Connect with us

Strictly Personal

Nigeria’s Currency Crisis: Time to deploy Amotekun, By Chinedu Chidi

Published

on

I have thought long and hard about just the right solution to the downward spiral of the Naira, and confidently believe I have come up with the perfect response. It is my humble proposal that the time is right to deploy the dreaded Amotekun to arrest this situation. I’ll explain why.

 

Since it is now clear that the Naira’s salvation is not in the hallways of the CBN or the gold-plated policy rooms of Bretton Woods, but in the battle grounds of the nook and cranny of Nigeria, all patriotic Nigerians must now rightly ignore suit-wearing technocrats and search for militant solutions with real promise. As a patriotic citizen, I have risen to this challenge. I would humbly like to thank the patriotic Nigerian leadership, from the CBN to the Executive, for leading us into this new era of mortal combat.

 

Only a few days ago, we were greeted with the live action scene of security operatives combating BDC operators in the nation’s capital, discharging live ammunition in broad daylight in an open civilian space like fearless patriots at the battle front. The EFCC and accompanying security operatives charged forward and backwards as the enemies of state dared challenge them. It was almost like a combat scene from Gibson’s Braveheart. I was touched. I’m not too sure, but I may have heard the humming of the national anthem from these fearless patriots as they battled the savage saboteurs. What a touching moment! Someone who was at the scene mentioned that these patriots recited the pledge before the onslaught. I can’t confirm this for sure, but if it did occur, it would be consistent with the new nationalistic fervour of the Tinubu administration as reported in the news recently that citizens would be required to recite the pledge at events. I also hear the operation is going on in different parts of the country. All these, coming only days after Sahad Stores, a retail supermarket in Abuja, was forcibly shut down for “economic sabotage”, fill me with great joy. Some unpatriotic citizens had shockingly opposed the move, claiming Sahad Stores was one of the good ones, and that deploying force would not resolve the inflation crisis. Cowards and co-conspirators! They’re too distracted by textbook ideas to see that we’re in war. Shame.

 

Normally, I would have recommended the army for this most important national assignment, but they’re overstretched. They’re battling terrorists, bandits, armed robbers, secessionists, their welfare; just about every violent aggressor around. The police would have been my second option but they too are preoccupied and, as some mischievous people claim, have a special DNA for compromise. For these and some other reasons which I will explain, Amotekun has my blessings.

 

I know Amotekun is also seriously engaged with battling bandits in the South West, but they must be pleaded with to spare some personnel for this all-too-important national emergency. Their stealth, daredevil disposition, and my favourite—charms from the gods— will come in handy.

 

I have heard rumours that some of the BDCs hide their stockpile of dollars in forests. This is the domain of the Amotekun warriors. Through their local intelligence gathering and tactical navigation of the forests, they can uncover these dollar chests and win for the country a huge deliverance. Their spiritual protection against wild animals and attacks from dark forces will be very useful here.

 

I am also confident that what has for so long appeared to be the near-impossible goal of finding the dollars some loud-mouthed people claim are hidden by politicians, bank executives and— I struggle to even contemplate it— CBN officials will be spiritually detected by Amotekun. We desperately need this.

 

It was with great joy that I also received the news that our gallant security personnel are now stopping truckloads of food from leaving the country. What took them so long! How can any patriotic businessman think of trade and profit at a time of economic crisis? This beats my imagination. I am even more infuriated by the argument of their unpatriotic defenders that we don’t have food scarcity, just food unaffordability, and that we can’t seriously let them abandon their goods in warehouses while the vast majority of Nigerians can’t purchase them. This is so inconsiderate and sad. Their argument that the exports bring in needed forex at this time of forex crisis is also another textbook nonsense. Shame on them.

 

I am particularly touched by Cardoso’s sincerity and humility. Realizing that the air-conditioned policies have hit the brick wall and that the fight has morphed into street combat, he did not try to deceive the populace about it. This is uncommon (apologies to Akpabio) pragmatism.

 

I want to enjoin the President to rally leaders in the South West towards mass mobilization of Amotekun for this national assignment. We can’t afford to fail!

 

Chinedu Chidi is a public affairs commentator. He can be reached via: chiobe24.cc@gmail.com

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Strictly Personal

African Union must ensure Sudan civilians are protected, By Joyce Banda

Published

on

The war in Sudan presents the world – and Africa – with a test. This far, we have scored miserably. The international community has failed the people of Sudan. Collectively, we have chosen to systematically ignore and sacrifice the Sudanese people’s suffering in preference of our interests.

For 18 months, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have fought a pitiless conflict that has killed thousands, displaced millions, and triggered the world’s largest hunger crisis.

Crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed by both parties to the conflict. Sexual and gender-based violence are at epidemic levels. The RSF has perpetrated a wave of ethnically motivated violence in Darfur. Starvation has been used as a weapon of war: The SAF has carried out airstrikes that deliberately target civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The plight of children is of deep concern to me. They have been killed, maimed, and forced to serve as soldiers. More than 14 million have been displaced, the world’s largest displacement of children. Millions more haven’t gone to school since the fighting broke out. Girls are at the highest risk of child marriage and gender-based violence. We are looking at a child protection crisis of frightful proportions.

In many of my international engagements, the women of Sudan have raised their concerns about the world’s non-commitment to bring about peace in Sudan.

I write with a simple message. We cannot delay any longer. The suffering cannot be allowed to continue or to become a secondary concern to the frustrating search for a political solution between the belligerents. The international community must come together and adopt urgent measures to protect Sudanese civilians.

Last month, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan released a report that described a horrific range of crimes committed by the RSF and SAF. The report makes for chilling reading. The UN investigators concluded that the gravity of its findings required a concerted plan to safeguard the lives of Sudanese people in the line of fire.

“Given the failure of the warring parties to spare civilians, an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians must be deployed without delay,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the Fact-Finding Mission and former Chief Justice of Tanzania.

We must respond to this call with urgency.

A special responsibility resides with the African Union, in particular the AU Commission, which received a request on June 21 from the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) “to investigate and make recommendations to the PSC on practical measures to be undertaken for the protection of civilians.”

So far, we have heard nothing.

The time is now for the AU to act boldly and swiftly, even in the absence of a ceasefire, to advance robust civilian protection measures.

A physical protective presence, even one with a limited mandate, must be proposed, in line with the recommendation of the UN Fact-Finding Mission. The AU should press the parties to the conflict, particularly the Sudanese government, to invite the protective mission to enter Sudan to do its work free from interference.

The AU can recommend that the protection mission adopt targeted strategies operations, demarcated safe zones, and humanitarian corridors – to protect civilians and ensure safe, unhindered, and adequate access to humanitarian aid.

The protection mission mandate can include data gathering, monitoring, and early warning systems. It can play a role in ending the telecom blackout that has been a troubling feature of the war. The mission can support community-led efforts for self-protection, working closely with Sudan’s inspiring mutual-aid network of Emergency Response Rooms. It can engage and support localised peace efforts, contributing to community-level ceasefire and peacebuilding work.

I do not pretend that establishing a protection mission in Sudan will be easy. But the scale of Sudan’s crisis, the intransigence of the warring parties, and the clear and consistent demands from Sudanese civilians and civil society demand that we take action.

Many will be dismissive. It is true that numerous bureaucratic, institutional, and political obstacles stand in our way. But we must not be deterred.

Will we stand by as Sudan suffers mass atrocities, disease, famine, rape, mass displacement, and societal disintegration? Will we watch as the crisis in Africa’s third largest country spills outside of its borders and sets back the entire region?

Africa and the world have been given a test. I pray that we pass it.

Dr Joyce Banda is a former president of the Republic of Malawi.

Continue Reading

Strictly Personal

Economic policies must be local, By Lekan Sote

Published

on

With 32.70 per cent headline inflation, 40.20 per cent food inflation, and bread inflation of 45 per cent, all caused by the removal of subsidies from petrol and electricity, and the government’s policy of allowing market forces to determine the value of the Naira, Nigerians are reeling under high cost of living.

 

The observation by Obi Alfred Achebe of Onitsha, that “The wellbeing of the people has declined more steeply in the last months,” leads to doubts about the “Renewed Hope” slogan of President Bola Tinubu’s government that is perceived as extravagant, whilst asking Nigerians to be patient and wait for its unfolding economic policies to mature.

 

It doesn’t look as if it will abate soon, Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, who seems ready to hike electricity tariffs again, recently argued that the N225 per kilowatt hour of electricity that Discos charge Band A premium customers is lower than the N750 and N950 respective costs of running privately-owned petrol or diesel generators.

 

While noting that 129 million, or 56 per cent of Nigerians are trapped below poverty line, the World Bank revealed that real per capita Gross Domestic Product, which disregards the service industry component, is yet to recover from the pre-2016 economic depression under the government of Muhammadu Buhari.

 

This has led many to begin to doubt the government’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund-inspired neo-liberal economic policies that seem to have further impoverished poor Nigerians, practically eliminated the middle class, and is making the rich also cry.

 

Yet the World Bank, which is not letting up, recently pontificated that “previous domestic policy missteps (based mainly on its own advice) are compounding the shocks of rising inflation (that is) eroding the purchasing power of the people… and this policy is pushing many (citizens) into poverty.”

 

It zeroes in by asking Nigeria to stay the gruelling course, which Ibukun Omole thinks “is nothing more than a manifesto for exploitation… a blatant attempt to continue the cycle of exploitation… a tool of imperialism, promoting the same policies that have kept Nigeria under the thumb of… neocolonial agenda for decades.”

 

When Indermilt Gill, Senior Vice President of the World Bank, told the 30th Summit of Nigeria’s Economic Summit Group, in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, that Nigerians may have to endure the harrowing economic conditions for another 10 to 15 years, attendees murmured but didn’t walk out on him because of Nigerian’s tradition of politeness to guests.

 

Governor Bala Muhammed of Bauchi State, who agrees with the World Bank that “purchasing power has dwindled,” also thinks that “these (World Bank-inspired) policies, usually handed down by arm-twisting compulsions, are not working.”

 

What seems to be trending now is the suggestion that because these neo-liberal policies do not seem to be helping the economy and the citizens of Nigeria, at least in the short term, it would be better to think up homegrown solutions to Nigeria’s economic problems.

 

Late Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill, is quoted to have quipped that, at the end of the day, “All politics is local.” He may have come to that conclusion after observing that it takes the locals in a community to know what is best for them.

 

This aphorism must apply to economics, a field of study that is derived from sociology, which is the study of the way of life of a people. Proof of this is in “The Wealth of Nations,” written by Adam Smith, who is regarded as the first scholar of economics.

 

In his Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of “The Wealth of Nations,” Andrew Skinner observes: “Adam Smith was undoubtedly the remarkable product of a remarkable age and one whose writing clearly reflects the intellectual, social and economic conditions of the period.”

 

To drive the point home that Smith’s book was written for his people and his time, Skinner reiterated that “the general ‘philosophy,’ which it contained was so thoroughly in accord with the aspirations and circumstances of his age.”

 

In a Freudian slip of the Darwinist realities of the Industrial Revolution that birthed individualism, capitalism, and global trade, Smith averred that “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principle in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasures of seeing it.”

 

And, he let it slip that capitalism is for the advantage of Europe when he confessed that “Europe, by not leaving things at perfect liberty (the so-called Invisible Hand), occasions… inequities,” by “restraining the competition in some trades to a smaller number… increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be… and… free circulation of labour (or expertise) and stocks (goods) both from employment to employment and from place to place!”

 

Policymakers, who think Bretton Woods institutions will advise policies to replicate the success of the Euro-American economy in Nigeria must be daydreaming. After advising elimination of subsidy, as global best practices that reflect market forces, they failed to suggest that Nigeria’s N70,000 monthly minimum wage, neither reflects the realities of the global marketplace, nor Section 16(2,d) of Nigeria’s Constitution, which suggests a “reasonable national minimum living wage… for all citizens.”

 

After Alex Sienart, World Bank’s lead economist in Nigeria, pointed out that the wage increase will directly affect the lives of only 4.1 per cent of Nigerians, he suggested that Nigeria needed more productive jobs to reduce poverty. But he neither explained “productive jobs,” nor suggested how to create them.

 

In admitting past wrong economic policies that the World Bank recommended for Nigeria, its former President, Jim Yong Kim, confessed, “I think the World Bank has to take responsibility for having emphasized hard infrastructure –roads, rails, energy– for a long time…

 

“There is still the bias that says we will invest in hard infrastructure, and then we grow rich, (and) we will have enough money to invest in health and education. (But) we are now saying that’s the wrong approach, that you’ve got to start investing in your people.”

 

Kim is a Korean-American physician, health expert, and anthropologist, whose Harvard University and Brown University Ivy League background shapes his decidedly “Pax American” worldview of America’s dominance of the world economy.

 

Despite his do-gooder posturing, his diagnoses and prescriptions still did not quite address the root cause of Nigeria’s economic woes, nor provide any solutions. They were mere diversions that stopped short of the way forward.

 

He should have advocated for the massive accumulation of capital and investments in the local production of manufacturing machinery, industrial spare parts, and raw materials—items that are currently imported, weakening Nigeria’s trade balance.

 

He should have pushed for the completion of Ajaokuta Steel Mill and helped to line up investors with managerial, technical, and financial competence to salvage Nigeria’s electricity sector, whose poor run has been described by Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of Africa Development Bank, as “killing Nigerian industries.”

 

He could have assembled consultants to accelerate the conversion of Nigeria’s commuter vehicles to Compressed Natural Gas and get banks of the metropolitan economies, that hold Nigeria’s foreign reserves in their vaults, to invest their low-interest funds into Nigeria’s agriculture— so that Nigeria will no longer import foodstuffs.

 

Nigerians need homegrown solutions to their economic woes.

Continue Reading

EDITOR’S PICK

Culture8 hours ago

Ugandan TikToker sentenced to 32 months for insulting President Museveni

21-year-old Ugandan TikToker and content creator, Emmanuel Nabugodi, has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for allegedly insulting President...

Metro8 hours ago

Zambia: NDC president fined K25,000 for allegedly defaming presidential aide

President of one of Zambia’s opposition parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Saboi Imboela, has been fined K25,000 after being...

Tech8 hours ago

Orange Egypt earmarks $52.7m to support African startups

Orange Egypt has earmarked the sum of $52.7 million to support African startups in what is going to be the...

Metro14 hours ago

Nigeria ranks 7th with international students’ enrolment in US

A report released by the United States Embassy in Abuja has reveals that Nigeria is currently ranked seventh on the...

Culture1 day ago

Davido to donate N300m to orphanages to mark 32nd birthday

Nigerian Afro-Pop superstar, David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, has announced plans to donate the sum of N300 million to...

Tech1 day ago

10 African startups selected for final of Latitude59 pitch competition

Ten African startups have been selected for the final round of the Latitude59 pitch competition which will see the winner...

Metro1 day ago

Catholic bishops in Zambia decry ‘shrinking democratic space’, hounding of opposition parties

The Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) has decried what it describes as a shrinking and deteriorating democratic environment, marked...

Metro2 days ago

Nigerian economy to grow in leaps and bounds in 2025, VP Shettima predicts

Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, has predicted that the country’s economy will grow in leaps and bounds in 2025 due...

Musings From Abroad2 days ago

Nigeria, India to strengthen counterterrorism, maritime security cooperation

During a state visit to Nigeria on Sunday, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra, Modi reached an agreement, on behalf of his...

Musings From Abroad2 days ago

Military advisors from Russia arrive Equatorial Guinea

Russian military advisors are in Equatorial Guinea training indigenous soldiers. Anonymous sources cited by Reuters during the week claim that...

Trending