By Nik Ogbulie

Former CBN Governors, Joseph Sanusi and Chukwuma Soludo saw tomorrow. That was why they fought and insisted that instrument authority must be accorded the Central Bank of Nigeria few years after the apex financial institution was retrieved from the jaws of a military autocracy. No one can hazard any guess as to what could have been their state of the bank at a time of timid political struggle, like what happened in Nigeria about eight months ago.

Today, the wrangling and stoneface over the CBN as a major development institution considering its statutory activities would have been a completely unbundled structure just because of political interests.

Watching the Senators suggest several ammendments to the Act establishing the Apex bank since the last 65 years was a reflection of the importance Nigerian leaders attach to processes and sequences. To a lot of them, changes become completely important when they are seen to be protective to the powerful who only see laws as mere obstruction to their usually “uncommon” interests.

Suffice it to say that the same Senators that are calling for the changes of the CBN Acts were there when several loopholes in our legal system have influenced the level of growth we have in the country today as well as encouraging insecurity and the proliferation of small weapons.

One may have been waiting to hear if the suggested changes will improve the sad rating of our currency or the inflation. But those are not their targets. Their targets are just the ways to unblock any policy that will not allow them to be rail-roaded into the seat of power.

The crux of the matter is the much welcomed Currency Redesign which was targeted at addressing the misnomer in most of our social developments, not just politics. Every Nigerian agreed that the social solution of the exercise was great but those who felt that their interests have been bewitched ganged up to subvert the intention of the project.

Indications abound that during the election, not much Naira was spent . Only a small quantity of dollars were affordable by the multimillionaire for spending and this affected the access level of many not-too-rich politicians. This has really become the reason for the controversy and not the reality of the project.

The decision to defend the Naira and protect the electoral process as well as reducing the level of crime associated with cash are the offences of the CBN and EFCC helmsman, otherwise, can someone, as a matter of seriousness, take back the cases to the courts for thorough diagnoses? These people were merely seen as the catalysts whose actions as government agents would deter corrupt Nigerians from infusing heavy level of crime in the system. The crimes really happened but at a very minute level as money was not freely available. That was why we recorded a very poor voting level as well as a very low gap between the winners.

Our records show that voting level reduced by about 40%, indicating the failed ability to influence voters who were waiting for money as an enducement.

What is happening on the floor of the Senate over the CBN is an indication of an increasing poor governance trend in the country. The Senate does not need to continue changing the laws to address some abbressions even when the existing Laws largely remain very relevant. What is the issue here is for government to apply the existing infractions and not making new ones to distort the flow of corporate governance.

If the Instrument autonomy won by CBN after a long debate spanning over 15 years was not there, I bet that the development since the Currency Redesign would have reduced the apex bank to a microfinance bank because almost all the staff would have been replaced with people loyal to the status quo ante.

The current slide in all the indices in the economy would have caused as much as 90% inflation and a 100% currency slide and not many Nigerians would be bothered even as they die slowly.

As a matter of fact, the current management of the apex bank is highly skilled and largely reputable and must resolve to defend the mandate that offers CBN its proper place in the management of the various Monetary and Fiscal Policies.

As a matter of fact, the CBN Act still stands non-negotiable unless the bank Board feels it is absolutely necessary. Whatever that would happen to CBN in form of change must be on the instance of the CBN as an institution, not Senate.

Being the Chairman of the CBN Board, the onus totally lie on him to make such a change or whatever the bank desires. It may now be important to say that Yemi Cardoso and his men must resist any attempt to turn the apex bank into a blind alley or a cheap accomplice for cheap political gains.

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

November 15, 2023, might be a tragic day for Africa and the entire Caribbean and Pacific region. It is the day set aside by the European Union (EU) to pressure or coax African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries into signing the deceptively and euphemistically crafted LGBT agreement between the EU and ACP countries. You may be well aware that over the past few months, several meetings have been convened between the EU and ACP parliamentarians aimed at getting ACP leaders to sign the controversial LGBT agreement. For example, a crucial meeting between the EU and ACP Ministers took place in Brussels on November 28, 2022, to potentially exert greater pressure on ACP Ministers to persuade ACP heads of governments to sign the contentious LGBT agreement. Another meeting with the same objective took place from June 19 to 28, 2023, in Brussels.

The aforementioned meetings ended in a deadlock as ACP parliamentarians and leaders vehemently opposed the signing of the LGBT agreement. This is why we are shocked to hear today that November 15 has been scheduled for signing the offensive LGBT agreement. The pertinent questions are: Have ACP heads of government compromised their earlier stance on this matter and now agreed to sign the controversial LGBT agreement? If so, why? Did African leaders consult their respective parliaments and their people before agreeing to sign the agreement? Why is the African media not reporting the LGBT negotiations between the EU and the ACP countries since 2021?

One thing is certain. If the ACP governments succumb to the EU’s intimidation and sign the LGBT agreement, it will spell doom for the ACP countries. Why? Because the agreement is primarily aimed at the homosexualization and LGBTization of ACP countries. This agreement, which takes the form of a treaty, is deceptively and deviously worded to impose the EU’s LGBT agenda on ACP countries. This is why ACP countries must unanimously rise up and resist the signing of this agreement. Why? Because once the agreement is signed, it shall automatically override their Constitutions and national sovereignties of the ACP countries. In contrast to the Monroe Doctrine, Nigeria operates the Dualist doctrine under international law. Consequently, by virtue of section 12 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, a treaty signed by Nigerian political leaders does not have the force of law in Nigeria until it is ratified and domesticated by the National Assembly. However, the LGBT agreement has been so craftily worded that once signed by Nigeria and the ACP countries, the agreement automatically supersedes their respective domestic laws and establishes LGBT as their new law.

It is unbelievable that the West has elevated the barbaric act of inserting a penis into the anus or fingers into the vagina as a civilizational value. The anus is meant for waste elimination; waste comes out from the anus. However, today, the West is trying to teach us the opposite. Regrettably, the West is attempting to convince us that engaging in anal intercourse is a form of statecraft that supersedes more important matters.

As far as the EU, the U.S., and many parts of Europe are concerned, any country not endorsing the practice of inserting a penis into the rectum is seen as not fulfilling its international obligations. The LGBT countries may appear as stars that reflect light, yet they are waterless clouds carried away by the winds of eroticism, uprooted and twice dead. They resemble fruitless trees in late autumn or wild waves of the sea, casting off the foams of their vomit in public. What a shame! Where has public shame gone?

For example, U.S. President Joe Biden has made LGBT rights the centerpiece of American foreign policy. This is why Biden has ordered that the American flag be flown alongside the LGBT+ flag, portraying America as an LGBT-friendly country. The US government is now persecuting Uganda for enacting anti-homosexual laws in Uganda. In his recent remarks, Biden has claimed that LGBT rights are universal international law. He does not seem to understand that international law is binding upon the consent of nations. He is unaware that the consensus reached at various United Nations Conferences is that the laws passed in every developing country, including Nigeria and other African nations, must reflect the diverse social, economic, and environmental conditions of the country, while respecting their religious, cultural backgrounds, and philosophical convictions.

Therefore, Nigeria should not sign the LGBT agreement on November 15 or at any other time. The same applies to other African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. Instead of succumbing to the EU’s veiled intimidation and blackmail to sign the agreement, they should assert their sovereignty and walk out on the EU on November 15. Nigeria is a sovereign country, as are other African nations, the Caribbean, and the Pacific countries. We should not be dictated to by the EU. We are no longer under the tutelage of our former colonial masters. If the EU decides to stop providing financial assistance due to our refusal to sign the LGBT agreement, they may proceed to do so. However, we cannot yield to the EU’s cheap blackmail and sign the agreement. In any case, LGBT practices are illegal in Nigeria, and likely in all African countries except South Africa. The concept of same-sex cohabitation or marriage is abhorrent to Nigerian and African sensibilities. Above all, it represents a complete departure from African civilization.

I have recently participated in a conference in London organized by world-class public intellectuals. Renowned psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson and others who spoke at the conference expressed concern that Western civilization has eroded. Speaker after speaker at the conference lamented that the West has lost its history and culture and emphasized the importance of preserving one’s civilization as a significant investment in this life.

In the feverish pursuit of LGBT sexual pleasure and slavish freedom, the West has lost its core values and identity. Should African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries join the West in this madness? No, we must stick to our own values and traditions. It is suicidal to import practices and lifestyles that are alien to Africa and seek to impose them as laws, all in the name of observing international obligations. It is obvious that the EU has no respect for the religious and philosophical convictions of the African and Nigerian people; otherwise, it would not have been stampeding us to sign the LGBT agreement. Come to think of it, the EU lacks the locus standi to seek to impose on African countries aberrations that are alien to the lifestyle of the African people. Laws are made in consonance with the values of a people. Every country is interested in protecting what it holds dear or its cherished values. The EU has no right to dictate to us the kind of laws we should enact for our people. LGBT is not our value. Gay marriage is not our value. Neither is transgenderism our value. If the West is sinking to the bottomless pit of human civilization with LGBT and transgenderism, it should sink alone; it must not seek to sink together with the African, Pacific, or Caribbean countries.

Happily, at the time of writing, Namibia had pulled out and sworn that it will never sign the LGBT agreement. It is not unlikely that other countries will follow suit and pull out from signing the agreement or signal their intentions to refrain from signing the agreement. In refusing to sign the agreement, Namibia said that the agreement is “not in line with the Namibian Constitution, its legal framework, nor its intended relations and cooperation policy.” It also said that the agreement does not have a definition section to ensure that all parties understand the terms of the agreement and what they entail. According to Namibia, the agreement “refers to a commitment to the full and effective implementation of future outcomes of Beijing and ICPD review Conferences that may bind parties to future processes and outcomes that cannot be predicted at the present moment.” Namibia also complains that the agreement “may elevate non-binding agreements/strategies/initiatives, progress, and processes to a legally binding position or treaty status.

Nigeria should follow the good example of Namibia in this regard and refrain from signing the agreement. Other ACP countries should follow suit. The resolve of Namibia to exercise its national sovereignty and refrain from signing the agreement is praiseworthy. To sign the agreement is tantamount to giving the EU a blank check to fill any amount of money it likes on it and cash it in a bank. Namibia is right. The agreement is a Trojan horse. Apart from LGBT, other provisions of the agreement legalize transgenderism, human capital reduction, and queer behaviorism in a country that signs the agreement. By signing the agreement, a country consents that its children should be taught how to practice “safe”-sex, “safe”-abortion; how to do masturbation, kissing, hugging, penis touching, vagina touching, and how to avoid getting pregnant through sterilization, and so forth, all in the name of sex education or Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE). It is obvious that this agreement specifically targets the children of Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific for corruption and destruction. The agreement threatens to undermine the national sovereignty of the Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific countries that are parties to the agreement. It is targeted at overriding their domestic laws and constitutions as well.

In the light of the foregoing, the African Parliamentary Forum, in conjunction with African lawyers and some notable African NGOs, organized the first-ever African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty in Entebbe, Uganda last year. The conference’s communique later gave birth to what has been christened as the Entebbe Declaration. The Entebbe Declaration has not only unequivocally rejected the LGBT agreement but has also urged the ACP governments not to sign it. Annex 1 of the Declaration states as follows: “WHEREAS the ACP-EU treaty’s supremacy clause invalidates provisions in any existing treaty with which it conflicts, thereby also violating the national sovereignty of countries and the integrity of regional and sub-regional bodies, including the African Union and the integration of regional economic communities. WHEREAS the ACP-EU treaty violates cultural and religious values and undermines the integrity of African family values by mandating the implementation of sexual and reproductive health services and “Sexual and reproductive health and rights” (SRHR), deceptively requiring the legalization of abortion, prostitution, same-sex marriage, special LGBT “rights,” and child sexualization. THEREFORE, we collectively urge all heads of African ACP States not to sign the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement and urge their respective parliaments and legislatures, which are the national law-making bodies of African States, to refuse to ratify this deceptive treaty.”

In conclusion, the EU should leave ACP countries alone in this LGBT matter. Life is about living and letting live. The EU should allow ACP countries to make their own decisions. Practices like LGBT lifestyles cannot be referred to as “human rights”; otherwise, deviant behaviors such as embezzlement of public funds, graft, scams, murder, theft, terrorist attacks, human trafficking, and so forth could also be referred to as “human rights.” You may be aware that as far back as June 29, 2016, the prestigious and highly esteemed European Court of Human Rights, sitting in Strasbourg, France, delivered a historic and unimpeachable judgment that LGBTQ+ is not a human right. The court, which is the highest court in Europe, held that “marriages” entered into by people of the same sex cannot be considered as marriages. As important as this judgment is, the liberal media, such as pro-gay CNN or pro-gay BBC, and others refused to report it.

Therefore, following the good example of Namibia, Nigeria, and the other ACP countries, we must not sign the LGBT agreement. The truth remains that when democracies lose their constituting philosophical and legal principles—when wrongs are described as “rights,” and the tools of law are deployed to do and justify evil—democracies metamorphose into LGBT totalitarianism.

Sonnie Ekwowusi is the Chairman, Human & Constitutional Rights Committee, African Bar Association

By Lasisi Olagunju

We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it.” I do not know under what condition Bob Dylan wrote that song line. All I know is that it serves my purpose as I sit here at the bank of Nigeria searching for the right metaphor for what the country has become. For those not privileged to have a seat in Abuja, this is the ultimate end-time. ‘Japa’ used to be an option for the stranded, but that option is dead now; they’ve killed it. Yet, speaking out has become a big risk, especially in Yorubaland. A cackle of attention seekers is on the prowl looking for poets to pummel and drummers to drub. Because they desperately seek Bola Tinubu’s face of mercy, they say the pounder’s pestle should stop pounding; the grinder’s stone must be still. All because the president is Yoruba. If you are Yoruba and you maintain a newspaper column or you write simple opinion articles that bemoan the state of the nation, the aspiring phlegm eaters have a name for you – ‘Akótilétà’ – the one who auctions his inheritance. But the asset sellers they seek are right there in the mirror – if they look properly. The inheritance we have is a culture of loud resistance to and rejection of what is bad. Is it hunger for position, and privilege, and luxury that drives this unhired army’s expedition? They can learn from this snake- monamona – a beautiful snake that is forever hungry because it hunts the wrong way.

In their scramble to be counted among inmates of slave castles, they say we hate the president. Madam Efunroye Tinubu, the first Iyalode of Egba, was an aggressive money-maker who would “rather drown her twenty slaves than sell them at a discount.” Slaves are worth nothing more than a push into the ocean depths; still, some people are working very hard to be admitted into slavery. But President Tinubu does not know them; they do not exist. Or they are mere chattels of his politics. Yet they fight the wind to announce their presence. I watched a belching guest on Arise TV last week describing his host as a “badly brought up little boy.” The anchor’s offence was that he asked an uncomfortable question on the state of the economy and the mass suffering in the land. I sat up and sat back, sad as the ‘boy’ smiled the insult away. Some of us get variants of such insults daily, weekly. It got pretty bad this last month. Should we all just keep quiet and tell Comrade Napoleon, Father of All Animals, that he is doing well?

We all perish if we all sleep with all our heads on a straight column. Conformity, acquiescence and a surrender to today’s creepy spiral of silence is certain death to the republic and all who value good life. The Nigerian Tribune which I write for hates no one. It will be 74 years old in the next 10 days. It has not lasted this long by sleeping on duty or giving applause to regimes of pain. Four years ago, when the newspaper turned 70, the current president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, in a letter to the organisation described the Nigerian Tribune as “the home of independent, fearless journalism” which had “throughout its illustrious history, continued to shine the light of truth into every corner of the Nigerian public space.” That was Tinubu’s verdict four years ago. Nothing has changed. If anything has changed since then it is that Tribune journalists have added more energy to their commitment to the founding philosophy which Tinubu rightly described as lighting “the truth into every corner” of the human space.

Indeed, “service to justice, fair play, and public morality in the life of our great republic” is the charge we got from our founder, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. On November 16, 1970, Chief Awolowo wrote in celebration of the newspaper’s 21st anniversary: “The Nigerian Tribune was founded with one and only one aim in view: to champion fearlessly the cause of justice and fair play in every sphere of our public life.” Papa looked at the emerging Nigeria and said with so much concern that in Nigeria “democratic practices are in a state of suspended animation” and “immorality enjoys so much favour and approval in high places that it now has the audacity to threaten mass conformity.”

If a pushback is noticed in our operations, it is a resistance to what Awo aptly described as immorality’s “audacity to threaten mass conformity.” On November 16, 1949, when the Tribune journey began, Chief Awolowo promised that the paper, its journalism and journalists would forge “a frank tongue and a pungent pen. A tongue and a pen that will be careless of what the opponents might say or how they might feel, and will have enough courage to call hypocrisy, humbug and tyranny by their names. Such a tongue, such a pen, will mortify the proud and provoke despotism to repent its ways.” That is the goodly heritage we have and which we will, God-willing, pass to the next generation.

The media and the government are said to be partners in national development. True. They should be without one acting slave to the other. Today at sundown, look up at the sky. There is a bright star following the moon up and down. Astronomers say it is the planet, Venus. Growing up in the village, we called that star Ajá Òsùpá (the moon’s dog). But knowledgeable elders were always quick to tell us that we were wrong; the two are just companions, the star is no dog of the moon (Àgùàlà nbá Òsùpá rìn ni, wón sebí ajso a rè nííse; àgùàlà kìí se ajá Òsùpá). The relationship between Venus and our moon is the relationship between the media and the government of Nigeria. Their paths cross by design as part of the cosmic roles assigned them. Neither is the dog of the other. They work as co-travellers on a journey of fate. But ‘friends’ of the government and ‘brothers’ of the president do not think so. They say the writer is an enemy of the president; the columnist is driven by hatred for ‘his brother’. They throw bones of bigotry at the dog; they say it must keep quiet or be taught how to be silent.

When unknown soldiers destroyed Fela’s Kalakuta Republic, the Afrobeats king asked: “Wetin this Fela do…?” In the same vein, we ask what has the journalist done apart from asking questions? The country was progressively run down by its leaders. Young victims of the state quickly packed their little nothings, sold them and hurried out. The sad escape abroad they gave the psychedelic name, ‘jápa’ (bolt out). They thought what stunted their fathers must not also wreck them. They remembered the story of the old woman who broke her back gathering firewood in a forest. They also remembered the follow-up question to that tragedy: Should her daughter be found groping for ropes in the same jungle? (Igbó tí ìyá ti ṣẹ́ igi, kò yẹ kí ọmọ rè d’àgbà tán, k’ó tún wo inú igbó náà lọ já okùn). Where I come from, the philosophy of resilience is encased in the anecdote of the elder who repeatedly sets the bush on fire because the bush has refused to burn. The elder says he won’t stop striking his matches; he says one day he will achieve his purpose (Bí àgbà ńkùn’gbẹ́, tí ìgbẹ́ kọ̀ tí kò jóná, àgbà náà ò ní yé ìgbẹ́ ẹ́ kùn). There is always an end to cycles of injustice, it breaks at a point. Nigeria is work in progress; its good won’t be birthed by acquiescence.

Jápa was an escape option; now it is no more. On Monday, October 31, 2016 (seven years, seven days ago), I wrote a column with the title, ‘Creating scapegoats, spreading misery’. I warned in that piece that Nigeria could become like a broke and broken country called Venezuela unless we changed our ways. I could remember a private message sent to me on that piece by my late friend and brother, Yinka Odumakin. He said I was late with the warning; he said we were there already. What was my warning about that time? I wrote about a Nigeria where companies were running out and throwing their workers overboard; where governments couldn’t pay salaries; where lucky doctors and other well-trained professionals were in queue to receive half pay. I wrote of a country where less fortunate workers were on the street looking for what to eat. It was about a nation where, sitting in every verandah in every village, town and city, was an army of well-trained jobless young men and women. I said that in the idleness of their chatter, Nigeria would taste the bile of their anger at a system that was rigged against them. I wrote that the depths of misery and joblessness were filled up, bursting at the seams. It was the story of a nation of all possibilities; a country of poor market, rich palace. A rich nation controlled by poverty and misery. I warned that the country was tragically becoming unhinged. Now, see where the ship has anchored.

Yet, they say we should not ask questions. Some say the critical media is envious of the president. And you ask envious over what? Jerome Neu, an American author and professor of Humanities, once warned that legitimate resentment of injustice should never be called envy. Neu wrote many books and essays, the themes of some of them fit in this piece. They include ‘Jealous Thoughts’ (1980); ‘Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults’ (2009); ‘On Loving Our Enemies: Essays in Moral Psychology’ (2012); But I am interested more in his 1987 work: ‘A Tear is an Intellectual Thing.’ And that is because I see some people crying when no one is bereaved. “Why do we cry?”, Neu asks and gives an answer: “We cry because we are sad, or grieving, or ashamed, or otherwise upset.” I assume his thesis on tears and crying is correct. But why are some spectators in Nigeria crying when the jabbed says the injection is not painful? A former president of the Students Union of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Adeola Soetan, has a name for the flies on the wall who applaud every bad move of the king and get distressed even when the palace feels no pain. He calls them Abóbakú (persons who die with the king). President Bola Tinubu told his ministers on Friday at the end of a retreat that the situation today in Nigeria is not about “just leave me alone, I am going home. You may not have a home.” He was right, there is no quitting. If we keep quiet because the president is our ‘brother’, he will fail and we won’t have a home and the outside will reject us. Our situation will be “Ilé ò gbàá, ònà ò gbàá” (rejected by home, rejected by road). With our fingers snapped over heads, we reject that portion; it is not ours.

No normal person praises failure. Leadership is like a game of tennis; if you don’t serve well, you can’t win and be applauded. I owe that sense to John Mason, author of ‘Why Ask Why: If you know the right questions you can find the right answers.’ No one here hates Tinubu and/or his presidency; no one wants him destroyed. We pray for his twig so that our birds can perch peacefully. But, see, amidst mass poverty and hunger, how do you keep quiet reading these headlines? Tinubu seeks Senate’s approval for another $7.8 billion, €100 million loans; Nigeria set to acquire presidential yacht for N5 billion; Renovation of president’s official residence in Lagos to gulp N4 billion; Renovation of VP’s official residence in Lagos, N3 billion; Construction of office complex in Aso Rock, N4 billion; Cars for First Lady’s office – N1.5 billion…. All in a supplementary budget! And the year will expire next month! Everything looks like Tinubu and his government are being lied against. That is why I will ask someone to please tell us that these are lies. If they are lies, we will all rise in defence of our president.

By Nik Ogbulie

Indications that President Bola Tinubu will run a very bogus Presidency was rife from day one. The reason is that he has never hidden the fact that he lives like an emperor.

His antecedents portend a life of “living it full” because he has been very rich and never hid it. He wanted the world to know he was rich and never pretended to compromise his flamboyant lifestyle in the face of flowing national economic disaster. The second is that he has succeeded in installing a legislature that is largely compromised and full of the kind of backlog that has a mix-grill of unimpressive characters that came into power very unqualified.

The third reason is the fact that the last election dealt a dastardly blow on the fabric of Nigeria’s unity, sensitivity and intellectualism, to the extent that what even comes from the ill-prepared leading political party is legion. The worst is that the actions and reactions of the current Nigerian leadership look so much admired by a section of Nigerians who have since 65 years opposed any government programme no matter how good such policy looked, as if they were cheated. This now creates a divide where we are faced with the choice of “we and them”, where even those standing on the side of “we” are also affected by the very poor actions of government they are unconventional dying for.

At the end of the day, who is fulling who? Nigerians do not care how their lives are affected by decisions of government provided such decisions are taken by their brothers whose entire family lives overseas. When the issue of a presidential yatch was muted, a very knowledgeable friend told me that presidents all over the world have yatch and that’s the trend. He went further to tell me that Buhari rejected it because he was busy with his cattle and ginger farming and did not know any form of luxury before becoming a president.

But the fact is that between Bola Tinubu and Buhari stands a huge trough or a conflict where modernism and corruption become difficult to interpret. They are two personalities who have chosen a lifestyle of different statures which end up with the same meaning; whether Yatch or Ruga, they are same developments that serve personal interests with overriding consequences on the fabrics of Nigerian economy.

The expose by Senator Ali Ndume last week was an indication of a huge ‘state capture’, where those who have been entrusted with the growth of the Nigerian nation have conspired to hold down on all the fabrics of national development, no matter the state of the economy. Senator Ndume 5told Nigerians that the yatch has been delivered already, so those who hold contrary opinion can go to hell. What a mess? Maybe, the government has many more questions to answer because Nigerians will like to know why we can secure such procurement credit when we have not been able to secure credit lines for some more important national assets like the refineries and power or other investments on health and education.When one looks at the national revenue, it looks as if those who are positioning the procurement of such “still assets” are very far from any thought that can renew our economy in anyway. For a country that is already running a huge budget deficit under a continuous borrowing streak, there is the belief that there was no real manifesto in place to guide them. Many have started to think that the APC as a political party doesn’t have a programme of activity other than what Buhari left on his desk before leaving.

If they do, they would have known that it is not possible that the government can run this economy from a reverse perspective or from a kitchen cabinet whose ideas are nothing more than a “trial and error” pattern. This indicates why the two major policy objectives pronounced early in the life of the administration have failed and have been reversed.

For instance, if subsidy has really gone as announced by the President, why are we still battling with price differentials in the market and if they have religiously began to implement total deregulation in the economy , why did they borrow 1.5 billion dollars for the forex market..to close the gap? As a matter of fact, the economy is not healthy enough to accept a luxury called yatching just like why Ruga. The revenue situation is so bad that it would be better to say Nigeria has started running a “Debt Economy” where all major developments are predicated on borrowed assets from either the multilateral institutions or the domestic economy, most of which multiplier effects on the local economy are the reasons why all the growth indicators like standard of living, unemployment, rates, security, capacity utilisation, are pointing South.It looks so funny to mortgage the only visible and major sustainable revenue source, and the country’s biggest asset has been collaterized for five years because of lifestyle asset for people whose duties in the next five years, appear so tankanterous that they may not need the luxury of a yatch unless something is wrong with their brain.

If Nigeria’s dividend in the next five years from NLNG becomes the collateral for a mere yatch, that is enough signal not to consider the entire bunch for re-election in 2027. But we can say this to a country whose entire population reason towards same direction and think like a people, not a nation whose 133 million people are hungry while only the remains 67 million can feed themselves three times a day, or a nation who wants their tribesmen to come into a boat without a pad, but still feel cool. This is our predicament. Yatch or no Yatch, the devisive tendencies in our expenditure management have been identified, just like the Ruga controversy was a pointer that there was no solution in sight to our local security issues. Unfortunately, in all these, those we elected to improve our state as a people are the people smuggling ants into our governance.