No fewer than 80 vessels carrying over 350, 000 tons of petrol arrived Lagos ports yesterday amidst speculations that the federal government may eventually bow to pressure from the international Monetary Fund, IMF and other international development partners to increase petrol pump price.
Their arrival, government sources say, is to re-assure Nigerians that the product is abundantly available, therefore, no need for panic buying.
But the comment of the minister of state for Petroleum Resource, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu that the FG has not taken any definitive position on the matter has fueled speculation that the administration has finally bowed to external pressure on the issue.
Recall that IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, last week at a press conference of the joint annual spring meetings with the World Bank in Washington DC, called on the Federal Government to remove fuel subsidy.
Since then, some marketers have started hoarding the product with the expectation that the government will finally announce the removal of subsidy and that the price will rise.
Billions of dollars have been spent in the last three years on fuel subsidy to make petroleum products available to Nigerians at a controlled price.
But the Buhari administration has denied paying subsidy, rather it claims there’s a special window created by the government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC that allows the oil company to pick the bills of the shortfall between the actual market price and subsidized price of the petrol, also known as PMS.
Last year N3bn was spent daily on petrol subsidy, rising up to over a trillion naira by the President Muhamadu Buhari government to make the product available at government controlled price.
But feelers have emerged recently that the arrangement will soon be dumped, following support from President Buhari’s inner economic council.
The magazine learned that the National Economic Council, NEC chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has been under serious pressure to jettison the subsidy regime.
This followed mounting pressure from world bodies such as the World Bank, IMF on government to fully deregulate the down-stream petroleum sector, so as to free more funds for other critical sectors of the nation’s economy.
To underscore this fact, Nigeria’s Finance MinisterZainab Shamsuna Ahmed is also known to have thrown its weight behind the position of IMF that subsidy should be removed.
The federal government has, however, denied contemplating any fuel price hike, though there are indications that the price of petrol may be increased from the current N145 to at least N185 per litre in the next few weeks.
The fear of price spike is already having a toll as some marketers of the product have started selling against the control price of N145.
The development has led to scarcity of the products in some parts of the country.
Normalcy has just returned in places like Lagos and Abuja after weekend of vehicular queues at filling stations.
Some car owners told the magazine that the situation will get worse if the government failed to do more to reassure Nigerians that it had no plans to increase the pump price.
Various groups in the country, particularly in the oil sectors have also warned of dire consequences for the economy if the Nigerian authority went ahead with the rumored plan to change the current price regime.
For instance, NUPENG and PENGASSAN have urged the Buhari administration not to bow to pressure to increase the price of petrol in the country.
According to a joint statement issued by the two unions, they warned that the IMF advice to President Buhari to remove subsidy is not only poisonous but that any hike at this time will impoverish more Nigerians and leads to more hardship.
The two unions said the IMF’s advice had created panic in the country, which had led to the hoarding of petroleum products.
“The statement of IMF has created panic in the country with associated hoarding of petroleum products, panic buying, skyrocketed increases in prices of goods and services in the country,” NUPENG and PENGASSAN said in a joint statement.
Despite the warning, the magazine learned that the government is seriously thinking of discarding the current subsidy regime.
What the inner caucus of the president is telling him, the magazine learned from Presidency sources, is that his government can no longer sustain payment of subsidy to marketers.
That the arrangement has led to huge holes in government finances, thereby forcing the regime to borrow funds to take care of other critical sectors.
For instance, not less than N1.3tr will be borrowed this year to fund the 2019 Budget, analysts say.
Much of that will be borrowed from countries like China thus worsening the country’s public debt, according to financial experts.
Recall also that the Buhari administration has come under trenchant criticism for taking huge loans from the Peoples’ Republic of China.
Among those that warned the government from further incurring debt to China is world financial body, IMF.
Meanwhile, the magazine learned that the federal government is now turning to IMF for huge loans to finance critical infrastructure in the country.
The FG has also applied for a one billion loan from the World Bank to finance some power projects in the country.
It was however learned that one critical demand from both IMF and World Bank, is that subsidy on petroleum products must be removed to access such facilities.
Following the advice of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, that Nigeria should go the whole hog and remove the subsidy on downstream oil products, government is said to be geared towards a phased increase in pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS. Hours after the announcement by the IMF boss, there appeared long queues at the filling stations.
The IMF had advised Federal Government to remove subsidy on Premium Motor Spirits, PMS, for enhancement of economic recovery.
Speaking in Washington, the IMF boss, Christiana Lagarde, insisted that subsidy removal is necessary for critical infrastructure to be dealt with.
“Nigeria has among the lowest Tax to GDP ratio which signifies low revenue mobilisation for the government and the only way to fill in the gap is to remove subsidy.” she said. “We believe that removal of fossil fuel subsidies is the right way to go. If you look at our numbers since 2015, it is no less than 5.2 trillion dollar that is spent on fuel subsidies and the consequences thereof. Our Fiscal Affairs Department actually identified how much would have been saved fiscally, but also in terms of human life if there has been the right price on carbon emission as of 2015. The numbers are quite staggering. There will be more fund available for public spending to build more hospitals, roads, schools, and to support education and health for the people,” she said.
Hours after the advice by the International Financial institution, Fuel queues have resurfaced at Nigeria filling stations, with Marketers giving the usual reasons for fuel scarcity. Many stations were closed down because some marketers are waiting to know the direction the wind of change will blow. This was fueled by speculations that the federal government is poised to raise the pump price of fuel to N250 per liter-a speculation that the Federal Government has denied.
Although Filling stations have not generally increased their pump price in Lagos,reports indicate that in some states in the east it has jumped to about N160 per liter.
This is coming at a time there has been increased clamor for probity and accountability in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Recently, Maikanti Baru, the NNPC boss, said that the NNPC’s operational and financial results for September 2018 portrays the country as consuming 80 million litres of petrol per day in March 2018. This was up from the 41 million litres daily consumption in December 2017. Many analysts questioned the authenticity of this figure, since it appears that the NNPC may never be audited.
The Federal Government has always played Ping Pong with the Petroleum Subsidy. Each time they claim to remove it, the still fix prices, thereby revealing the political implications of such removals.
Human empathy took flight at Public Health Centre, PHC, Mayne Avenue, Calabar, a government health facility, late Friday evening when a woman in labour rushed to the Centre for succour.
Rather than health workers present helping her into the labour room, the pregnant woman’s inability to pay N20,000 demanded by them resulted in the most inhuman treatment ever meted out to a woman in Labour in recent history.
The bizarre part of the sordid event was that the N20,000 was demanded so that surgery could be performed on the woman but surgeries are not be done in PHCs in the state.
Despite pleas for help, the unfeeling health workers pushed the woman, in excruciating labor pain, out of the facility. And in a classical woman’s inhumanity to a fellow woman, a trained nurse, Eme Bassey, allegedly used mopping stick to beat the woman, claiming that she bit her hand.
Ekpo Abasi Primary Healthcare Centre, Calabar
With pangs of labour hitting her hard, the pregnant young lady was then thrown out of the facility.
Left to her fate, the woman crawled to the grass in front of the facility where she struggled on her own her own, aided by some members of the community and other passers-by, to deliver her baby.
When finally she put to birth, the youths in the community stormed the health facility and forced the said nurse out to ensure she assisted the woman.
It was then she reluctantly came out to deliver the woman of her placenta.
The Director General of Cross River Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Betta Edu, who later arrived the facility expressed shock that women could give such treatment to a fellow woman.
The DG who was in tears said she had warned some health workers time without number to treat patients with compassion.
The grass where she delivered her baby
“I spend my time going from community to community to plead with women to leave Traditional Birth Attendants, Prayer houses and homes to have their babies in Health facilities, then, a woman shows up in a health facility and she is beaten and pushed out. What worse treatment could a human give to another human? This kind of wickedness is unheard of.
These health workers will be used to set example for others who have refused to do the work which they are paid to do”, he fumed.
Dr Edu said that the Cross River State governor, Professor Ben Ayade, has been faithful in paying workers and on time too, and has recently added another 1000 health workers to the workforce to strengthen the health sector in addition to the rural allowance paid as incentives and facility upgrade to improve services.
She thus wondered what more a committed Governor could do to make things work.
The DG threatened that since some health workers in the state have refused to change, “we will show them the way out and bring in people who are ready to work!”.
Dr.Edu thus announced the suspension of all the staff involved in the maltreatment of the pregnant woman as well as the PHC coordinator who supervises then.
She stated that all staff involved would face disciplinary committee and risk tough sanctions, including dismissal.
Meanwhile, the woman has since been admitted into the health facility and the DG has provided her and her baby with clothes as well as other provisions she requires to care for the new baby.
We have a quotable quote from President Muhammadu Buhari. He says he is unhappy. “I am the unhappiest President in the world”, national newspapers quoted Mr President as saying. He spoke from a foreign land, Amman, Jordan, where he addressed some Nigerians who live in that country. “It is uncharitable of those who accuse me of not being worried over the killings going on in Zamfara”, he added. The killings are not exclusive to Zamfara. Every part of Nigeria is soaked in blood – especially parts of the North-west and North-east.
Many Nigerians, on reading the President , had a good laugh. I didn’t. They don’t understand. They think the opposite is the case. They think the President is in cloud nine. They wonder how a Nigerian President would claim to be the unhappiest President in the world. They refer you to the Nigerian Constitution where his powers are spelt out. It bestows on the President more powers than any other President/Prime Minister/Head of State in the world. To crown it all, they add, the man has just won a second term in office, a feat many people never gave him a chance to accomplish. So, how can he be unhappy?, they ask.
But President Buhari is correct. I believe him. He should be unhappy. And that is an understatement. In fact, he should be extremely unhappy. He should be so unhappy he should not have embarked on the trip to Jordan and Dubai.
Considering the sad situation in the country, not a few people dismissed that trip as frivolous. They said it was like Rome’s Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burnt.
President Muhammadu Buhari
At least, one national newspaper, The Punch, in its editorial, of Tuesday, April 9, took exception to the President’s foreign trips when Nigeria is at its lowest, at its most vulnerable. Every indices which make life worthwhile for a people points to the negative.
I insist that the President has reasons to worry. And, he has genuine reasons to be unhappy. His subjects are angry. And they are hungry. The unprecedented violence and killings in the land have taken food away from them. They are helpless. And hapless. They see no tomorrow. They are worried. They see no future. They are disillusioned. And they ask: Where is our country? What has happened to it?
Suddenly, Nigerians have become endangered species. From left, right and centre, death stares us in the face. No time is safe, and nowhere is safe. Blood flows.
We are under unprecedented attack. Our youths are mowed down. Our children have become orphans or, at best, fatherless, in their thousands. Women have been forced into widowhood in their thousands. Atrocities, as never been seen before, are our everyday life. And, our country, one huge mortuary.
Not even during the civil war did Nigerians witness what they are witnessing today. We are under attack. Boko Haram. ISIS, West Africa, Bandits. Gun-wielding herdsmen. Kidnappers. Armed robbers. Assassins. Ritualists. And, we have not added some power-drunk trigger-happy security personnel who have declared war on our youths.
We are at war with ourselves. And our country bleeds. So why will the President be happy?
No leader is happy when his country men and women are under attack; when he cannot secure their lives; when he has tried everything, and nothing seems to be working. It can be frustrating.
For President Buhari, in particular, it is even more frustrating. One of the reasons for which he sought power was to secure the country. He promised us security of lives and property. When he swept into power in 2015, the allegation was that Boko Haram had taken over a number of LGAs in Borno state. Within a couple of months, we were told, all those areas had been reclaimed. We were told Boko Haram had been degraded. We were told we had become safe. It is now debatable what the truth is. Are we safer than we were in 2015?
In fairness to the President, he gave the Boko Haram menace a good shot when he came in. The security situation improved a notch. But that was then.
Nothing seems to be working out again. Our nightmare has multiplied.
Inspite of the gallantry of our military, the billions of money spent, the number of times our Security Chiefs have met with the President, the number of military operations code-named this and that, the story remains the same.
Hundreds of thousands of our people are refugees in their own country. The number of IDPs have since risen by about 500 per cent. Our IDP camps stretch to Cameroon and the Niger Republic. And some more.
So, how can the President be happy?
From Borno, Adamawa, Katsina, Kaduna, Yobe Taraba, Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, the story is the same. Aside from the genocide going on in Southern Kaduna, the road between Abuja and Kaduna is comparable to the road to Afghanistan or Syria or Libya. Nigerians are being kidnapped in droves. And it is such a shame that a combination of the military and the police have, for more than 12 months, been unable to secure that road. The Benin – Ore road is the same. So is the Port Hacourt – Owerri road. And there are a number of other roads in Nigeria that have been labelled “no pass areas.” You do that at your own risk. Deadly kidnappers will bundle you into the forest.
I know a number of Nigerians who have stopped reading newspapers, and stopped listening to the news on radio and television because every line read, every word uttered is so very depressing.
So, how can the President be happy?
Yet, the massacres as we have seen in Zamfara in the past couple of weeks pass all understanding. Heart-wrenching stories of the slaughtering of Nigerians leave one dumbfounded. Nowhere in the world, in recent times, have such atrocities, such brazen killings, as we are seeing in Zamfara happened. Whole families are wiped out. Whole communities are wiped out. Their houses burnt. Where is the international community? Have we been abandoned to our fate? How come these armed bandits are impossible for our military to contain? The more we are told they have been contained, the more they multiply.
I began to take serious note of Zamfara a few months ago. Until then, I was associating the state with illegal mining and lead poisoning. My awakening came the day a traditional ruler in the state courageously tackled the state governor, Abdulazeez Yari, who had visited him. He decried the security situation in the state, and dismissed the governor, almost, as incompetent. He advised him to stay in the state and govern instead of spending all his time in Abuja.
True, Governor Yari is suffering from the Sokugo disease, an affliction, as written in Cyprain Ekwensi’s Burning Grass, which hardly allows one to stay in one place. Like many other governors, he is a visitor in his state. He has since lost track of the security situation in Zamfara.
And, what was his reaction to the killings? He quit his, albeit, glorified office as the Chief Security Officer of the state. He then said, tongue in cheek, that he wouldn’t mind a declaration of a state of emergency in his state. He was making a joke of a tragic situation.
Thinking of it now, I don’t know why that was not done. For, as some Zamfara indigenes led by Kadaria Ahmed, one of Nigeria’s brilliant journalists, noted in Abuja last week during a protest, the Governor has since lost the moral right to govern the state.
He does not inspire his subjects. He hardly stays with them. He takes his position as the Chairman of Nigeria’s Governors Forum more seriously than he does the governance of his state. And, this other day, he told us that the armed bandits terrorising his state were better equipped than the Nigerian military, thus emboldening the bandits. And, in case you were forgetting, Governor Yari it was, who when there was an outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis in his state, attributed it to God’s anger over his subjects’ indulgence in fornication. In every aspect of life, since his emergence as governor, Zamfara has gone down the hill. Yet, he has neither worried, nor wept publicly before the President like his Borno state counterpart, Kashim Shettima. He is more at home, standing before the cameras in Abuja, addressing the press on behalf of Nigeria’s Governors Forum than monitoring the sad situation in his state.
Yet, the bulk of the blame should go to the FG. Why is it so difficult to deal with the insecurity in the North- East and North-west, and other parts of Nigeria?
We have been given too many reasons, they have become a bore. We have been told about so many would-be solutions, they now sound like a broken record.
This other day, the FG said some powerful traditional rulers were behind the armed banditry in the state. If so, why not name and shame them? If true, they are sponsoring genocide and should be bundled before the International criminal court.
A couple of days ago, the Acting Inspector General of Police found a nexus between mining and the Zamfara killings. Plausible. As a first step, he has suspended all mining activities in the state. But what about the killings in Kaduna, Katsina, Taraba, Adamawa, Sokoto, Yobe, Benue? Are they also attributable to mining? What about those going on in Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi and even Abia?
Truth is: We are in a huge mess. And our leaders should swallow their huge ego and admit it.
We should re-strategize. No doubt, our Service Chiefs have tried. They have given their best. I, at once, applaud and sympathize with them. From day one of their appointments, they have been at the war fronts. They have been everywhere, engaged in everything. From the inexplicable war against MASSOB, IPOB, to engaging in election duties; From Boko Haram, armed bandits, ISIS, armed herdsmen, kidnappers, to armed robbers, etc, it’s been one long war. They must be war weary. It’s natural. A patriotic change, devoid of ethnic and/or tribal considerations, has become necessary. And so have fresh ideas.
For more number of times than we remember, Service Chiefs have met with the President. They have on more than three occasions, relocated to the war zones. Yet nothing.
Mr President, the buck stops on your table. Save your subjects. At your age, and with your status, you shouldn’t be unhappy. You should be happy, smiling in your dreams. You have achieved it all – your country’s former Head of State, now President, a ravishingly beautiful wife, lovely children and grandchildren. You have it all. You shouldn’t be unhappy.
Put your foot down, Mr President. March on the killing fields in our country. Give them hell. And we’ll hail you. At least now, we have learnt one big lesson.
No President deliberately wishes bloodshed on his subjects. Former President Goodluck Jonathan did not encourage Boko Haram. He was not weak in dealing with them. He did not hate the North as President. Proof: He has been out of power for almost four years, and instead of abetting, the killings, the bloodshed, all round insecurity has worsened. They have spread across our country. And we have no place to hide. And just in case you were forgetting, all our security chiefs, but one,(Chief of Naval Staff) are from the North.
This, therefore, is our collective burden. Our collective responsibility. Mr President, assemble the best in our country from across party and ethnic lines. Ignore the hardliners who insist they must be of our stock; they must be from our party. Your name and credibility are on the line. Not theirs. Make yourself happy Mr President, and it will trickle down your long suffering, disillusioned, subjects. Honest.
Probably rattled by the the increasing spike of regime changes in recent times in African countries, President Buhari today summoned Security Chiefs in a meeting in Aso Rock hours after the Sudanese President, Muhammed Al Bashir, threw in the towel as the military took over power in Sudan for the next two years.
Bashir thus joined other Africans that lost their seats due to protests, where the military aligned with the people to oust a sitting president. He joins Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Hosni Mubarack of Egypt, Abdelazeez Bouteflika of Algeria, and Yahya Jammeh of Gambia. All these leaders left office in a similar style.
In Kenya, the Supreme Court had nullified the re election of a sitting president in a historic ruling which, incidentally, was the first in Africa. It then became a major historical landmark for the Opposition, Raila Odinga, who filed and pursued a protest case right up to the supreme Court.
Nigeria’s chief opposition leader, Atiku Abubakar, has also filed a case against Buhari challenging the March 2019 presidential election.
Coming on the heels of the Sudanese crisis, Buhari has summoned the Security Chiefs without letting out the agenda of the meeting. Suggestions, however, was that it is meant to discuss the escalating Security situation in the country. There has been bloodbath in Zamfara, Kaduna, and Borno. Bandits, formally called Fullani Herdsmen, have been rampaging in Zamfara and Kaduna, with the government helplessly complaining about the complicity of Traditional rulers. No arrests have been made in all cases, and Boko Haram had intensified attacks in their strongholds since President Buhari told the world that no state is being held by Boko Haram. “I am the most unhappy President alive”, Buhari was reported to have said about the attacks. The army had claimed they are bombing the strongholds of the “bandits”. Analysts believe that the emergency meeting may have more to do with the Al Bashir threat than the Bandit effect. “If it were the bandits, he would have summoned the meeting immediately he came back from his foreign trip”, an analyst told this magazine. “His summoning the meeting immediately Al Bashir was forced out by the Military speaks Volumes”.
Buhari had returned yesterday from a foreign trip. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was also out of the Country, together with the Senate President Buhkola Saraki. The Country was therefore left without head during the time they were away.
In attendance in the meeting that reportedly started around 11.00 am today were the National security adviser, Babagana Monguno; Director National Intelligence Agency, the Director General, Department Of Security Services, Acting Inspector General Of Police, and the Minister of Defense, Mansur Dan Ali.
The Zamfara Killings may have opened up a Pandora’s Box of strange doings in the Northern part of the Country, where illegal Mining has been taking place for ages with nothing coming out of it for the common good. And Zamfara is not alone in the natural endowment in solid minerals
Millions of Metric tones of Solid Minerals are to be found, not only in the North, but also in the southern part of the country. For example, apart from Gold found in Zamfara, it is also found in very large commercial quantities in Kaduna, Katsina and in lesser quantities in Cross River and Edo states. Borno State has Uranium in commercial quantities, and the whole Boko Haram ravaged belt is one of the most fertile Grains Belt in the world. Benue and Imo states have appreciable quantities of Shale that the Americans have found to be alternative to crude oil. Their processing of Shale has resulted in the decline of crude imports, thereby diminishing Nigerian crude market and forcing Nigeria to look towards China.
It is estimated that proceeds from solid minerals alone could triple the proceeds from Oil in no time, while providing jobs for millions of Nigerians. “But the retrogressive politics of the North will not allow it to happen”, says a source from one of the Chambers of Commerce in the Country. “For example, how come crude oil is owned by the whole country while the solid minerals proceeds goes to individual pockets?”, he queried.
Facts on ground seem to substantiate his claim. This Magazine was informed that Chinese nationals have been mining most of the solid minerals in the North. Sources told this magazine that all they needed to do is “Pay N20 million to the emir of the area in question and they mine the ores without molestation, and with nothing accruing to the country. i It is sad”, the source said. “Many of them have their licenses given to them by government agencies through the clandestine owners of these mines. And taxes are not paid on them by the miners”.
This Magazine had reported that the mines are owned by retired generals and Politicians.
President Buhari has stated that he will revoke the licenses of the “illegal” miners-an apparent contradiction in terms.
Unfortunately, in the South, mining of solid minerals cannot take place without Federal government approval. And the approvals are usually not forthcoming.
The source was informed of an investor who approached a southwest state governor whose state has large quantities of bitumen with a proposal for mining. He has the backing of an American firm. But the negotiations hit the rocks when the state government showed its helplessness because the federal Government did not approve. All Solid Minerals are meant to be Federal Property.
The major problem is that the Federal government is unwilling to do a prospecting of the exact quantity of Solid minerals because, according to analysts, it “serves their purpose not to”. Crude Oil prospecting was already done by the Multinational Companies and it is known what quantity of Crude in existence and how long it is expected to last. But no one knows the exact quantity of each of the close to forty different types of Solid minerals, including precious stones like Quartz, Columbite and amethyst. Hence while the government focuses on Oil, billionaires are being made daily at the expense of the country reeling in debt.
It wasn’s surprising to football analysts over the omission of Leicester City striker, Kelechi Iheanacho from the Super Eagles squad that faced Seychelles and Egypt in the 2019 African Cup of Nations qualifiers and International friendly last month.
Coach Gernot Rohr openly criticised the performance and lackluster attitude of Iheanacho during international duties. He said for Iheanacho to remain in contention for the 2019 AFCON tournament, he has to be more serious minded.
Since Claude Puel was sacked by Leicester City earlier this year, Iheanacho struggled to cement a place in the squad. He was just fortunate to make cameo appearances and wasn’t impressive anytime he was called upon.
When Brendan Rodgers took over the saddle as Leicester City coach, Iheanacho has been shut out of the team.
The once highly rated youngster has basically become a shadow of himself, as he has been relegated to the bench.
in a poll done by the club yesterday, Iheanacho was rated the fifth worst performer of the season, while his compatriot in the Super Eagles fold, Wilfried Ndidi was rated one of the top five best performer of the season.
When Iheanacho stood out of the crowd during the 2013 Under-17 FIFA World Cup at the United Arab Emirates, the world knew a wonder-kid has arrived to change the fortune of the nation at the world stage.
Iheanacho rise to fame was meteoric.
At the 2013 African U-17 Championship in Morocco, Iheanacho, shone brightly when he scored a hat-trick in a win against Botswana. He didn’t stop there as he was part of the the same team which went on to win the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
He scored six goals to win the Golden Boot. These opened the doors for his sojourn to England where he was snatched by the Premiership side, Manchester City. As he was not 18 yet, he signed for Man City Academy in January 2014. Even though he was not yet a full City player, he was picked to join them in the pre-season tour of United States and did so well.
After the 2015 pre-season tour of Australia where he impressed, Iheanacho was drafted to the senior team.in July. One month after, on August 10, he made his debut as a first team player.
From then on, he found favour with the club’s coach, Manuel Pellegrini and he didn’t disappoint the Italian. Even though his profile rose, Iheanacho did not display the spirit of a team player.
Such was that even when he scores at Man City, he celebrated alone away from onrushing team-mates who want to pat him on the back or head for his feat. That singular attitude created some problem for him as it seemed. Teammates started distancing themselves from him and he increasingly started becoming lonely. Balls were no longer going to him and his goal scoring prowess started dwindling.
Sadly, Iheanacho’s once glory has suddenly dwindled.
This hope faded with the same momentum they had nursed it and the fans wondered what had gone wrong with the once mercurial Iheanacho who was praised by football commentators in the Premiership.
The young player who was once tipped to be part of the new Super Eagles Gernot Rohr was gradually building for the future started gaining weight. Was it due to lack of playing time and spending too much time on the bench or that he was not training enough? Nobody could say precisely what the problem was.
The Board of Directors of Fidelity Bank have recently announced the appointment of three Executive Directors who, it is expected, will steer the ship of finance to the next corporate level. In a recent meeting in Lagos, the Board approved the appointment of Gbolahan Joshua, a mergers and Acquisition Banker; Obaro Odeghe, a Consumer Service Banker, and Hassan Imam, a Risk Management Banker into Directorial positions. Joshua will act as Executive Director/Chief of Operations and Information Officer while Odeghe will oversee corporate Banking. Imam will take charge of the Northern Directorate.
All will be subject to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, approval.
Gbolahan’s responsibilities include Operations, Technology, Digital Banking, Investor relations, Strategy and Business Transformations while Odeghe will oversee All the Bank’s corporate Banking covering Energy, Power, Manufacturing, Telecoms, Fast moving Consumer Goods, Construction and Real Estate. Hassan will, however, supervise all Commercial SMEs, consumer and Public sector Businesses in the eighteen northern states and Abuja.
All three were general managers before their elevation.
According to the Bank CEO, Nnamdi Okonkwo, the appointments underlies the Bank’s strategy of building capacity from within.
“Over the years, we have worked assiduously at proactively preparing our people and growing the talent and leadership pool in the Bank so that when opportunities arise, we do not always have to look outside. I am most delighted that our three new EDs were all appointed from within”, he said.
The Fidelity Bank Board of Directors, led by Ernest Ebi, former Deputy CBN governor, as Chairman, leads in gender sensitivity. It has three female Executive Directors.
“We welcome Gholahan, Obaro and Hassan to the Board. Collectively they have with them varied and deep industry knowledge and relevant experiences that will not only deepen but engender even more robust discussions and engagements at board level. Please join me in congratulating them”, Ebi said.
A Chattered accountant, Gbolahan boasts of 20 years cognate experience in Operations, Digital Banking and Technology, Strategy, Business Transformation, Finance and Treasury, including Mergers and acquisitions.
Obaro is a Havard trained Professional with an MBA. He has 24 Banking experience in Corporate, Trade, Finance and Institutional Banking and Operations.
Hassan, on his part, has two Masters Degree and an MBA. He brings on board 25years of comprehensive experience in Consumer, Commercial and Institutional Banking. His turf is Risk Management.
Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has been enmeshed in one crisis or the other since he won the primary election of All Progressives Congress, APC in Ondo state in 2015 which has greatly affected the fortune of the party particularly during the last general election.
The party only won only one out of three senate seats and five out of the nine seats in the House of Representatives.
The situation would have been worse in the House of Assembly election if not for the conscription of former Governor Olusegun Mimiko into the arrangement to make the ruling party get convenient majority in the assembly and it worked.
Those that know say Akeredolu committed some grave mistakes in the last three years as governor because he’s a neophyte that’s still learning political tricks.
“As a senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN he found himself in an unfamiliar terrain, aside his law profession where he has soared and towered,” one of his critics told the magazine yesterday.
The source said his foray into the politics has however taught him a different lesson and added to his life experience.
Having rode on the crest of the powerful Abuja mafia and dared the Bordillion power bloc headed by the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Governor Akeredolu must have now realized, that governance is not by the chains of degrees or educational attainment, analysts say.
He is currently battling with legal challenge of the primary election which produced him.
The case was instituted by one of the aspirants Segun Abraham Apart from this, the crisis orchestrated by the removal of the party executive he inherited at the state level and the endless critics by the opposition People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) have cast a slur on his return to power next year.
Also of note is the results of the last election in the state in which PDP made a great showing.
This is an indication that things have greatly changed within the ranks and file of the ruling APC in the state, close watchers of politics in the state say.
Now that scheming for another governorship election is unfolding in the state, as the tenure of the present administration will terminate next year, there are clear indications that Governor Akeredolu may not find it easy to secure a second term ticket.
He urgently need to resolve issues with party leaders like Prof Ajayi Borofice, former deputy governor, Alhaji Alli Olanusi and others in his quest for a second term ticket.
With the ticket in his kitty, his critics have taunted that the senior advocate-turned politician will still have sleepless nights with the opposition PDP which won two senate seats and three House of Representatives seats during the last election as the party is working round the clock to return to power in the state.
But sources told the magazine that Governor Akeredolu is leaving no stone unturned with his administration embarking on infrastructural development of the state as well as regular payment of workers salary.
He has succeeded in clearing the seven months owed by the previous administration after the workers union threatened the APC led administration with strike.
How these can go a long way to remove the dark clouds that hovered around his quest to return to Alagbaka Government House remains to be seen.
Out-going Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha, whose second and final tenure ends on May 29, 2019, will be leaving behind a landmine for the in-coming governor, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, The Source has learnt. Ihedioha won the March 9, 2019 Imo governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Still smarting from his failure to install, as successor, his son-in-law and candidate of the Action Alliance, AA, Uche Nwosu, in the governorship election, Okorocha has allegedly perfected plans to force monumental financial obligation on Ihedioha.”He is determined to cripple Ihedioha’s government even before it takes off”, a source privy to the plot confided in this Magazine.
Ihedioha: Will he reverse last minute appointments and contracts?
Another source claimed that the out-going governor is plotting to foist a bloated and unmanageable wage bill on the Ihedioha government through last minute appointments, award of contracts and expansion of the state civil service.
“Okorocha wants to smell of roses before Imo people. He wants to remedy his battered image by embarking on a last minute populist, but bogus programmes which real intention is to trap Ihedioha into unwieldy financial obligations”, the source alleged.
Barring a last minute change of mind, The Source was informed that Okorocha whose Certificate of Return as Senator-elect for Imo West is still being withheld by INEC for allegedly forcing the Returning officer to declare him winner, will, days to handing over to his successor, announce the recruitment of about eight thousand new civil servants into the Imo state civil service.
It was also gathered that the out-going governor will equally award road contracts across the 27 local government areas of the state, in addition to re-awarding contract for the completion of the abandoned 27 General Hospitals in each of the council areas, a project he flagged off with fanfare in his first term, only to abandon them midway.
Only last week, Okorocha hurriedly inaugurated boards of 38 government agencies. had, before then, appointed members of Imo state Judicial Service Commission.
” Okorocha is planting a time bomb, hoping and waiting for it to explode on Ihedioha.He knows that Ihedioha will surely reverse some of these malicious appointments, especially the rumoured plans to recruit new workers into Imo civil service, as well as award of phoney road contracts. His plan is to set Imo people against Ihedioha. Okorocha also wants to bequeath huge financial burden on our new governor”, a loyalist of the governor-elect told The Source in Owerri, the Imo state capital.
The embattled out-going governor, however, maintains that he is still the sitting governor and, therefore, has the constitutional power to make appointments.
