirants to bury the hatchet and work for the interest of the party so that our party will emerge victorious,” he said.
Ganduje also commended the state APC stakeholders and assured them that the party would do everything possible to ensure that Edo State was delivered.Ugboajah-led committee sent to the state was the one recognised by law as returning officers, adding that Governor Hope Uzodinma does not have the power to return any aspirant as elected.

[Leadership]

The National Population Commission (NPC) has disclosed plans to digitise the registration of birth, death and other vital civil information in the country.

In a statement, NPC’s acting Director, Public Affairs, Nkoyo Nwakusor, said the move to stop manual registration was to enable self-service and assisted-service to the public to register vital events such as birth, still-birth, death, birth attestation, diaspora birth and death notification, marriage and divorce notifications, migration registration, vital certificate verification and hospital onboarding.

She noted that through VitalReg, a state-of-the-art digital application, there would be digital certificates in all cases and accessible verification platforms to registered organisations with a central management system (dashboard) that depicted and analysed collated civil registrations into vital statistics for proper planning and decision-making purposes.

The statement quoted the Chairman of NPC, Nasir Isa Kwarra, that the VitalReg marked a departure from the traditional paper-based recording of vital events to a state-of-the-art digital solution that conformed to international best practices.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Barnksforte Technologies Limited, Adedayo Bankole thanked the commission and the federal government for the opportunity to provide the technology solution to digitalise civil registration and vital statistics in Nigeria, adding that they would continue to improve the application to boost efficient data generation in the country.

[DailyTrust]

The presidency has accused the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the 2023 general election, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, of attempting to rubbish President Bola Tinubu’s foreign exchange policies.

In a statement released on Sunday, Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga said that the president’s meeting with the 36 state governors was centered around food security and rising cost of food across the country.

Naija News reports that he cleared that there was no discussion on the country’s currency performance at the forex market during the cause of the meeting.

The statement by Onanuga read, “Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, in an attempt to rubbish the foreign exchange policy of the Tinubu administration got his facts muddled up again. He also failed to prescribe a better Policy Option to what Governor Olayemi Cardoso and his team are executing at the apex bank.

“First of all, it was not true that President Tinubu’s meeting last Thursday with the 36 State Governors was centred on discussing foreign exchange crisis and currency fluctuation.

“What was discussed in the main was food supply and how to drastically reduce the food prices. The Minister of Information, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, gave a briefing about the meeting, revealing the highlights to State House Correspondents.

“One was that the meeting established a nexus between the state of security and the rising cost of food. Another was that hoarders are warehousing food, creating artificial scarcity and thus enabling the high cost of food items.

“The decisions at the meeting reflected the main points discussed: Forest rangers are to be strengthened and armed, while police are to recruit more men and the National Economic Council to deepen discussions about creating state police.

“President Tinubu also affirmed his approval for the release of 42,000 Metric tonnes of grains from the national reserve. Government is also in discussion with rice millers to get another 60,000 metric tonnes. President Tinubu said he does not support price control and importation of food. Nigeria, he believes, can grow enough food to feed its citizens and spare some for export.

“The present government is executing the cultivation of 500,000 hectares for wheat, maize, and rice, in many states. Governors are expected to participate in this programme, one of the reasons for last Thursday’s meeting.

“There was no deliberation as former VP Atiku claimed on currency fluctuation. As Alhaji Atiku should know, this is the business of the Central Bank, which has the autonomy to handle the country’s monetary policies. As a matter of fact, the President enjoined the governors, in passing, to allow the CBN do its work and refrain from dabbling into what is within CBN’s purview.

“If he would be true to himself and what actually transpired at the meeting, unlike the lies he spewed, we expected Alhaji Atiku to praise President Tinubu for maintaining this stance and for not interfering with the business of Central Bank.

“It is false and preposterous for Atiku to claim that CBN’s FX management policy was hurriedly put together without proper plans and consultations with stakeholders and that the apex bank is hamstrung by Tinubu’s government in implementing a sound FX Management Policy “that would have dealt with such issues as increasing liquidity, curtailing/regulating demand, dealing with FX backlogs and rate convergence”.

“Contrary to former VP Atiku’s claim, Cardoso’s CBN is implementing a raft of policies to stabilise the Naira and end volatility in the market and this is already yielding some positive results.

“Capital importation into the country is increasing, according to the latest NBS report. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Nigeria recorded a 66.27 percent increase in capital inflow, compared with Q3, before Cardoso’s arrival at CBN. In Q3, capital inflow was $654.65 million. It rose to $1.09 billion in Q4.
Alhaji Atiku will agree that the rise in capital inflow suggests massive investors’ confidence in Nigeria and the policy direction of the Tinubu administration.

“Juxtaposed with the policy options being implemented by the CBN, Atiku’s alternative of a controlled floatation of the Naira is similar to the policy of Godwin Emefiele, when an estimated $1.5 billion was spent monthly to shore up the Naira, while arbitrage or round tripping went on unhindered. Sadly, it was perpetrated by people close to the corridors of powers.”