I wouldn’t write off the government, however tempting. If Tinubu’s shock therapy has been disjointed, and his economic policies severely criticised by a despairing public, the tax-and-spend remedy by The Financial Times, the West’s standard response to budget deficits – apart from the added trope about transparency and corruption – is hardly the cure in Nigeria’s case for at least two reasons
Does it Still Make Sense to Trust Tinubu? Read More »
In 2023, we had four years’ worth of politics in one year. Apart from a number of senior lawyers in particular who also made four years’ worth of money in one year, swathes of the political elite are broke, exhausted, and stranded. In 2024, they would be desperate for rehabilitation. Otherwise, their teeming supporters will dissipate, and their misery will be complete. Before June, some top politicians who had been discreetly reaching out to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for favours, would be obliged to take their fate in their own hands and pursue their ambition more openly and less shamelessly. By the end of the year, the scramble for presidential favours would leave an already fragmented opposition in a shambles
What You Might Expect in 2024 Read More »
Multiple sources told me, confidentially, that what a number of state governors did after 36 of them received N2billion each, as the first tranche of the N5billion palliatives fund from Abuja, was to raid the black market. They converted significant portions of what they received into dollars, giving palliatives engineering a new currency
Letter to Rich Nigerians: Why the Poor Are Mad Read More »
Nigeria is not even among the eight countries currently participating in AfCFTA’s Guided Trade Initiative (GTI), a platform that is supposed to boost the region’s trade policy framework. How can Nigeria, which ought to be in the forefront of turning this state of affairs around, but which is sadly one of the laggards in AfCFTA commitments, covet a table at the G-20? And on what terms when, like most of the continent, Nigeria is still largely a market for primary commodities with the inherent disadvantages?
Begging for a seat at the table Read More »
Nobody knows more than Tinubu that even though he carries the same party flag with Buhari, he does not have the luxury of Buhari’s honeymoon period. And should he make any wrong choices – hopefully not – given the scale of the challenges facing the country, he must immediately remove such appointees, instead of indulging them like his predecessor, as if it was some complicated conjugal misery
Tinubu And Burden of Ministerial List Read More »
Candidates get their results through one of two means: either by SMS or through the JAMB portal. The board has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that both methods are significantly secure. Of course, there are numerous fake sites offering everything from “upgrade” of JAMB scores to “self-service results,” complete with options for grades a la carte. I guess you would find similar Ochanja markets, even for politicians
Mmesoma: What really happened? Read More »
We may be looking at over 3,000 fired, that is, assuming each of the roughly 570 affected establishments has a board of at least six members. Often, the figure is higher. Regardless, every job loss is different in its own way, both in how it affects those directly involved and those who depend on them. Each political appointee has a personal story not conveyed in the usual press headlines of how many have been beheaded, politically, and how many more heads may roll. Like sharks, the press loves the smell of blood, as long as it is not their own
Buhari’s Legacy Puts Tinubu in Tight Spot Read More »
How can students’ loans be justified under this unsustainable cost structure? I think it can, but not at the scale contemplated by the new law. And certainly not within the existing structure of the public university system. With a few exceptions, the public university system is no longer fit for purpose. The system is retrograde, stifling, and underperforming
Plugging Gaps in The Students’ Loan Scheme Read More »
Petrol subsidy is gone, means petrol subsidy is gone. Anything short of saying so on day one, would have amounted to kicking the can down the road, again. And that, we have seen, has been the graveyard of speeches in the last several decades full of economic philosophy and poetry but meaning nothing. Enough.
Tinubu Biting the Bullet from Day One Read More »
Obasanjo being Obasanjo, he did not mind imitating a low-grade version of Otto von Bismarck’s philosophy, that the business of Nigeria’s redemption at the time – restructuring, corruption and a pariah economy – required bloody noses and a hand of iron. By the time Buhari was elected eight years later, the landscape had changed somewhat. Yet, Buhari’s hands-off approach was dictated just as much by the relatively mature political landscape as by his complicatedly insular, almost abdicatory political style. Tinubu is a different matter altogether
What Should Tinubu Do About the Assembly? Read More »