Public Affairs Analyst

As a young lad in Ibadan, Oyo State, there was this jingle being played on Radio O-Y-O, the radio arm of the Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State about a righteous man known as Muibi who returned to government (Police, more precisely)  a large sum of money a passenger left in his taxi. The jingle encouraged all citizens to do likewise. In 2012, another Muibi surfaced, now in Abuja.  Mr. Imeh Usuah, a taxi driver plying Abuja airport road returned N18 million a passenger forgot in his vehicle to the owner. Imeh said he was at the car wash when he discovered there was a bag left behind after dropping the man off in a hotel and immediately returned it. He was quoted as saying: “My mind went back to the man who I dropped at the hotel and I immediately alerted my chairman and he instructed me to go back to the place where I dropped him. I saw him and delivered his bag to him.” There was no account of who the owner of the money is or whether he gave the cab driver some of the ret...

I could not agree more with the findings of the World Bank which in its Investment Climate Assessment Report for the 2011 fiscal period chronicled the constraints that entrepreneurs face in doing business in Nigeria. The report titled ‘Nigeria , an Assessment of the Investment Climate in 26 States’ was released on August 9, 2012.   The account observed among many other things that Nigerian business environment, in spite of the series of reforms being carried out by the current administration to attract Foreign Direct Investment into the country, remained hostile. The 202-page report said that investors were losing 10 per cent of their revenue to the hostile investment climate in the country. It stated that the areas that account for the 10 per cent loss include poor quality infrastructure, crime, insecurity, and corruption. The assessment reviewed the experiences of over 3000 surveyed business owners in 26 states of Nigeria about the aspects of the business climate that affected...

Effort at the fourth alteration of the 1999 Constitution is gradually gathering momentum with the submission of the report of the Presidential Committee on the Review of Outstanding Constitutional Issues headed by the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Alfa Belgore. The Committee which was inaugurated on November 17, 2011 submitted its report to President Goodluck Jonathan on July 10, 2012. The committee was saddled with the responsibility of reviewing outstanding issues from the recent constitutional conferences with a view to determining their relevance to national development. Media report has it that the committee came up with a bouquet of recommendations. Some of them include the following: Devolution of powers from federal to state government while the Federal Government retain powers only necessary for maintaining the sovereignty of the country; Creation of “an optimally independent, incorruptible and stabilising local government system that shall always be adm...

Nigeria has often been cited by political finance experts as an example of a country with strong laws on political finance regulations. The country’s statutes, viz: the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, as amended; the Electoral Act 2010, as amended; the constitutions of the political parties, the Political Finance Manual and Handbook, the Companies and Allied Matters Act and the Code of Conduct for political parties all contain provisions that aim at regulating political finance in Nigeria. Be that as it may, there are inherent problems with the laws, hence the need for further reform of the legislations. Good enough, Nigeria’s National Assembly is in the process of altering the 1999 Constitution. Aside the weaknesses in the law, there is the challenge of law enforcement by the regulator.  Some of the following proposals are targeted at legislative reform; policy reform and institutional reform. It is proposed that candidates must have the obligation to submit election expenses ...

On Wednesday, July 18, 2012, the Nigeria Petroleum Industry Bill began its second journey to the National Assembly when President Goodluck Jonathan forwarded the 223 page bill to the lawmakers for consideration, adoption and speedy passage. It would be recalled that the bill had earlier been introduced by late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to the national parliament in 2009. This piece of legislation had been enmeshed in controversies as several versions were being circulated so much so that it was difficult to ascertain the original. Some Senators were also accused of having been sponsored by an International Oil Company on a retreat to Ghana thereby engendering conflict of interest. Even while addressing the media to inform the general public that the President has sent the bill to the National Assembly, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dieziani Allison-Madueke disowned the versions that were being circulated on the internet prior to July 18. She said the authentic one has some sec...