Public Affairs Analyst

2012 Budget : Is govt racing against time?

In 2010, the United States of America delisted Nigeria from her drug Major List. That is heart-warming but is it an indication that incidences of drug trafficking and abuse is abating in the country? According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Nigeria has a rising profile as an international route for drug trafficking. UNODC also said there has been a rise in the consumption of hard drugs in the country and that Nigeria is an active player in the $6.8 billion West Africa cocaine market, serving as a major route and market for cocaine from Columbia, to other centres of distribution and consumption around the world. Nigeria, according to the report, also serves as transit for drugs coming from the Indian sub-continent to Europe. About 2,000 Nigerians are allegedly arrested for drugs offences in the United Kingdom every year. According to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), between 2006 and 2009, a total of 27,628 people suspected to be ...

On July 5, 2011, I was a discussant at a policy dialogue organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD) in Abuja. The dialogue was on the management of public enterprises in Nigeria. In attendance were government officials including an official of Bureau of Public Enterprises, development partners, academics, civil society organizations and the private sector. The interaction showed that government privatisation programme has not been as successful as its proponents will make us believe. It is not pro-poor and has no social safety nets. There are also viable alternatives to privatisation which ought to be considered by government. Many other notable people have commented on the privatisation scheme while practical steps have been taken to further assess the programme. On August 4, 2011 while inaugurating a new board of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP), President Goodluck Jonathan observed thus: “We believe the private sector will ...

The Nigerian Senate earned my commendation over its resolution compelling the Federal Government Press to print authentic versions of the National Assembly legislations. On Thursday, July 28, 2011, Senator Paulinus Igwe (Ebonyi Central) had moved a motion calling the attention of the Senate to the illegal publication, distribution and sales of laws passed by the National Assembly. He observed that such act is in clear violation of the Authentication Act 2004. According to Senator Igwe, “the Act stipulates that the printing of any Act of the National Assembly is vested in the Government Printer who shall endorse on the back of the publication that it is published by authority.” For sometimes now, multiple versions of the amended 1999 constitution, Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) as well as other Acts of parliament are being illegally printed by some shrewd businessmen and hawked on major streets of some states. In Abuja, the Three Arms Zone is the most notorious sales point. I re...

At a lecture titled ‘Nigeria’s 2011 General Elections: The international dimensions and challenges’, organised by the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos on August 8, 2011, INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega inter alia said: “INEC is also having challenges from the 63 political parties. They wanted funding from INEC, there was a legal frame work for it in the past; they have been receiving funding in the past and now the legal frame work has been removed. We have refused to fund them and this is creating problems for us.” Former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Mohammed Uwais recently canvassed for the payment of public grant to political parties by the Federal Government. This, he said, will assist the parties in offsetting their electoral and other bills. Uwais told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that subscriptions from members were inadequate to fund the operations of political parties. “Ideally, parties should finance their campaigns. But even in ...

The singsong in Nigeria now is the alarming rate of unemployment. The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Lamido Sanusi on July 16, 2011 said youth unemployment rate in Nigeria has hit 41.6 per cent. According to him, in gender-specific terms; the rate is 23.3 per cent for males and 17 per cent for females within the age of 15 and 24 years. The CBN Governor made the assertion in a paper, titled, “Youth empowerment as a tool for sustainable development -The Central Bank of Nigeria interventions,’ which he delivered at the National Youth Service Corps orientation Camp in Kwara State. While speaking at 100th International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2011, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said “I want to underline the situation that will signal red alert for us in Africa. I am worried, I am apprehensive about unemployment in our continent that it has not been taken as seriously as it should be. I give example of my own country, Nigeria where we have...

The withdrawal of licences of Afribank, Springbank and Bank PHB, three of the 2009 eight rescued banks by Nigeria Deposit Insurance Company on Friday, August 5, 2011 is another sad chapter on the lingering distress in Nigeria’s banking nay financial sector. It is unfortunate and pre-emptive of NDIC and Central Bank of Nigeria. I should think these regulators ought to have waited till September 30 which was the end date given for recapitalisation after which the hammer can now fall on defaulters. Indeed, I prefer the regulators (NDIC and CBN) should have given a grace period of additional one month after the initial deadline to enable defaulting banks recapitalise after which such harsh measure can then be meted to them. The step has the potential to scare away foreign investors into Nigeria’s economy as it is an indication of mismanagement and ineptitude. As things stand, there will be further job loss in spite of the already saturated unemployment market while the shareholders will a...

Nigerian civil society organisations have come a long way in the democratisation project of the country. If we take civil society as the Third Sector defined as constituted by all those organisations that are not-for-profit and non-government, together with the activities of volunteering and giving which sustain them, then community based organisations such as town unions, faith based organisations, Non-Governmental Organisations like the Campaign for Democracy (CD), Civil Liberties Organisations, (CLO), Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Alliance for Credible Elections (ACE), Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) as well as professional associations such as Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) will all qualify to be member of the civil society constituency. Civil society organisations have played vital roles in the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria. Some of the...

I really find it difficult to fathom the urgency that made the Presidency to fly the kite on the issue of single term for the president and governors which opposition parties have mischievously christened tenure elongation. Could it be to distract us from the menace of Boko Haram , or the hullabaloo occasioned by the licensing of Jaiz Bank which has pitted Christians and Muslims against one another over the Islamic banking proposal? Or perhaps, it was meant to take our attention away from demanding the implementation of the minimum wage of N18,000 for workers and the call for improvement in the standard of living of Nigerians. Whatever it was, I think what President Goodluck Jonathan did amounted to doing the right thing at the wrong time. Jonathan is barely two months into his four year tenure, and the National Assembly is yet to constitute the joint committee on constitutional reform, with no request yet for memoranda by the parliament; so why the haste? If only for the sake of an ac...

It is ten years since Nigerian Telecommunication Commission (NCC) introduced Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) in Nigeria. The licence auction had taken place from January 17 – 19, 2011 while Econet Wireless Nigeria (now Airtel) was the first to roll out on August 7, 2001. Before the licensing of GSM, in November 1997 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) telephone device had become operational in Nigeria. According to industry source, while CDMA operators focus on fixed wired access (landlines) and the fixed wireless access (mobile) that gives them limited mobility access, the GSM operators focus purely on mobile communication, which gives them unlimited mobile access. Before the advent of these two dominant telephone operators, Nigerian Telecommunications, NITEL had been the monopoly providing telephone service in Nigeria. Many would remember how NITEL poles and cables were rivalling those of National Electric Power Authority (now PHCN) on our major streets. During the l...