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Presidency Slams Financial Times Editor Over Article On Nigeria

Published

4 years ago

February 6, 2022

The Presidency has rebuked the Financial Times’ Africa Editor, David Pilling, over an article on the Buhari regime published on January 31, 2021.

In an open letter to The Editor, Financial Times, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said, “The caricature of a government sleepwalking into disaster (What is Nigeria’s government for? January 31, 2022) is predictable from a correspondent who jets briefly in and out of Nigeria on the same British Airways flight he so criticises.

“He highlights rising banditry in my country as proof of such slumber.

“What he leaves out are the security gains made over two Presidential terms.”

According to Shehu, the terror organisation Boko Haram used to administer an area the size of Belgium at inauguration; now, they control no territory.

He continues “The first comprehensive plan to deal with decades-old clashes between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers–experienced across the width of the Sahel–has been introduced: pilot ranches are reducing the competition for water and land that drove past tensions.

“Banditry grew out of such clashes. Criminal gangs took advantage of the instability, flush with guns that flooded the region following the Western-triggered implosion of Libya.

“The situation is grave. Yet as with other challenges, it is one that the government will face down.”

In his article titled ‘What is Nigeria For?’ Pilling had written:

“On the British Airways flight between London and Nigeria’s administrative capital of Abuja, one of the airline’s most profitable routes, nearly all the space is taken up with flatbeds. The unfortunate few making their way to a crunched economy section at the back must trudge through row after row of business class.

“Evidently, there is plenty of money to be made in Abuja’s corridors of power. Nigeria’s economy may be flat on its back, but the political elite flying to and from London will spend the flight flat on theirs, too.

“Next year, many of the members of government will change, though not necessarily the bureaucracy behind it. Campaigning has already begun for presidential elections that in February 2023 will draw the curtain on eight years of the administration of Muhammadu Buhari, on whose somnolent watch Nigeria has sleepwalked closer to disaster.

“Buhari has overseen two terms of economic slump, rising debt and a calamitous increase in kidnapping and banditry—the one thing you might have thought a former general could control. Familiar candidates to replace him, mostly recycled old men, are already counting their money ahead of a costly electoral marathon. It takes an estimated $2bn to get a president elected. Those who pay will expect to be paid back.

“There are some promising candidates. If Yemi Osinbajo, the technocratic vice-president, were miraculously to make it through the campaign thicket and emerge as president, the hearts of Nigerian optimists would beat a little faster.

“But that may be to underestimate the depth of Nigeria’s quagmire. The problem is not so much who leads the government as the nature of government itself.

“Nigeria’s administration is fuelled by oil — though not its economy; more than 90 per cent of output is generated from non-oil activities. But for decades, the business of government — whether military or, since 1999, democratic — has been to control access to oil revenues and earn patronage by spreading petrol-dollars to federal and state supplicants.

“Outside oil, government raises a petty amount of revenue, proportionally much less than other African states. Since the provision of services is so dire, no one who can afford to pay taxes is willing to do so. Nigerians with money opt out of the system. They send their kids to private school, attend private hospitals, employ their own private security and generate their own power. The state borrows ever more heavily to fund what little capital expenditure there is and service mounting debts. Like a giant leech at the top of the body politic, government is essentially there to fund itself.

“This thwarts the aspirations of millions of highly capable Nigerians. Officials extract “rent” by controlling access to business opportunities. The objective thus becomes to slow down investment not speed it up.

“Almost all the energy, drive and wealth creation in Nigeria happens outside government. New unregulated businesses in the booming tech sector, fashion, design and the creative arts are flourishing. Every day, tens of millions of Nigerians somehow get by, despite the efforts of those supposedly looking out for them.

“As is said of India, Nigeria grows at night while the government sleeps — hardly surprising that some libertarian tech entrepreneurs want the government to withdraw and leave the private sector in charge.

“In reality, the government is not too big. It is too small. The federal budget — not counting money transferred to states — is about $30bn, derisory for a population of more than 200m people. Only trust in government — and a willingness to pay taxes — can redress this balance.

“Nigeria desperately needs an administration whose energies go not into preserving its own privilege but into providing public goods — basic education and health, rule of law, security, power, roads and digital infrastructure. It must remove distortions and subsidies that direct entrepreneurial activity from production to arbitrage.

“The chances of a corrupt system reforming itself are slim. But if Nigeria’s ruling class cannot manage it, any remaining faith Nigerians have in their system of government will evaporate. That way lies disaster.”

(PUNCH)

Headline

Sweden To Charge 18-year-old Over IS Terror Plot

Published

7 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said Tuesday it intended to charge an 18-year-old man for planning a terrorist act in Stockholm on behalf of the Islamic State group.

According to prosecutors, the planning took place between August 2024 and February 2025.

“We believe the purpose of the preparations was to induce serious fear in the population, in the name of the Islamic State. The criminal act could have seriously harmed Sweden,” Deputy Chief Prosecutor Henrik Olin said in a statement.

Prosecutors did not provide details of the plan but said the man was also suspected of “preparation for serious crimes under the act on flammable and explosive goods and training for terrorism”.

Prosecutors said they planned to file the charges on Thursday and that a press conference would be held the same day.

The young man will also be charged alongside a 17-year-old boy with attempted murder in Germany in August 2024.

Both of them are also suspected of “participation in a terrorist organisation,” according to the statement.

The man was arrested in Stockholm on February 11 and has been in custody since then.

AFP

Headline

US Shutdown Hits 35 Days, Tying Longest In History

Published

7 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

The US government shutdown entered its 35th day on Tuesday, matching a record set during President Donald Trump’s first term, as lawmakers voiced hope over progress behind the scenes to end the dispute.

The federal closure appears almost certain to become the longest in history, with no breakthroughs expected before it goes into its sixth week at midnight — although there were fragile signs in Congress that an off-ramp is closer than ever.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune set the buoyant mood music on Monday when he told reporters he felt “optimistic” that newly energised talks between warring Republicans and Democrats could end in a deal before next week.

The government has been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to pass a bill to keep federal departments and agencies funded past the end of the last financial year on September 30.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think any of us expected that it would drag on this long. We didn’t believe, we couldn’t have imagined,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference arranged to mark the six-week milestone.

“It’s now tied for the longest shutdown in US history. And we didn’t think we’d have to come in here every single day — day after day after day — and repeat the obvious facts to the American people and to put on display every day what is happening here.”

Some 1.4 million federal workers — from air traffic controllers to park wardens — have been placed on enforced leave without pay or made to work for nothing, while vital welfare programs and even paychecks for active-duty troops are under threat.

Both sides remain dug in over the main sticking point — health care spending.

Democrats say they will only provide votes to end the funding lapse after a deal has been struck to extend expiring insurance subsidies that make health care affordable for millions of Americans.

But Republicans insist they will only address health care once Democrats have voted to switch the lights back on in Washington.

While both sides’ leadership have shown little appetite for compromise, there have been signs of life on the back benches, with a handful of moderate Democrats working to find an escape hatch.

A separate bipartisan group of four centrist House members unveiled a compromise framework Monday for lowering health insurance costs.

Democrats believe that millions of Americans seeing skyrocketing premiums as they enroll onto health insurance programs for next year will pressure Republicans into seeking compromise.

But Trump has held firm on refusing to negotiate, telling CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would “not be extorted.”

The president has sought to apply his own pressure to force Democrats to cave, by threatening mass layoffs of federal workers and using the shutdown to target progressive priorities.

Last week his administration threatened to cut off a vital aid programme that helps 42 million Americans pay for groceries for the first time in its more than 60-year history, before the move was blocked in court.

And the president has returned to a familiar playbook of demanding the elimination of the Senate filibuster — the 60-vote threshold for passing most legislation — so Republicans can pass government funding themselves.

“Terminate the filibuster now, end the ridiculous shutdown immediately, and then, most importantly, pass every wonderful Republican policy that we have dreamt of for years, but never gotten,” Trump fulminated in an all-caps social media post.

Preserving the filibuster — which senators say protects the voice of the minority — is one of the few issues on which Republicans are willing to defy Trump and radical reform seems highly unlikely.

“The votes aren’t there,” Thune told reporters on Monday.

AFP

Headline

China Backs Nigeria, Warns Against Foreign Interference

Published

8 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

China has urged the international community to respect Nigeria’s sovereignty following a US threat of military action.

The Chinese government reiterated its support for President Bola Tinubu’s administration, commending the government for guiding the country along a development path tailored to its national conditions.

According to a report sourced from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China’s website, the Spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, stated this at a press briefing on Tuesday in Beijing.

She said, “As Nigeria’s strategic partner, China opposes any attempt by foreign powers to use religion or human rights as a pretext to meddle in another country’s internal affairs or impose sanctions and military threats.”

Recently, the US threatened Nigeria with possible military action due to the alleged persecution of Christians in the country.

The United States President, Donald Trump, had threatened to deploy military forces in Nigeria if the alleged genocide against Christians is not stopped in the country.