There is something about Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Jagaba of Borgu, the presidential candidate of the All Peoples Congress (APC), and Abeokuta. Whenever he feels threatened or that things are not going the way he wants them to, he goes to Abeokuta and delivers what we can term a declaration – in Yoruba. Appealing to the sentiments of the Yoruba, he plays the victim of a conspiracy. True or false, it somehow pays for him. Agreed declarations are not legally binding but they show certain aspirations.
Author: Editor
The National Council of State is meeting today to address a series of crises affecting the country. Commerce is dying and the economy is likely to go into recession because of a cash crunch the government decided to create. By ensuring people with cash in their bank accounts cannot get their money, the intention of the policy is to raise the level of anger and frustration in society. Government timed the policy move to coincide with an existing fuel shortage that is also annoying citizens. Thirdly, all this is fabricated at a time of unprecedented cost of living crisis. My reading of the multiplication of vexatious policy interventions at the same time is conceived as an experiment to see how far Nigerians can be pushed before they explode.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), government’s agency responsible for assessing, collecting and accounting for tax and other revenues accruing to the Federal Government of Nigeria, have been recording tremendous successes and living up to it’s mandate especially under the leadership of the Executive Chairman, Muhammad Nami.
The Nigerian economy was once described as a “voodoo” economy, “the more you look, the less you understand” as it defies all kinds of known remedies. The mystery of Nigeria as a nation is not limited to its economy but includes socio-political and cultural dispositions. Longtime ago, western pundits postulated, hypothesized, and predicted the disintegration of Nigeria by the year 2015. Time has since revealed their empty prediction; regrettably, however, the nation is still sliding into the abyss of squalor and poverty, exacerbated by the population explosion – a kind of time bomb that must not be allowed to detonate.
In his article titled, “The candidate of the Sultan and the Yoruba pastor”, he describes himself in a kicker as a bonafide member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He is, however, more known to be one of those would-have-been president of Nigeria – this is by their attempts as aspirants – but who would not mind to become personal assistants to a state commissioner or council chairman after their disgraceful dropout from the race because of their lack of integrity. He calls himself SKC Ogbonnia. It is because of his lack of integrity that Ogbonnia would have again reopened an already answered question about whether or not His Eminence Al-Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, of Sokoto Caliphate endorsed the candidacy of Labour Party (LP)’s Presidential Candidate in this month February 25, 2023 election, Dr. Peter Obi.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s followers, therefore, created in him the image of an ascetic, beyond reproach, and so canonised him as a saint. And he also did his best to fit into that picture. Ramrod, bare of any fat and wearing the cheapest materials around, the story was said to have seen it all yet refused to be tempted into taking anything from anywhere he worked.
As the general election campaigns intensify, the first problem today is how will the elections hold without money both in politicians’ pockets as well as in people’s pocket. As a parting gift to most Nigerians, President Buhari in his wisdom has decided that the current generation of Nigerians must also suffer the trauma of emergency currency change which our generation suffered in 1984. His idea then, as it is today, is that it is a method to catch looters of the national treasury who will be forced to reveal their stolen monies. The problem then, as it is today, is that whatever the merits of the approach are, there is massive collateral damage among the masses.
For it is on record that under the watch of FIRS Executive Chairman, Mr. Muhammad Nami and his team, the revenue declared at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting at least thrice hovered around N1 trillion or even surpassed that figure at various months in the year 2022 . It was a feat.
The civil war in Ethiopia has resulted in the death of some 600,000 civilians, a staggering estimate for a conflict that has lasted only two years and has been focused on a single region, Tigray, of around six million inhabitants. However, in the absence of official counts, the calculations of the European Union, international organizations, and experts concur on a devastating mortality rate in a war the Ethiopian government has deliberately tried to shield from international public opinion. The first to put these figures on the table was Jan Nyssen, professor emeritus of geography at the University of Ghent in Belgium. “Hunger was used as a weapon of war,” he says.
Yesterday (Wednesday January 25) I got a call from Ardo that is the Sarki Fulani of Nasarawa State, who told me what really happened. He told me that Rukubi, a town and settlement of Fulanis in Doma Local Government, Nasarawa State, was where the sad event occurred. He said sometimes ago Fulani’s cows from the boundary community in Nasarawa State were seized by the Benue State Government. You can imagine how the movement of cows could naturally be and since the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, claims there is a law and if they catch your cow, there is a fine you pay.