The Central Bank of Nigeria has continued on its intervention streak as it has released N200 billion facilities to finance mass housing constructions across Nigeria in a new infrastructural development scheme, the Sustainability Program.
The Apex Bank, Monday, published guidelines for the intervention in the manufacturing sector, with special emphasis on solar energy. This was with the view of boosting power in rural areas.
It was followed by Tuesday’s rollout of a program involving real estate and mortgage programs which aimed at lending to private concerns in these sectors at five percent annual interest. The fund is expected to be disbursed via Family Home Funds Limited, with the Minister of Finance and Budgets serving as the guarantors.
The CBN is targeting three hundred thousand homes in the thirty-six states of the federation and Abuja. They are targeting 1.5 million jobs in five years.
Only recently, the bank had intervened in the Aviation industry. They have embarked on facilitating anchor borrowing to finance rice production together with other agricultural produce-though the CBN said the default rate for these anchor borrowing programs is up to 65%.
It is not clear, however, whether there is a provision for a comprehensive external audit of the scheme.
The apex bank has been accused of usurping the job of development banks in interventions. Recently they were in altercations with the Nigerian economic summit group who claimed that they-the CBN-are becoming dictatorial in the way it is intervening in certain financial issues, particularly as it concerns Bureau de change. However, they have been lauded in some quarters for providing soft loans for SMEs and others.
“The program will aim at creating rapidly, up to 1.5 million direct construction sector jobs (at the rate of 5 jobs/home) particularly young people on low income. In addition, the program has the potential to create a further 1m jobs through its supply chain.
“The Development Finance Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria shall be responsible for the management of the intervention facility,” the bank said.
In a related development, the Presidency has defended the continuous borrowing to finance critical infrastructure while hosting an economic advisory body to discuss the tension being experienced due to the recent increase in petroleum pump price and electricity tariff.
The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has strongly condemned what it described as vote buying by proxy ahead of Saturday’s governorship election in Edo State, calling on the Federal Government of Nigeria to refrain from acts capable of killing Nigeria’s democracy.
The CNPP in a statement signed by its Secretary General, Chief Willy Ezugwu, warned that “acts of benevolence by the federal government in states during campaign periods have gone beyond coincidences to becoming a suspicious vote buying by proxy as is being witnessed in Edo State today.”
Calling on the international community “to seriously take note of the strategic death blows the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has continued to give Nigerian democracy since the historic election that brought the party into office in 2015.
“The APC and PDP must be made to realise that they are not the only registered political parties in Nigeria and that every act of election rigging perpetrated by these two political parties that have continued to alternate their members and candidates is a death blow on democracy in Nigeria.
“At least, the PDP could be forgiven for coming to a realisation that election rigging will kill the country’s democracy and gave Nigeria the most transparent election in the history of Africa in 2015, leading to the defeat of a sitting President who was also a candidate in the election.
“The ordinary Nigerian electorate, who believed in the change mantra of the APC, voted the then opposition party into office, reasoning that the party, with the anti-corruption disposition of President Muhammadu Buhari, will leave up to its promise to do things differently.
“Alas, five years down the line, Nigerians are now counting their losses rather than gains. APC is gradually killing all other political parties in the country.
“We must recall that even with the level of election rigging under the PDP led federal government before the globally celebrated 2015 general election that brought the APC to power, smaller political parties were able to win governorship elections in states like Abia, Ondo, Edo, Anambra, to mention a few states.
“However, since the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government has been conducting elections, opposition parties have been at the receiving end as the PDP and APC members can no longer be distinguished with their level of cross carpeting at the slightest convenience, and the result is the stunted democracy and a dying opposition parties that cannot win elections, not because they don’t have strong candidates but for the singular reason that they cannot afford to buy votes.
“Under the Buhari administration, with anti-corruption war as its selling point, electoral corruption through all manners of Federal Government induced vote-buying have been invented in the last five years.
“Such vote buying by proxy schemes like Tradamoni and school feeding programme, nicknamed social investment programme, were fully deployed ahead of 2019 general election, which was superintended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who went from market to market to distribute cash to would-be voters before the elections, with allegations of the APC government collating the permanent voter’s card numbers of the beneficiaries.
“In Kogi State recently, billions of naira were released to the state few days to the state governorship election, an act seen by many stakeholders in the Nigerian pro-democracy family as monies intended for vote buying.
“Today, in Edo State, barely three days to the state governorship election, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), under the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, and an APC member, found the wife of the APC governorship candidate, Idia Ize-Iyamu, as partner in “empowering” women in the state.
“How would the wife of a candidate in an election be partnering with the Federal Government, a few days before the election to “empower” Edo people? How do you defend it? That is a clear vote buying by proxy.
“Right now, desperate APC and PDP chieftains are engaging in a war of words over allegations and counter allegations of vote buying, which was never heard of in all the days of PDP’s electoral impunity.
“The CNPP, therefore, calls on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and all security agencies to save Nigerian democracy by preventing all acts of vote buying before they occur.
“If Nigeria must survive in 2023, it’s about time President Muhammadu Buhari prevailed on INEC to do what is right to save Nigerian democracy from desperate politicians who see elections as do or die.
“No lover of Nigeria will stand while the APC and PDP continue to rape democracy in broad day light.
“The Judiciary has not lived up to the general expectations of Nigerians in deciding post-election disputes. However, most pre-elections matters have been dealt with fairly by the judicial arm of the government but more needs to be done in post-election matters to discourage electoral violence and vote buying”, the CNPP stated.
If Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, loses the September 19 election, his first gift may not be a consoling one.
It would be a Court case.
The All Progressives Congress, APC, Lagos State chapter, says the party and its leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, would drag Obaseki to court for alleged libel against them.
In the heat of the campaign for the September 19 Governorship election, the APC, the PDP, and their supporters, have been throwing one allegation or the other at one another.
On Tuesday, the PDP and its candidate, Governor Godwin Obaseki, in response to a video message to the Edo electorate, by Tinubu, had alleged that Tinubu plans to buy the election with the sum of N300million.
In the video, which has since gone viral, Tinubu urged Edo people to rehect Obaseki for “not being a democrat.” Obaseki was not involved in the fight for democracy, he said. He also called him a dictator.
The video, however, earned Tinubu a strong rebuke from the Governor, and a former National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.
Oyegun, a former two-time Governor of the state, urged the people to ignore any external influence, and vote their conscience. He reminded them that Obaseki suffered indignity, and was forced to leave the APC, because he stood by the people and protected their pride.
And, in a release titled:
You can’t extend your political empire to Edo, Obaseki told Tinubu Edo is not Lagos, and that it is not possible for him to extend his political empire to the state.
Speaking through Crusoe Osagie, his Special Adviser on Media, in a statement on Tuesday, Obaseki said Edo voters would end political godfatherism on September 19.
Governor Godwin Obaseki
He said:
“Our attention has been drawn to a television broadcast in which a former Lagos State Governor and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his quest to extend his political dominance and empire to Edo State, decided to take over the role of Edo people to choose through the ballot who to govern them for the next four years.
“It has become obvious that the spirited fight which Edo people have put up against godfatherism has sent tremors beyond the shores of Edo to the likes of Tinubu who, has for years, sustained a stranglehold on Lagos and other states in South Western Nigeria, hence this desperate, last ditch effort to rescue the unproductive political instrument, now popularly referred to as godfatherism, with which he has feathered his nest and built his political empire at the expense of the people.
“Tinubu knows clearly that come September 19, when godfatherism would have been dismantled in Edo State, the people of Lagos may just have found the recipe and formula for removing the choke-hold placed on their collective destinies for decades by Tinubu, hence the inciting television broadcast.
“He should take note that Edo people do not yield their will, liberty and power of choice to oppressive figures because they are perceived to have economic and political means.
“Like one of the great sons of Edo, former Governor and former National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, recently said, our people do not give in to ‘primitive loyalties.’
“We always chase noble causes and a little study of our history, should show Tinubu the indomitable spirit of the Edo person.”
Earlier, both the PDP and Obaseki had alleged that Tinubu is allegedly planning to purchase the result with the sum of N300m.
But the APC Lagos, immediately jumped to Tinubu’s defence, saying it would sue Obaseki for alleged slander against Tinubu “once he loses the election, and subsequently, his immunity.”
Its Chairman, Alhaji Tunde Balogun, in a statement accused Obaseki of being the architect of his misfortune.
Balogun: “The latest untruth of the PDP and Obaseki is the evil lie that the All Progressives Congress, APC, and our National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, plan to rig the election, and buying votes with N300 million, allegedly polled from Local Councils in Lagos State.
“His allegation is a pure malicious lie, and after he loses his immunity as Governor, he will be asked to pay for this slander.”
The election has drawn attention from across Nigeria and the International Community because of the tension and violence it has, so far, generated.
Both candidates, on Tuesday, signed a peace agreement, initiated by the former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s Peace Committee, which has the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Mathew Kukah as a member.
But not many people believe the peace agreement would have any effect. Before this, the revered Oba of Benin, Ewuare 11, had held a meeting with both parties, and asked them to behave, and give peace a chance. They have, hardly, done that.
Prince Uche Secondus, the National Chairman of opposition Party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has warned that Edo election may be the last held in the country should anyone rig it.
Secondus who gave the warning on Tuesday, September 15, 2020, in Benin at the campaign grand finale for the PDP governorship candidate, noted that “if security agencies fail to fulfill their promise of being non-partisan, Edo election may be the last in Nigeria.
“Security agencies have made promises. We want to see if they will fulfill their promises. If they fail to fulfill their promises, there might not be election again in Nigeria. It should be one man one vote.”
Seconds lamented that Nigeria’s democracy is sitting on a keg of gun powder because of rigging, and called on world powers to rein in election riggers in the country.
“I have a special message for the Federal Government. The Edo election is a special election, the entire world is interested in Edo election. The American government is putting everything in place to curb election rigging in Nigeria.
“Nigeria’s democracy is sitting on a keg of gunpowder because of rigging. Rigging must stop here in Edo, if not, it will be difficult to carry on election in Nigeria,” he said.
The PDP National Chairman called on the people of Edo to vote enmasse for Obaseki because of his sterling performance.
He also noted that the best punishment for APC and its leaders is to vote for the PDP.
“Punish APC, punish Oshiomhole by voting for Obaseki on Saturday,” he added.
Present at the rally were former Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general elections, Peter Obi; Chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal; Chairman, South-south Governors’ Forum and Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa; Governors Nyesom Wike, Seyi Makinde, Ben Ayade, Duoye Diri, Victor Ikpeazu, Udom Emmanuel of Rivers, Oyo, Cross-Rivers, Bayelsa, Abia, Akwa Ibom states respectively, among other dignitaries.
Also speaking at the PDP rally, Candidate of the PDP, Godwin Obaseki declared that with the support of Edo people and endorsements by over 100 groups in the state, he is certain of victory in Saturday’s gubernatorial election in the state.
According to Obaseki, “I don’t have anything to say to you my Edo people but to thank you; you have been wonderful especially as we went through the 192 wards to seek your support for reelection.
“We will win this election because, so far, over 100 groups have endorsed me for the race. With groups like the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Trade Union Congress (TUC) Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) and other groups in the state behind me, tell me how we will lose the election?”
Obaseki continued: “Democracy is not a government of godfathers but a government of the people, by the people and for the people. In Edo we have been fighting godfatherism and by Saturday we will put an end to it, and after that go Lagos and put an end to godfatherism in Nigeria.
“The godfather disturbing Nigeria came up this morning. He is afraid because he knows when we finish that of Edo, we will come for him in Lagos and finally end godfatherism in Nigeria”.
On his part, Tambuwal urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies to ensure the conduct of a free, fair and credible poll in the state.
He said: “I learnt they are coming to Edo with a bullion van; don’t sell your votes; vote and protect your votes.
“I am appealing to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a free, fair and credible election. I also want to appeal to all the security agencies not to intimidate anybody on election day. Even when you are being intimidated, don’t run home, stay back and protect your votes.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State in his remarks noted that, “this is the first time a governor went round from ward-to-ward to campaign. As you vote, remain vigilant and shine your eyes. No one can cheat the majority. Edo will not be left out; all South-south states are PDP, so we don’t want anybody to cheat on us.”
In his address, Chairman of the Edo State Governorship Campaign Council of the PDP, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State said, “If we must fight and put an end to godfatherism in Nigeria, it must start on Saturday in Edo State. The IGP has assured us of a secure election in Edo and the INEC Chairman has, also, assured Edo people of a free, fair and credible election but don’t let us go and sleep with all these promises but stay awake and be vigilant and ensure that Obaseki wins.
“Obaseki must be voted for, to bring an end to godfatherism in Nigeria. The Edo election is important as it will show the way out to eliminate godfatherism in Nigeria.”
The election holds on Saturday, September 19.
To discourage its being corrupted, the USA, to the applause of many, has barred some politicians, involved in the rigging of the 2019 Bayelsa and Kogi Governorship Elections from the US. It also extended that to those involved, so far, in the up-coming Edo and Ondo Governorship Elections.
The United Kingdom, also says it would not only bar election riggers from the UK, it would drag them to the International Court, as well as seize their assets.
Most Nigerians support the move, and have asked the European Union and Dubai to do the same.
A disgusted and angry Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has told the people of Edo State that their Governor, Godwin Obaseki, was punished, and suffered indignity for daring to protect the pride and good of Edo people.
Oyegun was a two-time Governor of Edo State, and a former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The respected retired Federal Permanent Secretary said he stands by what he had always said that Obaseki was treated very badly by the APC for defending his people, and standing for their pride.
Oyegun was forced to issue the statement for two reasons.
One, a statement credited to him, purportedly predicting victory for the candidate of the APC, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
Two, a viral video made by ACP chieftain, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, asking the Edo electorate to reject Obaseki on September 19, and vote Ize-Iyamu. In the video, Tinubu, also, installed himself as the leader of all democrats in Nigeria, irrespective of party affiliations.
But in a statement he personally signed, the former National Chairman of the APC, said he couldn’t have issued any statement as his stand on the scandalous humiliation of Obaseki has not changed.
Asking the eloctorate to vote their coscience, he reminded them that Obaseki suffered indignity and humiliation for standing-up for them and, therefore, couldn’t have issued such a statement. The statement, Oyegun said, could only have from a demented, criminal mind.
Oyegun, also, indirectly chided Tinubu, warning him not to dare meddle in Edo politics, or who becomes the Governor of Edo.
Oyegun: “I read with great consternation and disgust a statement purportedly issued by me on a so-called outcome of the gubernatorial election in Edo State.
“First let me state, emphatically, that at no time did I issue any statement, verbally or written, on the fortunes of the APC, or any other party in the imminent election.”
“The said statement which is making rounds in social media could only have originated from sick minds and desperate persons of criminal orientation.
“My views and statements on the Edo State political situation have been consistent.
“I strongly advised against the mistreatment of Governor Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki by the late unlamented National Working Committee, (NWC), of the APC, and his subsequent forced exit from the APC.
“Governor Obaseki stood bravely for the dignity and pride of his people, and in the process suffered unacceptable indignities.
“In the matter of who governs Edo State, the people are sovereign and no individual or group, whatever their status, can decide on their behalf.
“I stand with the people of Edo State and urge them to come out massively to exercise their democratic right!
“They should vote for good governance, common decency, principled leadership, especially in the political arena and the protection of their vital democratic rights.
“They should, by their votes, make clear that it is their right to choose their Governor and nobody else! There is no room for fence sitters.
“This is a special situation and primitive loyalties should, and must be set aside.
Remember Mr President’s admonition in an equally challenging pre-election situation in Imo State.
“Vote your conscience”. There will be peace on Saturday. Come out and vote your conscience.”
The Lagos State Government has reiterated its commitment to a cleaner and habitable Lagos by making sure the State achieves its goal of a megacity.
In attaining this feat, Governor Sanwo-Olu has launched the LAWMA Academy, the educational arm of Lagos Waste Management Authority, with the aim of promoting knowledge and awareness creation on effective waste management, especially among the younger generation of Lagosians.
The Governor, represented by his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, noted that effective waste management played a pivotal role in ensuring cleaner and livable environment, hence the need for policies and programs to promote sustainable environment, and boost LAWMA’s capacity to perform its statutory duties.
He said: “As we all know, waste management plays an important role in ensuring a sustainable and healthy environment, which is why many nations and states expend huge resources on developing strategies to ensure clean environment through efficient, effective and sustainable waste management system. Lagos is certainly not different and that is one of the reasons why we are here today”.
Sanwo-Olu stated that it was gratifying for the state government to launch the LAWMA Academy, an initiative aimed at making Lagos a safer, cleaner place to live in, noting that only a safe environment, free of toxins and filth, could guarantee the good health of the citizens, improve productivity and enable them to operate at optimal level.
He said, “Our dream of course as a government is to make Lagos a 21st Century economy and a very smart State, but you will agree with me that this will be impossible, if we do not take the issue of waste management seriously and that’s why we must all commend the ministry of environment, management and staff of LAWMA for the good job they have been doing to keep Lagos clean, healthy and habitable for all us.”
He commended LAWMA for its unrelenting efforts in keeping Lagos clean and for the initiative, the first of its kind in this part of the world, adding that he had no doubt that the academy would impart attitudinal change, for proper and sustainable waste management in the State.
“It is heartwarming to know that LAWMA has not just been doing a good job in managing our waste in Lagos, but they have been doing this with steady improvement. An example is the collection and disposal capacity which we have raised from 433 trips per day in May 2020 and has gone to 720 trips per day, which is what they are currently doing”, the governor stated.
In her address, the First Lady of the State, Dr Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, said that the event marked the beginning of another milestone for LAWMA, as the government launched various initiatives aimed at improving the environment.
She noted that the state was aware that quality education, proper engagement, adequate sensitization and monitoring, were critical to acceptability and conformity to laws and regulations in the waste management sector, which was why the state government and LAWMA continued to introduce various initiatives for improved and sustainable environment.
The First Lady noted that LAWMA Academy was critical at this time, as it would contribute immensely towards waste management education, with the aim of promoting literacy improvement, career development and advancement, grooming responsible citizens that were capable of changing the social order in waste management, adding that the initiative was designed to raise the next generation of solid waste management scholars and entrepreneurs.
She called on residents to champion the cause of cleanliness and effective waste management in the state, to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment, stressing that the act of indiscriminate waste disposal had hazardous consequences such as flooding, blockage of drains and traffic obstructions, among others.
The Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tunji Bello, noted that the LAWMA Academy was a laudable initiative, adding that the academy would create the right atmosphere to share experiences, and to groom the populace on effective waste management, especially the young ones.
Bello also said the launch of the Street Captains and Community Marshals initiatives were critical to curtailing indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the metropolis, urging residents to support efforts of the state government, to ensure that improper waste disposal became a thing of the past.
In his speech, the Managing Director/CEO of LAWMA, Ibrahim Odumboni, noted that LAWMA Academy would deploy innovative approach to impart knowledge of effective management of personal and corporate waste, thus entrenching best waste practices in society.
“LAWMA Academy is the educational arm of LAWMA instituted to educate the good citizens of Lagos State of all ages on the concept of proper waste management and also create career paths in the waste management sector”, he stated.
Odumboni said that people had over time perceived waste management as dirty job, done at dirty places, by dirty/downtrodden people and often for very poor wages, resulting in poor attitude towards the environment, a mindset which must change, to pave way for sustainable solid waste management.
“To attain a paradigm shift where waste is seen as a job for notable citizens of the State and as a resource rather than something that should be trashed, LAWMA is committed to deploying more interactive, educative and informative approaches in her transformational agenda”, he emphasized.
He commended the state government for the uncommon passion and commitment towards maintaining a cleaner and healthier environment, by supporting LAWMA’s various initiatives
For over eight hours, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Trade Union Congress, TUC, and the Federal Government dialogues. But they were unable to reach an agreement over the hike in the prices of Fuel and Electricity Tariff.
The failure to reach a consensus brought the meeting to an abrupt end at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Organised Labour demanded the reversal of the hike in the prices of petrol and electricity tariffs. But the Federal Government pleaded for understanding, saying it could not sustain the fuel subsidy.
Although the government team made presentations on its policies, it didn’t specify how the effects of the hikes in electricity and petroleum products would be alleviated.
Also, on Tuesday, the TUC said the indefinite strike and nationwide protest billed to commence from Wednesday, September 23, would hold as planned.
The congress had issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Government on Monday, threatening to embark on an indefinite strike if the Federal Government failed to revert to the old electricity tariff and the price of petrol.
The meeting had in attendance Ministers of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, who led the government’s team to the parley, the Minister of State, Labour, Festus Keyamo (SAN); Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman; Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) and the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva and others.
The Labour team was led by the NLC President, Ayuba Wabba; President of the TUC, Quadri Olaleye, Secretary-General of the TUC, Musa Lawal, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria President, Festus Osifo and the President of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Association of Nigeria, Williams Akporeha, among others.
In his welcome address, Ngige said there was an urgent need for all stakeholders in the country to join hands to fashion out “how we can survive the economic challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
He said the meeting was “a bilateral dialogue between us as Nigerians to consider the state of the economy and events that have necessitated recent increases in electricity tariff and the price of Premium Motor Spirit.”
But Wabba argued that the high prices of petroleum products and electricity tariff had erased the gains of the minimum wage.
He faulted the government for unilaterally fixing the prices of electricity and petrol without consultations with Nigerians.
According to him, many Nigerians are struggling to survive because of the high cost of living occasioned by the government’s recent policies which included the increase in the Value Added Tax.
Wabba stated, “The question now is what do you have on the table to actually cushion the effect on workers and their families because they have been pushed to the wall. They are already enraged.
“Do you have anything for us so that we can say yes, despite this challenges, this is what I have for Nigerian workers so that they can have something that can cushion this effect for them?
“Already, the value of the minimum wage has been eroded; that is the reality. If Ghana compares their minimum wage with our own, you will see their minimum wage.”
He accused the government of transferring the “inefficiency in the subsidy regime” to the consumers which they (consumers) have to pay through the hike in price.
The NLC president admonished the government to fix the nation’s refineries and stop lining the pockets of fuel through a fraudulent subsidy regime.
Wabba noted, “I agree with Mr President that subsidy is a fraud but do we address it or transfer it to the customers? That is where the issue is. We don’t need to transfer it to the customers.
“More than 90 countries of the world actually have minimum wage on this. Those are the issues that are biting very hard and workers and citizens are crying aloud that there is much burden on them.
“We have increased VAT, we have increased some taxes, we have increased now the fuel price and the electricity tariff. An ordinary worker can’t pay those charges. In fact, higher-level officers are complaining seriously. This is the predicament we are in.
“Therefore let us also look for solutions. How do we mitigate this impact which is very pronounced on workers?”
On his part, the TUC president asked the government to reverse the recent price hikes, which he said, had been biting Nigerians hard.
Olaleye stated, “Nigerian workers are crying and the populace is also crying. Last December, we were so happy that when we signed the minimum wage agreement and Nigerian workers were happy that their lots were increased.
“Unfortunately, now they are crying. By calculation, we are losing an additional 15 per cent of what we gained as a result of the signing minimum wage. For somebody who is paid N6,666 as increment, now he is losing not less than N25, 000 from his income. The N6, 666 is going, additional N15, 000 is added.”
Sylva, in his presentations, stated that the FG had yet to begin the full deregulation of the downstream sector “because of the desire of President Buhari not to inflict more pains on the masses.”
The Minister emphasized that the landing cost of petrol is N163 but it was being sold for N161 per litre, indicating that full deregulation was yet to take off in the country.
He said going by the current exchange rate, the products could have been sold at N183 per litre.
He also said the FG spent N10.4 trillion on petrol subsidy between 2016 and 2019, stressing that the country was losing N1 billion daily to fuel subsidy between 2016-2019.
He added that the country was in a bad shape because of the crash of crude oil globally.
“We have not fully deregulated because of the concerns the government has for Nigerians. Price of fuel could go up to N183 per litre going by the current rate of the dollar. We need to open up the economy, even though, the initial stage may bring pains to Nigerians,” he stated.
The Federal Government two weeks ago increased the ex-depot price of petrol from N 138.62 to N147.67, prompting marketers to adjust their petrol prices to between N158 and N162 from N148 to N150 in August. The ex-depot price is the price at which government sells petrol to marketer.
With less than 72 Hour to the Edo State and weeks to the Ondo State Governorship Elections, the United Kingdom, UK, on Tuesday, warned that those who plan to cause violence during the States governorship elections will face serious sanctions.
It stressed that it may be forced to impose travel restrictions on the perpetrators and prosecute them under international law. The UK also said its Government would go as far as denying them access to their assets.
The Edo State governorship election is scheduled to hold on September 19 while the Ondo State governorship election will hold October 10.
The United Kingdom, in a statement by the British High Commission in Nigeria, Catriona Laing, warned that:
“As a friend and partner of Nigeria, we are closely following the lead up to the off-cycle governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States scheduled for September 19 and October 10 respectively.
“These elections are important both as an essential element of effective governance within both states and an indicator of the strength of Nigeria’s democratic institutions.
“Our High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, has held meetings with leaders of the two main political parties, the APC and PDP. The discussions focused on the need for the parties’ leaders to prevail on supporters to avoid violence before and after the elections and we welcome the Edo candidates’ signature of the National Peace Committee and INEC convened peace accord today.
“We will be deploying observation missions to both the Edo and Ondo elections and supporting civil society led observation. The UK takes a strong stand against election-related violence and, just as we did in the general election in 2019, will continue to take actions against individuals we identify as being responsible for violence during the elections.
“This could include restrictions on their eligibility to travel to the UK, restriction on access to UK based assets or prosecution under international law.
“The UK will continue to provide support and engagement as we move towards these elections. We urge INEC, the police and all other agencies involved to work together to deliver free, fair and credible elections.”
The United States has already imposed Visa restrictions on election riggers in the 2019 Kogi and Bayelsa State Governorship Elections.
It has also, based on what its monitors are seeing on ground, extended the restiction to some people in the up-coming Edo and Ondo Governorship Elections.
Many Nigerians have commended the actions of the US Government.
They are also asking the European Union countries and Dubai to do the same, hoping it could bring some sanity to Nigeria’s election process.
I am notoriously no fan of Olusegun Obasanjo, General, twice former president and co-architect with other past leaders of the crumbling edifice that is still generously called Nigeria. I have no reasons to change my stance on his record.
Nonetheless, I embrace the responsibility of calling attention to any accurate reading of this nation from whatever source, as a contraption teetering on the very edge of total collapse. We are close to extinction as a viable comity of peoples, supposedly bound together under an equitable set of protocols of co-habitation, capable of producing its own means of existence, and devoid of a culture of sectarian privilege and will to dominate.
On Africa Day, May 2019, organised by the Union Bank of Africa, I similarly seized an opening to direct the attention of this government to warnings by the Otta farmer over the self-destruct turn that the nation had taken, urged the wisdom of heeding the message, even while remaining chary of the messenger. That advice appears to have fallen on deaf ears. In place of reasoned response and openness to some serious dialogue, what this nation has been obliged to endure has been insolent distractions from garrulous and coarsened functionaries, apologists and sectarian opportunists.
The nation is divided as never before, and this ripping division has taken place under the policies and conduct of none other than President Buhari – does that claim belong in the realms of speculation?
Does anyone deny that it was this president who went to sleep while communities were consistently ravaged by cattle marauders, were raped and displaced in their thousands and turned into beggars all over the landscape?
Was it a different president who, on being finally persuaded to visit a scene of carnage, had nothing more authoritative to offer than to advice the traumatised victims to learn to live peacefully with their violators?
President Muhammadu Buhari
And what happened to the Police Chief who had defied orders from his Commander-in-Chief to relocate fully to the trouble spot – he came, saw, and bolted, leaving the ‘natives’ to their own devices. Any disciplinary action taken against ‘countryman’?
Was it a spokesman for some ghost president who chortled in those early, yet controllable stages of now systematised mayhem, gleefully dismissed the mass burial of victims in Benue State as a “staged show” for international entertainment? Did the other half of the presidential megaphone system not follow up – or was it, precede? – with the wisdom that they, the brutalized citizenry, should learn to bow under the yoke and negotiate, since “only the living” can enjoy the dividends of legal rights?
To reel off any achievements of a government – genuine or fantasised, trivial or monumental – is thus to dodge the issue, to ignore the real core concerns. No government, however inept, fails to record some form of achievement – this was why it were elected, and it takes real genius to succeed in spending four years actually doing nothing. What it fails to do, or what it does wrongly, deceitfully or prejudicially is what concerns the citizenry.
Across this nation, there is profound distrust, indeed abandonment of hope in this government as one that is genuinely committed to the survival of the nation as one, or indeed understands the minimal requirements for positioning it as a modern, functional space of productive occupancy.
Donald Trump is not without a governance pass mark here or there – indeed, he has been touted for the Nobel Peace prize in some quarters, backed, predictably, by the quota Nigerian columnist – yet who dares deny, outside Republican diehard circles – that the great United States of American is brutally divided, and is even unraveling under the Trumpian phenomenon!
Back to our own yaws however: Are pensioners still considered human, deserving the rewards of labour without further labour? Many collapse from that extended labour of recovering routine entitlements. Even routine access to that basic human requirement – food – is now under question, as farmers are chased off their farms in large numbers. Instead of timely action – urged stridently by beleaguered governors and of course by ‘professional agitators’ — appeasement of the violent food saboteurs was the preferred route to food security – operating under fancy names like RUGA.
So how do you persuade graduates and young school leavers to try their hands at farming instead of flooding urban centres looking for non-existent white-collar positions? To get killed and dismembered?
And what is the score within those much-coveted urban precincts? Lop-sided appointments to crucial positions in Civil Service and parastatals! Consider the prime economic cash cow – petroleum – exposed a few months ago as a reeking cesspit of nepotism. Who is the Minister of Petroleum under whose watch such an unprecedented contempt for geographical parity – uncontroverted till today — became entrenched? That happens to be none other than the nation’s president – and he did make a show of astonishment at the gross disparities, promised to subject the anomaly to immediate enquiry.
May one ask what action has been taken to rectify that presumably “nation-unifying” compilation? It all casts a long, unedifying shadow backwards to those days of agitation by Tai Solarin and the mercuric engineer, Awojobi when the same Buhari took forceful charge of that ministry, promised to get to the root of the flying charges – anyone still recall the saga of the missing millions?
He made a beeline for the home of a prominent political leader and carted away loads of files in his illegal possession. In vain the nation awaited enlightenment – Nothing!
National divisiveness? Just where does culpability lie? Does centralist usurpation divide or bind?
The answer is obvious in daily effects. We have even heard the charge laid at the feet of governors. When the constitutive units of this nation take steps to rescue themselves into the ‘unifying’ quagmire into which they have been plunged by a creaking, clearly unworkable centralised system, guess who squawk, gnash their teeth and threaten to call down thunder even where such remedies are backed by constitutional provisions! Alas, the dare of ignorance! And after being confronted by the legitimate right of states to at least salvage their existence and protect their citizens, guess who trundles out constrictive parameters, and attempts to dictate to governors how such state prerogatives should be exercised! Come under the umbrella of a failed Inspectorate Usurper – ordered the Garbled megaphone. Just on whose authority?
We do know – let this be stated for the umpteenth time! – that the rains did not just begin to beat us yesterday in this nation. We know when the clouds began to gather, where the deluge began and turned to severe pounding. We can pinpoint the first trickle of the torrent of appeasement, of illegal extortions and concessions.
Past leaders will not be permitted to forget or gloss over own self-centred interests and nation corrosive lapses that brought us to this parlous present.
But we do endure in this here and now, in the immediacy of current governance, so let no uppity flunkey attempt to divert attention from current realities, realities that now clearly pronounce this nation of once promising prospects a basket case of abject penury and insecurity, where hordes of trained minds and sturdy limbs roam the streets as beggars, as haphazard vendors of the products of other peoples, other lands!
Inequity reigns, and solutions are trivialised. Again and again voices are raised to urge the dismantling of a crude, militarised centralist contraption – repeatedly exposed in illegalities — and substitute a more efficient governance system, decentralised, providing broader access to opportunities.
All such efforts are turned into opportunities for legislative junketing and budget padding. Legislators watch with indifference in this day of human advance, as individuals are sentenced to hang for expressing their views on the relative apprehension of religious avatars, not a squeak emerge from such lawgivers. Pedophiles and cross-border sex traffickers are honoured in the act, granted immunity on cooked-up alibis of religion. Is this nation a theocracy?
Nigeria is a suppurating slaughter slab, and it boggles the mind that supposedly wise and lettered men, sheltering under any religious mandate, would go into a solemn huddle to ‘legitimately’ augment the toll of mindless killings that now plague the land.
Presumably, the ongoing ‘national security’ persecution of Obadiah Mailafia is a sign of national unity? I invite our marionettes to read deeply into history. Oh, excuse me, history has been banned from learning structures, so look not for history books! However, straightforward, first-hand testimonies abound, exposing structural flaws, deceits and conspiracies against this presumptive national edifice.
They are perpetrated by highly placed servants of the state, some of whom have since risen to even higher national positions. I draw attention, for instance, to detailed revelations of plots against the nation, plots that resonate in the present. Such is the two-year old interview of a former ambassador to the Sudan, Bola Dada – The Punch Newspapers. Archives remain ever obliging. They avail us vivid material to decide whether or not a sinister script is being acted out today with copious libations from Nigerian blood.
Olusegun Obasanjo
I think, in public interest, The Punch should re-run that interview, most especially in view of recent claims by a columnist in The Nation – Femi Abbas Sept. 4 — regarding how and by whom Nigeria was corralled into the OIC. When you abolish History in institutions, you open the gates wide for rampaging revisionism while the same gates are shut against a grasp, however tenuous, of why, for instance, a Mailafia becomes a target of serial interrogations and harassment, rather than those boldly named in his revelations. Is it he who constitutes a danger to the nation, or the indicted fanatics of unlimited impunity and callous disregard for humanity? Why the ostentatious pretence of investigative zeal? The man has told you where to look. Well, look in that direction and report back to us! In the meantime however, ensure that he meets with no accident!
Still on security: any tear that is shed for the arch-bandit and multiple murderer Akwaza, known as Gana, is an obscenity. However, tears of trepidation are falling fast and furious over the conduct of an army that eliminates a captive in cold blood, side-tracking the rationality of professional investigations and legitimate pursuit of felons and other enemies of society. The issue here is not one of the appropriateness of a policy of Amnesty – that constitutes a larger debate in its place. The issue here – and a critical one — is that a Wanted Man, on his way to surrender, has been killed in cold blood. I read yesterday that the Army has followed this up with a demand for the bounty earlier placed by the Benue State governor on the head of the WANTED man. However, all reports so far indicate that he was on his way to surrender? And so, is this bounty demand a joke? An end then to such gallows humour! And certainly not now, not while the nation is freshly reeling from the latest horror of the targeting of unarmed Road Safety officials, gunned down in cold blood in their commuter bus, and the mass kidnapping of survivors.
Shall we presume that the surviving casualties of routine duty rosters are also nation-dividers if they scream out for protection and deplore a breakdown in the entire security architecture of the nation?
We must however concede one remedial initiative to this government. Perhaps it was a belated awareness that the roof of the national edifice was on fire that instigated the effort to appropriate all available water resources in the nation — a desperate move to put out the flames with one hefty splash!
Presumably, even the rains that fall on earth will belong to the Exclusive List? We shall have to learn to gather such rain before it strikes the earth, or else queue for a licence to tap it later for domestic use. Get ready to pay stiff fines when we get rain soaked for lack of public transportation. Distractions upon distractions, but dangerous distractions! Provocative moves that deeply erode any lingering faith in the even-handed claims of governance, of respect for the rights of independent peoples that were brought together to form a nation, and the justice of equality of access to the land’s resources.
But the fault is not one-sided. Let governors also wake up to their constitutional rights and duties. There are vast areas of those rights that have been trampled upon, usurped for far too long.
Forget legislative jamborees of constitution reviews – we have had our fill of them – all the files are gathering dust. It is time for Reparations! Dust up those files and head for the courts. Prepare for name-calling, just as long as such names embody – Dividers-in-law!
Only then shall we uncover who are the real Dividers-in-Chief? If individual voices rankle, then perhaps it is time to convoke a Nation Survival Conference. Let all sections and group interests place their cards on the table and starkly articulate what we all know and endure on a daily basis, and proffer solutions, debate moves towards a collective – rational and sincere — undertaking of nation formation.
The ongoing governance posture of aggressive evasion spells only one end: collective suicide.
Wole SOYINKA, Nobel Laureate, wrote on September 15, from A.R.I. Idi-Aba, Abeokuta,
Just as the Ekiti state Police Command is still trying to unravel those behind the killing of a top government official on Sunday night, a United States Returnee, and indigene of the state, has been kidnapped.
The victim, Jide Ijadare, reportedly, a retired US Army officer, was whisked away from his farm along Ijan/Ise road on Monday by armed men.
His security aide, who struggled with the kidnappers, was killed on the spot while they drove away with Mr. Ijadare.
Ijadare was reported to have returned from the USA to start a palm oil producing factory at Ijan, his countryhome ,where he has employed over 50 people.
Ijan road, which is one of the link highways to Abuja, has become dreaded due to activities of kidnappers.
A few months ago, a director with one of the federal agencies was abducted while his driver was shot.
Police Public Relations officer in the state, Sunday Abutu, confirmed the incident, assuring that policemen are on the trail of the abductors.
David Jejelowo, a director in the state local government commission was shot dead Sunday evening at his residence, off Ijan road, Ado Ekiti in the presence of his wife by gunmen.
