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Russia, Ukraine: What is UN’s relevance? By Emmanuel Onwubiko

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Exactly ten days after the world marked this year’s Saint Valentine’s Day, a day set aside for lovers to mark their solidarity and friendship, the world was thrown into a warfare that is beginning to be predicted as the commencement of World War III.

Russia under the dictatorial hold of their long term President Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine and commanded the armed forces of his nation to bombard Ukraine from land, sea and air in an effort to annex the country and stop it from enlisting into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The opening verbal salvo from the aggressor in chief, was to warn the West to stay off Ukraine and let him achieve his plot to capture Ukraine. The Western democracies have responded with a rash of sanctions and subtle military aids to Ukraine but they can’t physically fight to stop Russia from having its way.

Incidentally, this ongoing invasion of Ukraine is the first real time war in this contemporary epoch that the rest of humanity are watching the military activities on televisions because of the sophistication of the means of broadcasting through cable television and satellite.

What this means is that the war in Ukraine began by Russia is seriously going to affect billions of people in the world just as those who are several thousands of kilometres away are also nursing the fear of this needless war because of the psychological trauma the violence that is being transmitted will unleash on everyone.

For a start, school kids who would also watch the proceedings of this war will even feel the emotional impacts much more than the elders. The President of the USA was the one who alerted that the long predicted military invasion has commenced. This was how some of us got wind of the war that began on February 24, 2022 when President Putin of Russia ordered his troops to bombard, invade and capture eastern Ukraine.

The President of the United States Mr. Joe Biden in a post on the social media wrote: “President Zelenskyy reached out to me tonight and we just finished speaking. I condemned this unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces. I briefed him on the steps we are taking to rally international condemnation, including tonight at the United Nations Security Council. He asked me to call on the leaders of the world to speak out clearly against President Putin’s flagrant aggression, and to stand with the people of Ukraine. Tomorrow, I will be meeting with the Leaders of the G7, and the United States and our Allies and partners will be imposing severe sanctions on Russia. We will continue to provide support and assistance to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.”

Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom also said his nation and British people are praying for Ukraine.  But the truth is that the combatants are right now killing each other inside Ukraine and the videos are actively transmitted to us.

From the publication Psychology Today by Stephanie A. Sarkis, she said watching violent news video can be hazardous to health. She wrote: “When I was an undergrad earning a degree in telecommunication production, I learned of a saying in TV news: “If it bleeds, it leads.” This means the more violent or anxiety-provoking event is, it draws in more viewers.

If you are watching videos of mass shootings or other violent events on TV or online, you are making yourself more prone to developing (or worsening) depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

When you watch a violent video of mass shootings and other violence, you increase your chances of developing vicarious traumatization. You are bombarding yourself with violent images while not being able to stop or help. This increases your chances of anxiety, depression, chronic stress, and insomnia. If you have PTSD, viewing these videos can cause an increase of symptoms such as flashbacks.

Repetitive viewing of violent news stories can increase fear and anxiety in viewers, and can even cause people to have increased health issues (Vasterman et al. 2005). In a study by Pfefferbaum, et al. (2014), viewing of disasters on television, particularly terrorism, can increase cases of PTSD, depression, anxiety, perceived stress, and even substance use.

In a study by Ahern et al. (2004), people who watched more television images in the seven days after 9/11 had more PTSD symptoms compared to people who had the least amount of viewing.

The traumatic effects of watching distressing images on the news can have a lasting effect. After the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, adolescents who frequently watched earthquake imagery on the news had a higher rate of probable PTSD at a six-month follow-up (Yeung, et al. 2016)”, she concluded.

The Time Magazine has a comprehensive report of how key nations are responding to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The magazine said countries across the globe have appealed to Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation to protect civilians in the breakaway Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ukraine’s Embassy in London called Putin’s order an “unprovoked war,” adding that Russia is waging “a war against Europe, a war against the whole world.”

Media reports say that explosions have been heard in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, in Kharkiv and other areas of the country.

The Russian president warned against foreign intervention in the unfolding conflict. “To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me,” Putin says.

The UN says: “The Russian president’s announcement came as the United Nations Security Council was holding an emergency meeting over the crisis in Ukraine. Ambassadors from countries including the U.S., the UK and Albania denounced the escalation of the conflict in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine.’’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the meeting, AP reported, and told Russia: “Stop your troops from attacking Ukraine. Give peace a chance.”

The Security Council is chaired by Russia. In a broadcast of the meeting, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, could be heard demanding Russia relinquish its duties as council chair. “Call Putin. Call (Russian foreign minister Sergey) Lavrov to stop aggression.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield also lamented that Putin had “ordered that last step.”
“As we are gathered in the council seeking peace, Putin delivered a message of war in total disdain for the responsibility of the council,” she said. “The council will need to act and we will put a resolution on the table tomorrow.”

As the meeting ended, Ukraine’s Kyslytsya told the Russian envoy: “There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, ambassador.”

The USA, which has in the last few days provided blow- by- blow intelligence of the plots of Russia against Ukraine has already responded.

In a statement, U.S. President, Joe Biden, called the attack “unprovoked and unjustified,” saying that Russia has chosen a war “that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.”

“Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way,” Biden said.

Biden also tweeted that he had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “He asked me to call on the leaders of the world to speak out clearly against President Putin’s flagrant aggression, and to stand with the people of Ukraine.”

The U.S. president added he would be monitoring the situation and will meet with his counterparts in other G7 countries and with U.S. allies in NATO to ensure “a strong united response.”

Ukraine has expressed the desire to join NATO, a move that Putin condemns. NATO can’t physically intervene because the application to enlist in it by Ukraine has yet to be approved and this was the immediate trigger.

This war is not just against Ukraine or Europe but against the relevance or otherwise of the United Nations system which is skewed to favour five Nuclear powers including the current aggressor in Ukraine which is Russia.  To demonstrate how comical the UN system is, as Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian permanent Representative to the UN is the President of the UN General Assembly. The UN has condemned the invasion but the Security Council can’t take military action because Russia has veto power as well as China, which tacitly backs Putin in his aggression against Ukraine.

Whilst we have asked probing questions about the relevance of the UN when just one country with the might to launch Nuclear war can just decide to annex smaller nations and the UN can’t stop it. Why then are the nations united if just five members can decide to go rogue and the Heavens won’t fall? The bloodshed in Ukraine is needless and must stop forthwith.

Onwubiko is head of the Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA) and was federal commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission Of Nigeria.

Strictly Personal

Kenya urgently needs national renaissance, By Tee Ngugi 

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Pictures of thousands of youths who turned up for the Kenya Defence Forces recruitment drive a few weeks ago told a story beyond that of the exercise.

They showed endless lines of youthful humanity, all hoping to be among the select few.

The pictures told a story of a country where unemployment among the youth has become immoral and a national shame. But they also told another more fundamental story; our economic growth over the years has either stagnated or grown at a snail’s pace.

The pictures exposed the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and government’s optimistic growth projections over the years as figments of bureaucratic imagination. The narrative told by the youthful human bodies contradicts that told by statistics of impersonal bureaucratic international and national bodies.

While the tragedy of unemployment and poverty is playing out before our eyes, we learn from the Head of Public Service that high-level state employees live largely. Not that we did not know this but hearing it from the horse’s mouth brings the reality home to even those government sycophants who label those who criticise government incompetence foreign stooges.

This admission of wastage was not prompted by a prick of conscience. It came a day after the Controller of Budget indicated that over the past nine months, public officials had spent a staggering Ksh20 billion ($135 million) on domestic and foreign travel.

An earlier report had indicated that the budget for the presidency had increased significantly since the assumption of office by the Kenya Kwanza regime. Other reports have indicated unprocedural award of tenders to regime loyalists.

And, just the other day, the President and his deputy revealed that their Cabinet was incompetent and that many of its members spent their time on foreign travel.

When a country is in the throes of economic crisis; is years behind in infrastructural development; is bedevilled by ever-increasing youth unemployment; is crippled by runaway thievery; and suffers ethical and moral decrepitude, it is time to have a national conversation about itself with a view to pushing the reset button.

What values define our nationhood? What is the Kenyan national character? What do we want to achieve in so many years? Why have we not performed as well as our erstwhile peers? Crucially, what can we change about ourselves to catch up quickly? This reflection and self-interrogation would inform a new framework to guide the rebuilding of our nationhood — a national renaissance.

The way we are carrying on can only lead to a national implosion. To be sure, this slide was not instigated by the current regime. It started on the day we gained independence.

Every regime, even the slightly more conscientious one of Mwai Kibaki, not only failed to halt the slide but also increased the downward spiral.

I am not sure there resides in the current regime the ideological and moral depth to lead a national renaissance.

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Strictly Personal

From Experiment To Experience: Why the Nigerian Central Bank Needs its Traditional Navigators Back, By Chibuikem Ugo-Ngadi

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Commerce Takes the Central Helm

If you’re tuning into this, you’re likely aware of Yemi Cardoso becoming the new chief of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). His appointment, following Godwin Emefiele’s exit, is notable for another reason: both are commercial bankers, and their leadership comes at a pivotal moment for our economy.

For those who’ve journeyed with my earlier piece, ‘A Call To Action,’ I won’t delve into the detailed statistics again. However, to give you the big picture, our economy is on shaky ground. The naira’s value keeps dwindling, now taking over N1000 to match a single USD. The task of steadying this precarious situation leans heavily on the decisions and actions of the CBN and its helm.

While the trend of appointing commercial bankers to lead the CBN brings forth concerns, it’s not a question of their competency in the banking sector. They excel there. However, piloting the Central Bank has its own set of challenges distinct from commercial banking. The differences and intricacies of central banking are profound, and that’s where my reservations come into play.

Different Worlds

At first glance, central banks and commercial banks might seem to operate within the same realm – the financial sector. However, their mandates, operational scopes, risk management practices, and utilised tools delineate two distinct worlds.

Mandate:
Central banks serve a broader public interest. Their primary objective is maintaining economic stability for the nation. This means they work to control inflation and ensure steady economic growth. On the other hand, commercial banks are primarily business entities. Their driving force? Profit. They focus on attracting customers, granting loans, and providing other financial services to ensure their bottom line grows.

Scope of Operation:
Central banks have a wide lens, monitoring the entire economy. They pay close attention to various economic indicators and global trends to make informed decisions that impact the nation. Commercial banks, however, operate on a more individualized scale. They cater directly to their customers, whether individuals or businesses, offering services that respond to specific financial needs.

Risk Management:
When central banks think of risks, they’re looking at the bigger picture. They’re concerned about large-scale economic threats that can affect the whole country. Commercial banks, in contrast, handle risks that directly impact their day-to-day operations. This includes managing potential loan defaults or keeping up with shifts in the market.

Tools and Mechanisms:
Central banks use tools meant for guiding the entire economy. They employ methods like adjusting the amount of money in banks or setting key interest rates to influence economic conditions. Commercial banks, however, use their tools in a more direct manner. They decide on loan interest rates, offer deposit schemes, and introduce new financial products to attract and serve their customers better.

Navigating Two Worlds: Profit vs. Policy

Merging the distinct worlds of central and commercial banks requires careful consideration. While central banks are dedicated to ensuring national welfare and economic stability, commercial banks have profit as their primary goal. As commercial banking leaders transition into central banking roles, there’s a vital concern: could they inadvertently favour their previous domain?

This is more than just an economic dilemma—it directly influences the trust that the public places in these pillars of finance. Central banks are guardians of our financial health, setting rules to foster a robust economy. In contrast, the profit-driven nature of commercial banks often sees them navigating these rules inventively.
Furthermore, the importance of relationships in the commercial sector can’t be understated, yet central banking demands unwavering impartiality. Introducing a leader from the commercial world might blur the lines of decision-making, raising valid concerns about whether the broader economic interests remain the focal point.

Bypassing Expertise

In the intricate dance of global finance, the choreography of central banking leadership remains crucial. We’ve explored how central and commercial banks dance to different beats. Now, let’s shine a spotlight on Nigeria’s recent break from tradition.

Over the recent years, Nigeria has embarked on what can be termed a ‘recruitment experiment’. The rhythm shifted recently as the trend favoured promoting commercial bankers directly into the central bank’s top role, a distinct departure from traditional appointments. The result: Nigeria’s monetary choreography seems to have missed some crucial steps, leading to disruptions in our macroeconomic performance.

One can’t help but think this isn’t just a twist of fate. While the federal government’s fiscal choreography has certainly added complexity to the central bank’s performance, decisions like the FX Swaps, Naira Redesign Rollout, and Ways and Means Lending resonate as tunes unfamiliar to the seasoned central banking ear. It’s like a skilled ballerina suddenly trying to lead a breakdancing performance.

“Those that are doing it, do they have two heads?” as often quipped in Nigerian households. Globally, it’s a rarity to see a central bank led by someone without deep roots in central banking. While commercial bankers in other countries do occasionally don the central banker’s hat, they usually do so after an extensive apprenticeship in central bank policymaking.

Consider Jerome Powell of the US Fed: his journey from corporate banking and legal practice to the helm of the Fed spanned several years, allowing him to immerse in the central banking culture. Or Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England, whose decades-long waltz within the bank’s corridors prepared him for the top job. Even in emerging economies, leaders like Pan Gongsheng in China and Shakitanka Das in India have risen after extensive experience in their nation’s policy tapestries.

So, while commercial banking insights might offer some flair, nothing replaces the deep, nuanced expertise of a career spent in central banking. As the world’s financial ballet continues, it’s time Nigeria reconsiders its lead dancer.

The Pillars of Traditional Central Banking

Grounded Knowledge in Monetary Dynamics:
Central banking goes beyond mere figures. It’s a complex interplay of strategies, forecasts, and responses. Those who’ve spent their careers in central banking have a hands-on understanding of these complexities. They’ve been in the trenches, navigating global economic shifts, balancing inflation, and setting interest rates. This isn’t just textbook knowledge. They’ve witnessed how policy decisions play out in the real world, equipping them with insights that are tough to replicate.

Objectivity at the Helm:
In the vast world of finance, varying sectors sometimes have clashing goals. Career central bankers stand out with their honed objectivity. Their journey within the policy-centric environment of a central bank ensures they approach challenges without any tilt towards commercial banking influences. This unbiased stance guarantees decisions made prioritize the nation’s overall economic well-being.

Steady Policy Hand:
A stable economy thrives on clarity and predictability. Enterprises, investors, and the general public all benefit when there’s a consistent policy direction. Central bankers, with their repository of past experiences and policy impacts, offer this steady hand. Their decisions aren’t hasty but are rooted in long-term objectives, reducing abrupt policy changes that can disrupt markets.

Built-in Networking:
Years in the central banking sphere mean they’ve forged essential ties. They’ve worked side-by-side with diverse teams, partnered with governmental bodies, and conversed with international peers. These connections are invaluable. When a new policy is on the horizon or when feedback is needed, they have a ready network to tap into, ensuring efficient and informed decision-making.

Charting the Right Course

As Nigeria stands at the precipice of an unparalleled macroeconomic tempest, the actions of the Central Bank in the coming months will either anchor us firmly or leave us adrift. While the allure of shortcuts in policymaking might seem tempting, it’s crucial to remember that the Central Bank isn’t just another institution; it’s our nation’s flagbearer in the global financial arena. It’s our voice, our representative, asserting our place on the world stage.
The Central Bank should be our sanctuary from the pitfalls that often plague Nigerian policymaking. It should be a beacon of steadiness amidst the chaos, guiding our economic ship through tumultuous waters with an experienced hand at the helm.

To mitigate the challenges ahead, it’s imperative we revert to the tried-and-true: placing the keys of the Central Bank in the hands of those who know its every corner, its every nuance. For the health of our nation, the vibrancy of our economy, and the future of our people, it’s high time we return the Central Bank to its rightful stewards: the career central bankers.

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