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OPINION: Tinubu, Scrap The Scam

Published

4 months ago

January 9, 2024

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

It is not enough to suspend that minister who (attempted) to post half a billion naira public funds into a private account. Sacking her won’t even be enough. Put another person in that ministry, you will get the same result. The thing to do is to stop the bleeding by scrapping the ministry and its associated tributaries. They are a scam, designed to be so. I am a good student of the 18th century poet, Alexander Pope. In one of his ‘beatitudes’, the poet pens: “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” This is exactly my attitude to the statement by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would take appropriate action “to ensure that any breaches and infractions are identified and decisively punished, in line with the administration’s commitment to public accountability and due process”, in the corruption-infested Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. Rather than wonder when President Tinubu began to wear the garments of “public accountability and due process”, I would rather ask, like the people of yore asked their deity that could not save them from disasters, that this government scraps the scams known as the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. If the deity cannot help us, it should leave us the way it met us (oosa boo le gbe mi, fi mi sile b’ose ba mi).

My biggest ‘New Year Resolution’ for the year 2024 is to answer the name Falana; and pay more attention to my personal issues. But, like the elders of my place would say: omo buruku o ni je ka gbagbe oro ana – a bad child will always remind one of a better forgotten past. Honestly, the year is far too young for me to break my ‘New Year Resolution’. We are just in the second week of the year. Even at that, the bad children that dominate our political landscape are at it again. They have taken us back to the avant-garde Orwellian year, 1984, where everything is the opposite. Nigeria has become a huge crime scene, especially with the rudderless leadership of more than a quarter of a century the nation has had. The Nigerian masses have been turned to the proverbial pitiable and helpless woman, who is at the mercy of a serial rapist with the biggest of phalluses, ever. When gripped and devoured by the merciless rapist, the best the female victim could do is to groan and grunt. To worsen the situation, there appears to be no help or helper in sight.

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The last four days have been very interesting. Our new husband in Abuja and his gang of serial economic rapists have shown that no matter how thoroughly a housewife washes the local ebolo vegetable, the aroma it produces after it is cooked is that of the bush. Nothing has changed, nothing is changing, and nothing will ever change. It is going to be business as usual; it may even be worse than we experienced under the self-acclaimed Mai Gaskiya (the honest one), General Muhammadu Buhari, whose eight-year leadership of the country, promoted corruption to its very zenith. Those who are disappointed with the current happening in Abuja, as it relates to the novel move by Dr Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, to move the sum of N585, 198, 5000, to a private account of a member of staff of the ministry, Bridget Oniyelu, are the very people who invested their hope, trust and confidence in the ability of the present men of power to chart a new direction for the nation. And, in all honesty, I must give kudos to the new set of “wailing wailers”, for having the courage to speak out in loud groaning, the pains the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government is inflicting on the people. For those of us who, right from day one, came to the conclusion that omo ejo, ejo ni – a snakelet is also a snake -, we don’t have to beat our chest and ask: “did we not warn you?” The agony in the land is like the rain. The rain spares nobody. Again, the Scripture is also complete. When the unrighteous suffer, the righteous too are not spared. Could that be what our forebears described as what affects the eyes equally affects the nose – ohun to ba oju, ti ba imu?

Everything about Nigeria is always in the opposite direction of the happenings in the sane countries of the world. Like the George Orwell’s 1984, the Nigerian Ministry of Information does nothing but misinform the people. Our Justice Ministry and its departments dispel injustices in full measures, just as the ministry and agencies saddled with the responsibilities of alleviating and eradicating poverty in our land engage in activities that will only promote and sustain the same maladies they are established to cure. The Humanitarian Ministry in the last eight and a half years has become the most inhuman government department. It is a ministry that steals from the invalid and robs the dead! Everywhere we turn to for help, the rain keeps beating us; drenching us down to our inner ibante (pant). When my people from Ijeshaland are asked to sum up our situation, they have only one exclamation: eshio, ka bi a tia bere – where do we start from!

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Why do we have the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in the first instance? The ministry was established by the same elite class which has weaponised poverty as an art, to hoodwink the people into believing that they actually care. Anyone can argue this: there has been nothing shoved down our throats by the rogues in power in the name of social welfare that is not a scam. Not just a scam, but a big one! It is only in our clime that the government shares money to “the vulnerable” without any data of who the beneficiaries are. In the first instance, how does a nation which has not been able to put an accurate figure to its population, and without any demographic boundary, arrive at the number of those below the poverty level? What parameters is the government using to determine who is entitled to its social welfare packages? Where are the records? Till the second coming of the Saviour, Nigerians will never get to know how many school children were fed during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, and how much was expended on the misadventure, nor would they ever guess right, the actual amount of money given out as tradermoni in the last regime! What about palliative materials? How many beneficiaries can you identify in your neighbourhoods? Even in response to emergency situations like ameliorating the pains of victims of natural disasters like rainstorms, has our government ever given us an account of how much it spent and what is remaining on the balance sheet?

This is why I refuse to join the fray in castigating Dr Betta Edu in her recent request to the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), for the sum of N585, 198,5000 to be paid into Bridget Oniyelu’s account for disbursement to “vulnerable Nigerians”. While my unwillingness to join the fray is not because I approve of her conduct, I restrained myself because I know that Nigerians are only talking because someone somewhere decided to “leak” the request memo. Have we asked how many of such memos had been written and approved before that of Edu became a public issue? How many of such memos is this administration still going to approve because the government has learnt its lessons now, and would always ensure that such a sickness does not affect another child under its watch again? When President Tinubu won the February 2023 general election, many of his supporters assured us that we should wait for him to unveil the “technocrats” that he would appoint into his cabinet. Can any of those supporters point out an individual in the Tinubu cabinet who appears to have a faint idea of what he or she is doing in the ministry assigned to him/her? Who is the technocrat in this government that has appeared to have the basic aptitude for the jobs assigned to him? Which technocrat would request that more than half a billion naira be paid into an individual’s account for a government project, when the same ministry has numerous bank accounts? Who does that?

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And while pondering on that, what has been the response of the appointing authority, President Tinubu, to the scandal? Oh yes; he directed a probe of the ministry! How do you probe a minister and her ministry when the same minister is still in her office directing affairs? Who, among the members of staff of the ministry, would have the effrontery to appear before the ‘probe panel’ to testify against a sitting minister? What should come first, if not the immediate suspension of the affected minister so that the paddy-paddy panel can have a semblance of objectivity and freedom in the discharge of its assignment? So, why should we bother ourselves as a people when we already know that the pregnancy of the panel asked to do “a thorough and comprehensive investigation” would only result in stillbirth? How do we even expect a hen to eat the entrails of another hen? What happens to class solidarity? Is the president ordering “a thorough and comprehensive investigation” aware that Dr Edu has never denied ever raising the scandalous memo? What else does the president want? Belatedly, President Tinubu, has announced the suspension of Minister Edu. Shall we then clap for the president for putting the cart before the horse! Would he have taken that afterthought decision if there were no public outcry?

The very day I gave up hope on our redemption from the hands of the locusts in our national field was the very day the All Progressives Congress (APC), came to power in 2015. It would have been better if in chasing away the ruinous People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from power, Nigerians did not hand over to the worst of humanity, who populated the APC! With the APC in power, and its victory in 2019 and the retention of power in 2023, decency took flight in Nigeria. Don’t forgive my pessimism here. But I say this without qualms: for as long as the APC retains the leadership ladder at the centre, Nigeria can kiss opposition politics good bye! Where is the PDP in the scheme of things now? Where is the man who lost the centre power to the APC in 2015, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ)? What efforts has he made to help the party out of its present coma? What about the ‘OBIdients’? Were the lawmakers elected under the banner of the ‘redemption party’ not part of the shenanigan of N160 million Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), as official vehicles for federal legislators? Who is asking this government questions? Who is holding it accountable? If the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, can serve in an APC government, what is remaining of the opposition?

I read the PDP’s response to Edu’s scandal and I laughed. What a party-in-opposition? Can we just imagine if Alhaji Lai Mohammed were to lead the opposition in a situation like this! The PDP in its statement as endorsed by Debo Ologunagba, its National Publicity Secretary, on the N5.8 billion scandal, said, among other things that the earlier N44.8 billion scandal in NSIPA, and the N585,198,500 in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation “is just a tip of the iceberg in the unprecedented treasury looting, unbridled stealing and plundering of resources going on in the President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration”. Then it followed up with the usual plodding demand of “immediate sack and prosecution” of the minister concerned! Nothing more! You may wish to ask if that was how APC acted while in opposition such that GEJ and his party were retired from Aso Rock? The bitter truth this government needs to know is that Nigerians can do better than the Bettas of this administration and its poverty escalation policies! From what we can now see, it is better life for Betta Edu and her ilks at the expense of the so-called ‘vulnerable Nigerians’

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Minimum Wage: Why We May Not Accept N100,000 – Organised Labour

Published

10 hours ago

May 20, 2024

Editor

The organised labour has told the government to perish any idea of offering N100,000 as the new minimum wage.

The labour has also told the government to be serious with the negotiations on the issue of workers wages, insisting that it used the lowest minimum in arriving at the N615,000 as new minimum wage.

Recall that the organised labour comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, pulled out of the negotiation meeting last week Wednesday when the government offered N48,000 as the new minimum wage.

However, Chairman of the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum wage, Alhaji Bukar Goni in a letter to the organized labour for a meeting tomorrow indicated interest that the government will shift ground and asked the organised labour to also shift ground.

Speaking to Vanguard in Abuja, the NLC Head of Information and Public Affairs, Benson Upah, said that the organised labour would honour the invitation tomorrow but he advised the government to be serious.

He said, “Our expectations are that the government should be serious this time around. We expect them to take more seriously the issue of wages of workers.”

On whether labour would accept N100,000 as being insinuated, he said, “Well, it will not be fair and these are the reasons. The first reason is that when we demanded for N615,000, we broke that down. In fact, we used the barest minimum.

“For instance we put accommodation for N40,000, we also use for feeding N500, tell me where you are going to get food for N500 with a family of six. As I said, we used barest estimate but beyond that, government hiked electricity tariff by two hundred and fifty percent after we made our demand and that has introduced new cost and expenses. So if government is serious, it should not be thinking about a hundred thousand naira.

“You know that when you create poor citizens, you create a poorer county.” On his part, a member of the NLC delegation on the Tripartite Committee, Prof Theophilus Ndubuaku, said it would not be kind of the government to offer N100,000.

He said, “I don’t think one hundred thousand naira is a kind of thing we want because it’s far below expectation, we will accept something that can at least keep somebody alive. I don’t think a hundred thousand naira will keep a worker alive in this country a man with a family of six because our computation is based on the size of family.

“So, if they come up with that kind of amount, I don’t think we will appreciate it. In the private sector even artisans are not taking one hundred thousand a month. Whatever we accept we will look what is the income, what are they collecting, what is available to government because if government is collecting one trillion naira, we cannot ask them to pay two trillion.

“We are responsible people but the same government should know that people are suffering they will have to agree with us that there is crisis, that something needs to be done to create wealth, that something needs to be done for Nigeria to be a producing country and not a consuming nation.

“Something needs to be done to reduce the cost of governance. We are supposed to be partners in governance, after all we are the labourers.”

Asked to give reason why labour may not accept one hundred thousand, he said, “If we see that that hundred thousand is affordable, if we see that they can afford more, we will reject it. They have to tell us why they cannot pay N615,000, the onus is on them to tell us why, then we will sit down and say okay you don’t have the money but we will also know why you don’t have the money because Nigeria is a country that is naturally endowed but something is wrong, how do you make sure you get the money so that when we come again in two years time, you won’t tell us the same story?

“What are you doing to create wealth, how are you going to partner with us to create wealth instead of being wasteful, how are you going to partner with us to reduce cost of governance. If a father comes home and says the only money he has is one thousand naira and you know that the father is not wasting the money, you will manage but if it is when the father comes and he is eating food bought from the fast food joint and it cost N10,000 and he gives one thousand to the entire family to go and look for food and cook for themselves, he may be beaten up, the family may refuse it.

“The letter they wrote to us they said that both parties should shift ground, that means they will shift ground and they are expecting us to shift ground but the question is, what ground are they shifting, are they going to shift ground by two naira or two thousand naira to make it N50,000 or are they going to shift ground by N62,000 to make it N100,000 or by N150,000 or N200,000 to make it N300,000 plus.

“The point here is, this thing we are doing is not rocket science, the government should sit down and calculate how much it will cost, what is a befitting wage for an average Nigeria? They should breakdown what they are giving us because even in salaries, you break everything down. So when you break it down, they will tell us whether they are going to put one thousand naira per month for transport and two thousand naira per month for food.

“That N48,000 they are offering, they should have broken it down so if there are certain things they don’t want to make provision for, for instance health, if they say if any worker is sick they person should go and die or they don’t want to make provision for food, let them just put standard things.

“The problem here is that, you asked someone to tighten his belt, you said there is no money but you removed subsidy. Since they removed subsidy, FAAC has been collecting almost three times of what they were collecting before subsidy. That money you are collecting, what are you doing with it?

“You now said you want to build coastal highway when the existing roads to the same location are not passable, you are budgeting trillions of naira, you want to build Lagos-Sokoto brand new Highway, you want to put billions for hajj subsidy, you bought 200 vehicles for Customs and this is somebody that is complaining that naira is having issues but you now want to spend hundreds billions to import Toyota cars for Customs, why can’t you buy made-in Nigeria vehicles?

“This whole thing doesn’t make any meaning, we don’t even understand it. They are behaving as if they have money but they don’t know what to do with it like General Yakubu Gowon said in the 70s. You bought 200 Toyota Jeeps for Customs, it means you really do have the money but you don’t know what to do with it. But one thing you don’t want to do with the money is to feed Nigerians, feed your workers, make your workers comfortable.

“And as you can see, they are not even giving anybody hope. There is no programme for agriculture, government is not declaring emergency on power, food security, transportation.

“So what we are expecting is that, if they tell us they cannot pay N625,000, they should tell us why they cannot pay, this is negotiation. If we have told them to pay N615,000, what we expect government to calculate how many workers that are expected to receive this minimum wage.

“We did our research, you now say each state has this workforce, this is what they are now getting as revenue forget the fact that some of them are not doing anything to increase their IGR. Whatever they are getting now from the money coming from the federal revenue account, the federal government should say, this is the number of workers that we have, this is how much that you are asking, at the end of the day, this is how much we are expected to spend as salary and this is how much we have.

“So, NLC please look at it, we don’t want to spend this percent on salary, we will then sit down and ask, if you don’t want to spend it on salary, you want to spend it by importing vehicles for Customs when you have locally manufactured vehicles that won’t cost capital flight.”

He, however said that if the government comes out with something”relevant “, the organised labour will shift ground as asked.

“We must discuss with them that the figure presented is realistic and based on facts and statistics as the organised labour has done,” he said.

He said, “For provision of food for one person, we put N500 but there is a survey carried out by the National Bureau for Statistics covering all parts of the country, NBS is the custodian of statistics and it came out with that in today Nigeria, the average you can spend for a meal is N900.

“But we went low, we took the minimum. Their average is N900 but we took the minimum of N500, that is you cannot go below the N500. So you can see how realistic we are. So we will insist that government breakdown every item. Food, hospital, accommodation, transportation etc.

“We don’t want anyone to come and say that the NLC and the TUC presented arbitrary figure.”
VANGUARD

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BREAKING: CBN Withdraws Circular On Cyber Security Levy

Published

12 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Editor

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has withdrawn the circular directing banks and other financial institutions to implement the 0.5 per cent cyber security levy.

The withdrawal of the circular was announced via a statement signed by Haruna Mustafa, Director, Financial Policy and Regulation, Department and Chibuzo Efobi, Director, Payment System Management Department.

The circular stated: “The Central Bank of Nigeria circular dated May 6, 2024 (Ref. PSMD/DIR/PUB/LAB/017/004) on the above subject refers. ‘

“Further to this, please be advised that the above referenced circular is hereby withdrawn.”

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JUST IN: Tinubu Appoints Spokesperson, Ngelale, As Special Envoy On Climate Action

Published

13 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Editor

President Bola Tinubu has appointed his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, as Nigeria’s Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action.

This was as he established a 25-person committee to oversee the country’s green economic initiatives.

“Ngelale will serve in this role as part of a larger Presidential Committee, to be chaired by the President,” the office of the secretary to the government of the federation revealed in a statement signed Sunday by its Director of Information and Public Relations, Segun Imohiosen.

“Ngelale will retain his role as the Official Spokesperson of the President and Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity while serving on the committee,” it added.

The statement is titled, ‘President Tinubu establishes a committee to oversee green economic initiatives, appoints Chief Ajuri Ngelale as special envoy on climate action.’

Imohsien said the Presidential Committee on Climate Action and Green Economic Solutions will “coordinate and oversee all policies and programmes on climate action and green economic development.”

“This is to remove the constraints to coordination, foster a whole-of-government approach to climate-action programmes, provide an efficient governance architecture, and ensure that all relevant institutions in the sector are plugged into the President’s vision and are collectively implementing the Renewed Hope Agenda on climate action,” it further explained.

The new committee which has the President as its Chairman also includes the Minister of Environment, Mr. Balarabe Lawal as its Vice-Chairman, and Mr. Ajuri Ngelale as its Secretary/Special Presidential Envoy.

Members are the CEOs of, InfraCorp, Mr. Lazarus Angbazo; National Council on Climate Change, Mr. Salisu Dahiru; Infrastructure Council Regulatory Commission, Mr. Michael Ohiani, Nigeria Investment Promotion Council, Mrs. Aisha Rimi and National Social Investment Fund, Mr. Aminu Umar-Sadiq.

The committee also consists of the CEOs of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall, Mr Yusuf Maina-Bukar, Energy Commission of Nigeria, Mr Abdullahi Mustapha; Rural Electrification Agency, Abba Aliyu; CreditCorp, Uzoma Nwagba, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, Khalil Halilu Member, Solid Minerals Development Fund, Fatima Shinkafi; CBN Deputy Governor (Deputy Governor, Corporate Services Directorate) Mr Bala Bello; UN SE4ALL, Lolade Abiola; Member and an Adviser to the NCCC Adviser, Teni Majekodunmi.

Others are representatives of the Federal Ministries of FCT, Finance, Industry, Trade & Investment, Water Resources, and Agriculture & Food Security.

The committee also consists of representatives from the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigeria Customs Service.

The OSGF outlined eight objectives of the Presidential Committee. They are to:

“Identify, develop, and implement innovative non-oil & non-gas climate action initiatives.

“Coordinate all activities of relevant federal institutions towards the attainment of all agreed climate action and green economic objectives and non-oil/non-gas ambitions of the federal government.

“Collaborate with all relevant government, subnational governments, non-government, and civil society entities towards the attainment of the climate action objectives and ambitions of the federal government.

“Collaborate with national governments and multilateral institutions towards the attainment of the climate action objectives and carbon market ambitions of the federal government.

“Monitor, evaluate, and guide the progress of all climate action and renewable energy projects and activities of the federal government.

“Track and guide the implementation of initiatives and developments conducted by the Energy Transition Working Group.

“Supervise the work of the Presidential Steering Committee on Project Evergreen and

“Prepare a half-yearly green ambitions update, covering all associated climate action achievements of the federal government.”