Public Affairs Analyst

On March 15, 2010, Consumer Protection Council (CPC) held a Consumer Interactive Forum in Abuja. At the forum, Mr. Chris Chukwu, the Deputy Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria who stood in for the CBN Governor said Automatic Teller Machine fraud is among the leading complaints coming to the apex bank. The Director-General, CPC, Mrs. Ify Umenyi also observed that complaints received in CPC on financial services for 2008 and 2009 put ATM complaints second behind non-issuance of share certificate. Really, the soaring incidences of ATM fraud should worry any bank customer. This piece looks at the pros and cons of the ATM revolution in Nigeria. According to an internet source, “the very first ATM in Nigeria was installed by National Cash Registers (NCR) for the defunct Societe Generale Bank Nigeria (SGBN) in 1989”. ATMs are operated via debit and credit cards. There are three variants of these in Nigeria. They are the Standard Card, Verve Ca...

Nigeria is in its 50th year of independence, unfortunately, the country is yet to achieve national integration. Governance is still largely based on primordial sentiments. Ethnicity, tribalism, nepotism, godfatherism, religious inclination and cronyism still play significant roles in who gets what, when and how in Nigeria. These considerations have become a cankerworm that has eaten deep into our national life so much so that even in federal universities, Vice Chancellors are now appointed from the geo-political zones where the institution is located. Thus, there is presently no Yoruba Vice Chancellor in any South East or South-South zones, likewise, no Igbo Vice Chancellor in any of the 19 Northern states. It does not stop there, more than 30 years after the creation of Federal Capital Territory; no Southerner has ever been a substantive Minister of FCT. There are other ministries like Agriculture and Water Resources which are also exclusive preserve of the Northerners. The adopted p...

First and foremost, I congratulate the new and first Acting President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, on his epochal promotion on Tuesday, February 9, 2010. Though, I wish the process leading to his emergence had been neater and less ingenious, I pray that God will grant him divine wisdom, knowledge and understanding to administer this country. As he had observed in his maiden address to the nation on February 9, “It is now time for us to move on in a more determined manner to tackle the various challenges we face as a nation. Our march towards Vision 20-2020 is irreversible. Therefore, we see a need to prioritise on a few of the most critical areas which continue to plague our efforts at engendering meaningful economic growth and development. Some of these critical sectors include power, infrastructure, security, generation of employment and business opportunities for our teeming young men and women.” As the Acting President continues to receive counsel from all and sundry, ...

The February 6, 2010 gubernatorial election in Anambra State has come and gone but the memory of the poll will linger. The issues and debate on the election has dominated the political scene since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the Notice of Poll on September 8, 2009. The election was unique in many ways. It marks the beginning of staggered elections in Nigeria as a result of judicial pronouncements. It is a one race poll where only one office, that of the governor was contested. The poll was vied for by the highest number of aspirants and candidates in the political history of Nigeria. A whooping 47 aspirants bought the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nomination form to contest the party primary while a total of 25 political parties successfully nominated candidates to contest the election. The poll was also dogged by litany of litigations as aspirants in some of the political parties went to court to contest the validity of the nominations of their part...

Not to be at least a little superstitious is to lack generosity of the mind – De Quincy It was Frank Olize who broached the subject about the myth or reality of superstitions in his Sunday, July 20 1997 edition of Newsline. The answers he got to his poser are quite interesting even though varied. In fact the responses of the interviewees to the veracity or otherwise of superstition really showed Nigerians as superstitious lot who still subscribe to their cultural beliefs in spite of their literacy level, status or religious faith. This, to me, does not come as a surprise as superstition is not a peculiar phenomenon to Nigerians or Africans but a worldwide belief that cuts across age, sex, creed and clime. But pray, what is superstition? Superstition, according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines the word as “a belief which is not based on reason or fact but an association of ideas, as in magic”. It is true that superstition may not essentially be reasonable or fa...

Politicians are a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. ––Abraham Lincoln, in a speech to Illinois Legislature in 1837. Ubiquitous these days are myriad of billboards pronouncing the so-called ‘dividends of democracy’ that a governor or local government chairperson has provided for his or her people. A flip through the newspapers and magazines will inundate you with advertorials on the supposed ‘great works’ of our elected political office holders; the citizenry are equally being regaled with similar stories on television and radio. While there’s nothing bad in a government showcasing its achievements, a critical analysis of these advertised projects will reveal that many of them are either photo-tricks or provided at mind-blowing amount that is not commensurate with the magnitude, quality and number of projects executed. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka rec...

There are three primary motives for writing this article. The first is that this administration prides itself as being based on rule of law, hence it is imperative to hold it accountable to its commitment; second reason is to sensitize Nigerians on the principles of political finance as we prepare for 2011 elections and the third is to alert the National Assembly Constitution review committees to plug the loopholes in our political finance laws as they amend the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act 2006. At a fundraiser held on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the February 6 gubernatorial election in Anambra State, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, a princely sum of N2 billion was claimed to have been realised at the event. However, there are questions arising from the event which need to be addressed. Before raising the posers, let’s refresh our minds about the story. Most of the Nigerian dailies of January 14, 2010 reported the fundraising di...