Clay Richie

The menace of sexual harassment in higher institutions of learning has taken a worrisome trend, with lecturers now undaunted in their quest to have sex with their students.

The Nigerian government has admitted it has been funding its capital projects in the past few years mainly from borrowing. It is no longer in dispute that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been running a deficit budget year after year. With the administration's new drive to borrow even more, there is no end in sight for fiscal deficits in Nigeria.    

Comptroller-general of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Col. Hameed Ali (retd.) stirred the hornet’s nest, last week, by directing customs area controllers at Tin Can Island Port, Apapa, Lagos, to ensure that containers intended for dry ports are first unsealed and examined in Lagos. Non-examination of foreign cargoes destined for inland container terminals, Ali said in the circular dated October 22, “has been largely influenced by illicit activities”; and “in order to curb this illegality” all importations “are to be unsealed, opened, examined to ascertain the contents and resealed before exiting the mother port”.

Historically, Nigeria and the republic of South Africa have so much in common. The two countries are former British colonies and they both belong to same Commonwealth of Nations family. The two are also the most influential members of the African Union as the biggest economies on the continent.

The 14th Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II recently told a moving story of how a mother watched her sick child die while waiting to ask the Emir for financial assistance, because she could not afford to buy prescribed drugs of N3000.00, which, in context, was less than $10. Since “he who feels it knows it”, the ‘Aristocratic banker’ was overwhelmed, and the croaky, breaking voice of the eminently affable Emir, betrayed his emotions!

According to Wikipedia, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC was established on 1 April 1977 as a merger of the Nigerian National Oil Corporation and the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel. NNPC by law manages the joint venture between the Nigerian Federal Government and a number of foreign multinational corporations, which include Royal Dutch Shell, Agip, ExxonMobil, Total S.A, Chevron, and Texaco (now merged with Chevron). Through collaboration with these companies, the Nigerian government conducts petroleum exploration and production

Since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999, Deputy Governors have always tended to have issues with their bosses, that is the Governors, and the Governors in turn have often had problems with their Godfathers. Whatever shape the conflict takes, it has been more of a blight on our democratic process and the health of the polity. Mini-dictators converting a democratic dispensation into an opportunity for self-aggrandizement and childish power games end up hurting us all.

Not quite long from now did Twittersphere got lit due to a constellation of fiery tweets and retweets of comments emanating from Chief Dele Momodu’s tweet; one that berated youths, whom he claimed have ‘abandoned’ Sowore to only talk cheap on the Internet. He mentioned in the tweet how the youths are not ‘putting their resources’ together to secure his release and fight for power.

“Faith by itself, if it does not have (good) works, is dead” — Holy Bible Somebody once wrote about the Nigeria wartime head of state General Yakubu Gowon, saying: ‘I will never pray with General Yakubu Gowon’. It is not that a praying general is an anathema to this writer, but within the biblical context, as James 2:17; New King James Version bluntly puts it; “… faith by itself, if it does not have (good) works, is dead”.

“It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.”– Adam Smith (1723-1790)

“Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well”, is a very universally acceptable aphorism. Another wise saying that shares the same etymological resemblance with the above is that which was uttered from the mouth of one of the wisest men to have graced the face of the earth known as Socrates who stated thus: “Man know thyself because the unexamined life is not worth living”. For the benefit of the non-initiates, Socrates is one of the foremost fathers of Ancient Philosophy who helped shaped classical thinking.

Each time we are rated low by world-class organizations—that are data-driven, we would kick against it (without showing superior statistics to the whole world), but when it is positive like the World Bank just did, we would embrace it, celebrating it to the top of “Olumo rock.”. Is this peculiar to the administration of baba alone? No! Every administration before the current administration behaved same way. In this part of the world, we play politics with everything. And this is why we are where we are today.

When I first saw the headline ‘’Nigeria to import doctors from Europe , United States…’’ I thought it was a typographical error, but on a second look it dawned on me that such reputable media firm as The Guardian could have not made such a mistake. What we currently have is export of Nigerian doctors to Europe through (IELTS,OET and PLAB) and to the United states (through USMLE). It may also interest our minister of health to know that we are also exporting our medical doctors through Prometric examinations to Oman and other Asian countries.

The bubble was created by the people, amplified and accelerated by the government. Profited by hardboiled bloodsucking politicians and many more predators who enjoy things like these.

After the leadership elections of the ninth national assembly in June, one fact stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb — not a single Igbo man or woman would be counted among the top seven citizens of Nigeria: president, vice-president, senate president, speaker, chief justice of Nigeria, deputy senate president and deputy speaker. Senator Ike Ekweremadu failed in his last-minute bid to return as deputy senate president. That could have changed the situation. In a federation where Igbo are one of the three biggest ethnic groups, this is bad news for enthusiasts of national integration like me — and possibly a trigger for more rancour in an already fractured federation.

President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Nigeria from his four-day visit to the Russian Republic extremely happy with the success of the visit, which outcome is the best response to a few skeptical audiences back home, including a toxic newspaper editorial, “Buhari, Stay On Your Job,” by the Lagos-based Punch Newspaper asking him to not travel.

Fellow Nigerians permit me to say, it is no longer a secret that the former Governor of Lagos State and easily one of the most influential politicians in Africa, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has his gaze firmly fixed on the Nigerian Presidential seat in Abuja. Let me put it more frontally, Tinubu will love to drop the Chieftaincy title, Asiwaju, for that of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Who wouldn’t, anyway? I once tried my luck despite not having ten percent of Tinubu’s stupendous resources, extensive networks, public service experience and achievements and so on.

It’s almost seven weeks since Nigeria shut its land borders against our West and Central African brothers. There has been this talk about the gains of the closure by officials and agents of the federal government. The other day, I heard the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (retired), saying that more ships were now berthing at Nigerian ports because of the closure. He is anticipating more revenue for the government because of the closure. The likes of Hameed Ali try to hype the limited gains of the closure to justify an incongruity. The truth that must be told is that the pain on troubled Nigerians outweighs the little gain being celebrated.

Socrates remains a fascinating thinker and one of the original fathers of philosophy – a course which implicitly is defined as the love of wisdom. And so, a remarkable and momentous affirmation for which Socrates is associated with is that which states that: “Man know thyself for an unexamined life is not worth living”.

South Eastern Nigeria lies prostrate and without dignity today. It has been thus for a long time now. Enveloped by an incubus of snarling befuddlement as it is dragged towards a benighted terminus, the region has become a metaphor for how to exist (without really living) in a federation of supposedly equal partners. It twists and turn piteously in subdued pain. There is an unvoiced gnashing of teeth and a bitter forbearance. Denuded, ridiculed, swindled and roundly scandalised on all fronts by an elaborate pretense at nationhood that has been to its detriment for far too long, the South East Nigeria is at best a metaphor for nominal and fraudulent citizenship. Its gifted, energetic and bold youths are forced to scavenge around the fringes of morality and legality.

Give it to him, the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, knows how to hit the nail on the head when it comes to speaking truth to power. His practical and logical perspectives on national issues can hardly be faulted. An example of this is his contribution at a recent stakeholders’ meeting on how to reduce the number of out-of-school children in the northern part of the country. He chided state governments for sending people on holy pilgrimages.

The recent Ochanja fire incident in Onitsha, in which a petrol laden tanker exploded into balls of fire after ramming into buildings in the Upper Iweka axis of the city, has brought untold grief to those affected but also untrammelled   compassion from several Nigerians. Several lives were lost and properties worth billions of Naira were destroyed by the ensuing inferno. It is estimated that no fewer than 50 storey buildings and 30 vehicles were destroyed by the fire. NEMA estimated that over 2,000 traders suffered huge losses in that tragedy.

One of the slogans during the government of Buhari is “I will or Buhari’s administration will lift 100million of Nigerians out of poverty.” It is one of the major political statements of the ongoing government of open-ended “next-level.” It’s just that the actual time it will happen is not yet known to Baba, Osinbajo, their team of political-folks and those they want to lift out of poverty—as a crane would lift a car out of a pit at a subway construction site.

Following the closure of the Nigerian land borders by the Federal Government in a bid to curb excessive smuggling into the country, its apex bank; the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in a recent statement urged the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN) and other players in the rice value chain to refrain from ‘inordinate’ hiking of rice price.

President Buhari while inaugurating the Economic Advisory Council (ECA) a couple of weeks ago, charged them to focus on developing what he called ‘home-grown economic policies’ for Nigeria. He repeated this charge while speaking at the Nigerian Economic Summit a few days after. This is a wise and urgent charge. The problem is: do we understand what ‘home-grown economics’ looks like? Or better still, do we have the pedigree to go this contrarian policy track? Helpfully, we can look towards China and other Asian countries for example of how focused and smart leaders have transformed economies under more difficult contexts than Nigeria finds herself. Asian is not a uniform success story. There are massive successes and major failures. We need to know what worked and what did not work in Asia.

The first Russia-Africa Summit will be held on 23-24 October 2019 at the Black Sea resort city of Sochi and will be co-chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President and African Union Chairman Abdelfattah Al Sisi.

Over the past couple of weeks, those in the corridors of powers in the Nigerian government under President Muhammadu Buhari have been initiating and making outrageous decisions or perhaps insensitive plans that seem not to augur well with an average Nigerian.

The Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP)’s caucus in the House of Representatives recently raised alarm over alleged plans to subvert the case of the party’s candidate in the 2019 Presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, at the Supreme Court. The caucus, in a statement jointly signed by its leaders in the house alleged that there was an attempt to influence the selection of the most senior Justices to hear the case.

At a public function organized by the government a few years ago, there was a chanced meeting between a former public servant who had been a part of the Golden age of the public service in the immediate post-independence period, and a new public servant who came in at the point of the democratic turn in Nigeria. The young man had always heard about the old man and the role he had played in positioning the civil service as the fulcrum for the government to achieve its objectives of good governance when the colonialists left. The young man thought he could use some of the historical perspectives of the older man with regard to administrative performance when the civil service was just taking off. And he really wanted to know what the old public servant thinks of the system now, and what is being done to get it functional. This was as best a time for him as possible. Luckily, they were seated side by side, and the meeting had been put on hold for a recess.

General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s military head of state from 1966 -1975, turned 85 on Saturday, October 19, 2019. In a congratulatory message, President Muhammadu Buhari described him as a living legend and a symbol of national unity. The statement from the presidency gushed with phrases such as “visionary leadership style, wisdom, disciplined outlook…elder statesman, simplicity and humility, good governance… sacrifices, wide respect….”. There were other tributes: The senate president, Ahmed Lawan praised Gowon for defending and preserving the unity and territorial integrity of Nigeria. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, described Gowon as a “statesman and national icon who contributed enormously to Nigeria’s unity and development.” Nigeria, he adds “owes Gowon a debt of gratitude”. Governors of the 36 states of Nigeria also concurred that “General Gowon is a rare gift to the state, Nigeria, and the world”.

December 1776, Thomas Paine reminded Americans that “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph".

I just spent the weekend reading and doing some number crunching on the 2020 budget that was presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly on October 8. Of the five budgets he has presented since assuming office in 2015, this was the earliest to get to the legislature before the beginning of the next fiscal year. It is hoped that with the new record set by his administration and a pliant National Assembly, Nigeria will for the first time in decades revert to the January 1-December 31 budget cycle. This is expected to result in improved budgetary performance and planning not just for the federal government, but also the private sector that is reliant on the government’s fiscal policy slant.

According to the report 2019 by Global Hunger Index, Nigeria has a serious hunger problem and ranks 93rd out of 117 qualifying countries. With a score of 27.9, in recent time Nigeria suffers from a level of hunger that is serious.

Diaspora Nigerians living in the ‘First World’ have a dim view of the rest of us who live in Nigeria on the subject of taxation, and it is about time someone called them out on the tunnel vision they have chosen to give themselves on the subject matter. To the majority of them, Nigerians are spoiled, entitled people who expect and rely on government to do everything for them, yet rail against same government whenever talk of taxation comes up, and that is an unfortunate take because the truth is completely different.

This story makes me grin all the time. After our wedding in 2001, my wife and I decided to pay “thank you” visits to family members, friends and well-wishers. We visited my mother-in-law’s boss at the time. As we chatted on various topics, we noticed he was sweating inside his well air-conditioned office. My wife, ever alert to people’s well-being, asked: “Sir, are you all right? You’re sweating.” The man smiled and replied: “Don’t mind me, my sister. This is how I sweat anytime I’m spending too much money. You know I’m an Ijebuman!” We had a good laugh. I wish this were the way Nigerian government officials sweat anytime they are spending our money.

Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Mr Simon Achuba, by the Kogi State House of Assembly and the alleged nomination of one Mr Edward Onoja as his replacement by Governor Yahaya Bello, are acts of constitutional vandalism and a nullity and should be deprecated by all lovers of democracy and adherents of the rule of law.

“Lagos is a shameful state with a lot of “promise” because of the access to funds relative to other states. Lagos gets a lot of unnecessary commendation and not enough scrutiny. The state of finance in the state is both shameful and annoying. Government keeps quiet, citizens don’t challenge them enough and the House is seriously complicit.

Fellow Nigerians, I have never hidden my admiration for our First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari. Although we met only once in London during those days of frenetic campaigning for Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) in 2014, I have followed her closely and therefore almost been in a position as if I know her well. Our meeting occurred when some Buharists had gathered at the Crown Plaza Hotel and Mrs Buhari, Mrs Dolapo Osinbajo, Mrs Toyin Saraki, Zahra Buhari, and many others came in to speak and cajole us about why Buhari should be our choice and enjoy our support. I greeted her and took some pictures with her very beautiful and amiable daughter. That was the closest I personally got to her, but I have followed her activities with keen interest.

From the coup of January 15, 1966 restructuring in the country took the form of the unification decree under General Aguiyi Ironsi to the abolition of the regions and creation of twelve states under General Yakubu Gowon to further creation of states under Generals Murtala Mohammed, Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha. All these development though in response to the yearnings of the populace, were done in circumstances that cannot be described as wholly democratic.

APC is like the Italian Mafia. Like the Italian Mafia, APC is perpetuating party politics crime in Nigeria. The party illegally removed the CJN Onnoghen. It used Buhari’s niece Amina Zakari to conduct the worst presidential elections in the world, making sure that southern electorate were forced to use card reader to disenfranchise them while no card reader used in the northern states. To conduct this crime Buhari refused to sign the electorate act amendment into law

I was having a quiet time on the internet researching an unrelated subject when I stumbled on the then presidential standard-bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari’s Chatham House speech delivered in February, 2015. Glancing through it, so many amazing statements jumped out at me. Just go back and read Buhari’s Chatham House speech and get a sense of how this man and his handlers fooled the nation and indeed the world. That the speech and the reality of his presidency are light years apart stirred righteous indignation in me.

“No man is rich, whose expenditure exceeds his means; and no one is poor whose Incomings exceed his outgoings”  Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Charles Dickens

It is gratifying that the first family rallied in the face of a blistering attack last week by busybodies. I would be remiss not to give full credit where it belongs: the office of the First Lady. In a week when President Muhammadu Buhari presented the Appropriation Bill in record time and when the entire country was outraged by the sex-for-grade expose, that was precisely the moment when idle people decided to find a phantom wife for the president.

President Muhammadu Buhari built his brand on three myths: self-discipline, fiscal discipline, and military discipline. These myths became the national millstone when fate dealt Nigeria a diseased hand during the night of December 31, 1983 and ushered in Buhari into the presidency until August 1985. His quicksand morality has been an ever-present conundrum.

Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the fastest developing regions in the world. Population growth, expanding economic performance and a wealth of natural resources sit alongside dynamic political developments and an increasingly vocal civil society. However, diverse parts of the continent still struggle with dictatorial regimes, omnipresent corruption, and assertive malign foreign influences, sometimes bringing back memories of a colonial past. What are the key challenges Africa faces today? How do Africans view the role of external factors, such as China, Russia, Europe, or the US? How can they deal with the heavy impact of climate change, ocean pollution, drought, land degradation and depletion of natural resources? Where will sub-Sahara Africa be in 15 years?

During the Ambode administration, there was a lull in Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) officials’ harassment of the poor and hapless Nigerians trying to survive the impoverished mess that our morally bankrupt rulers made of this country by hawking in the streets of Lagos. But, like in the days of the Fashola administration, they are back on the streets of Lagos beating-up and arresting street hawkers, and confiscating their wares. Recently, in my neighborhood, I saw two hefty men literally hauling a man, like a bulky luggage. The two strapping men were KAI officials arresting a street hawker.

Desperate insecurity has forced some states of this federation to make hopeless choices. Before our very eyes, state governors are choosing the expediency of their individual political survival over and above fidelity to national security and constitutional order. Some state governments have not only recognised the leaders of the bandits terrorising their states but entered into negotiated truce deals with them.

Many Nigerians argue that the Nigerian Constitution is loaded too much in favour of the Federal Government, and it becomes extremely difficult for sub-national governments – states and the local governments – to be economically viable.

Nigeria’s society is unequal and even more so when viewed through the gender prism. Available data regarding the wellbeing of our children – male and female – leave one with a sense of unease and fearful apprehension. There are trends which, if not arrested and reversed, spell doom for a future that already does not inspire much cheer.

Against the background of the recent sting reportage of sexual harassment in Nigerian universities, with special focus on the University of Lagos, I am surprised that many Nigerians are feigning ignorance of the ravaging scourge of sex-for-mark practice which infests our tertiary institutions. There was nothing new or too salacious about the BBC report. There was nothing more fundamental revealed in the report than what we had all been noticing and what had been hitherto reported in both the mainstream and social media for a long time now. Sexual harassment is as old as the university system itself and awarding grades for sexual gratification has been an age-old reality that had dogged the university system in Nigeria. So there was nothing new revealed in the sting report by BBC. There was nothing to elicit the kind of societal commotion the BBC report elicited.