An increasing number of Nigerians are being driven into poverty, not by choice, but by the current political and economic climate, shaped by stringent macroeconomic policies. These policies, such as subsidy removal, devaluation of Naira, and increase in electricity tariff, have had unintended consequences. For instance, removing subsidies has led to a significant increase in the cost of living, while the devaluation of Naira has made imported goods more expensive. These factors, combined with the high level of insecurity, have affected food security in Nigeria, and created a perfect storm of economic hardship. The signs of this unavoidable reality are readily apparent. The interventions to prevent this descent into poverty are either ineffectual or remedy the condition too slowly. 

An unprecedented rise in inflation has destroyed households’ disposable incomes and pushed many families into poverty. Spiralling inflation is having a devastating impact on all, but especially on households in the lower rungs of the working class, who in their millions are joining the already over 133 million multidimensionally poor Nigerians struggling to earn a living because high inflation has eroded the value of their income. As shown by the NBS Consumer Price Index of April 2024, published in May 2024, the headline inflation rate rose to 33.69% in April 2024 compared to March. The headline inflation rate was 11.47% higher in April 2024 compared to the previous year. During the same period, inflation in urban areas was higher than in rural areas. Even worse, the food inflation rate in April 2024 was 40.53%, increasing by 15.92% compared to April 2023. What does this mean for the ordinary citizen? More money can purchase fewer goods and services.

We cannot dismiss the direct correlation between rising inflation and rising poverty in Nigeria. A household with a monthly income of N300,000 in April 2023 would have lost 33.69% of its real purchasing power if it earned the same amount in April 2024. This means that the same amount of money can now buy significantly fewer goods and services, putting a strain on the household’s budget. Imagine this household struggled in 2023 to make ends meet; how will it cope with less than 33% of its value in goods and services this year? It is little wonder many Nigerians are in despair and are calling on the government to tweak its policies and salvage the situation before it is too late. Families in the earning bracket mentioned above are even better than many whose total income is less than N100,000 if both parents in the household earn minimum wages per month. 

The government intervention so far, with the best of intentions, has yielded little result as inflation continues unabated. The monetary policies of increasing base interest rates to above 22%, improving the cash reserve ratio by banks to above 40%, and constantly engaging in the money market to mop up excess liquidity have yielded less than the expected result in curbing inflation. More is needed, and my little knowledge of street economics shows me that the Nigerian economy often defies some fundamental economic concepts that work in developed countries because of our economy’s informal and unregulated nature. The Nigerian government must creatively use other bespoke and practical fiscal and monetary measures to tame our raging inflation.

Paradoxically, there is compelling evidence that inflation continues to rise because of critical government policies. Instead of providing more concerted anti-inflationary measures, the government has added more inflationary steps to the economy. The government cannot confront inflation while imposing limitless taxes, tariffs, and charges on the things that people spend money on daily. The impact of excess tax is on everybody, but the burden is more on people experiencing poverty whose purchasing power has been eroded by inflation. The government cannot tax itself out of our economic predicament. Increasing personal income tax is one way government reduces disposable income to curb demand pull inflation, but the inflation in Nigeria is not because of increase in household income, but caused by cost induced factors. So tax on people whose income have not increased in the past year is a recipe for hardship. 

Other factors also imperil government efforts to curb inflation. Imported inflation has been the bane of Nigeria, given the number of raw materials and goods imported into Nigeria from countries with high inflation rates. This is not helped by the new exchange rate regime that has seen the Naira fall to its lowest value in a generation. The government has been trying to control the erosion of the value of Naira to no avail. Increasing cost of energy has pushed  some  businesses to  pack up. These factors have exacerbated the rise of inflation, and unless the government starts tackling them, it cannot effectively win its fight against runaway inflation.  

The consequences of inaction are severe and far-reaching. The system requires a set of anti-inflationary measures to relieve the people and companies so that livelihoods can improve, and real incomes recover from shock to encourage people to live and save. Savings and prosperity will fire up investment, production, supply, and consequent demand. If inflation worsens, the economy will, at best, go into stasis, further regression, and possibly a depression. More manufacturers will quit, and unemployment will worsen with even more crime and insecurity. The picture I painted above is not far from us. 

Recent statistics about the hunger level in Nigeria occasioned by food inflation are alarming. There is a deteriorating food security and nutrition crisis in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) states this lean season between May and September 2024. According to the Government-led Cadre Harmonise analysis released in March this year, in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, some 4.8 million people are estimated to be facing severe food insecurity, the highest levels in seven years. Children, pregnant and lactating women, older persons, and people living with disabilities are among those who are most vulnerable. About 2.8 million of these people need urgent interventions.

The prices of staple foods like beans and maize have increased by 300 to 400 percent over the past year because of a cocktail of reasons. Inflation is outpacing the ability of families to cope, making essential food items unaffordable. Furthermore, the report stated that “malnutrition rates are of great concern. Approximately 700,000 children under five are projected to be acutely malnourished over the next six months, including 230,000 who are expected to be severely acutely malnourished and at risk of death if they do not receive timely treatment and nutrition support.”  The Acting Representative of UNICEF Nigeria argues that “this year alone, we have seen around 120,000 admissions for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition with complications, far exceeding our estimated target of 90,000”.  This statistics are for only 3 states in the Northeast Nigeria. Imagine what it will be for the whole 36 States in Nigeria. There is real fire on the mountain!

This rising hunger is not peculiar to the Northeast. From my knowledge of street economics, hunger and poverty is pervasive across all six geopolitics zones. Increasing poverty is directly linked with more severe economic outcomes. Increasing poverty can result in a more divided society, Issues with housing, homelessness, limited access to healthcare, nutrition poverty and poor living conditions that have a detrimental effect on one’s health. Children living in poverty have less access to education, which will reduce their chances in the future. More families facing poverty will experience conflicts, stress, and domestic violence. Poverty can set off a vicious cycle in which the effects of it act as catalysts for additional episodes of poverty. Increasing inflation and poverty are bad omens that blow us no good. They are bad for our economy. They are bad for our people. The government must pay attention to these factors and be more sensitive in our economic policy choices. 

Only some anti-inflationary measures that comprehensively capture the macroeconomic dimensions and provide solutions may work. Poverty alleviation measures are barely temporary and, at best, work in the short run to cushion the effect of heightened inflation and food insecurity. The government should provide solid medium- to long-term solutions to tackle these problems. They should re-evaluate some of their policies to see whether they are inflationary and jettison them to allow good policies to thrive. We can only imagine the unintended consequences of allowing poverty and inflation to fester. The increasing inflation and poverty are creating desperation among a portion of society, which is increasingly becoming despondent and seeing itself at the fringes of society. The implications of this are plausible. Many ordinary citizens are burdened by poverty, hunger, and severe inflation, which have made their lives miserable. The government must take action to alleviate this scourge and help Nigerians lead meaningful lives.

Gov. Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti State is, without doubt, one of the country’s best performing governors. He works hard, talks less, evades the limelight but his Ekiti people describe him as an achiever. He was in Dallas, United States of America recently to urge foreign investors to take advantage of the current economic reforms in Nigeria to invest in the country.

“This is the right time for any investor to invest in Nigeria”, Oyebanji declared at a panel session, one of the major events at the 2024 US-Africa Business Summit organized by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), citing the current reforms of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration and the synergy between the Federal Government and the country’s 36 state governments, which includes his own Ekiti.

In attendance at the session were heads of national and sub-national governments; investors; policy-makers and development agencies drawn from different parts of the world, including the Chairman of the Board of Corporate Council on Africa, Mr. John Olajide.

To buttress his assertion, Oyebanji cited a few successful collaborations between Ekiti and some international investors, including Cavista Holdings and Promasidor, to make a case for more direct investment in the state, stressing that the right time to invest in the state is now.

“Now, we have a reform-minded government that is visionary and we have 36 state governors that have keyed into the vision of the President Tinubu administration. The economy of sub-nationals are critical to the Nigerian economy itself. So, for any investor that wants good returns on their investment, this is the time to invest in Nigeria because the market is readily available, the people are ready, we have a government that is reform-minded and all the governors have keyed into the vision as well. So, the time to invest in Nigeria is now”.

Wooing investors to Ekiti in particular, Oyebanji said the State Government is strong on regulatory frameworks designed to protect investors and their investments. His exact words: “What we are doing is to ensure that we have a stable and predictable regulatory framework and there must be trust because I believe that for any business to thrive, trust is key. You must have a leader that is visionary, trust-worthy, and transparent. All these we have in Ekiti State”.

Ekiti’s vast mineral resources as well as its agricultural and tourism potentials beg to be tapped. Fresh from the launching of a book on creating values by Ademola Akinbola (more on this later), it must be stated that tapping into Nigeria’s vast human and material resources is the antidote to the country’s crippling economic crisis seemingly defying solution. What with the Naira rising today and falling tomorrow!

Each time I travel in Ekiti – as in other parts of the country – and see vast agricultural and tourism potentials waiting to be tapped, it saddens me. I refrain from using the expression “wasting or rotting away”! It gladdens the heart, then, to see that there is a governor in Ekiti working silently to change the narrative. The two years that I spent in Ekiti towards the tail end of the Ayo Fayose administration and the unique opportunity I had traversing the whole state on campaign hustings with Prof. Kolapo Olusola Eleka opened my eyes to the immense agricultural resources of the state.

The tourism potentials of Ekiti, if tapped, is a gold mine that can sustain the State and wean it from over-dependence on Abuja for bailouts and doleouts. Last Easter witnessed a giant step taken by the state governor, with the concurrence of the Minister of Tourism, to begin to tap into this money spinner. Having enjoyed Ekiti’s tourism potentials in the past, Arinta waterfalls and Ikogosi warm springs to be specific, I intend to make a return visit to those spots and other Ekiti tourism potentials to highlight them for potential investors and tourism enthusiasts alike. We need to know that what we travel abroad to enjoy at prohibitive costs abound right at our backyard at affordable costs.

This is also the right time for Ekiti to tap into its mineral resources. The state is fortunate to have the hard-working Minister in charge of mineral resources development, Dele Alake; let Dele’s charity begin from home! After Ekiti, Dele should please come to my home state of Ondo to help us, before making the rounds all over the country. Lest you forget, Ondo and Ekiti used to be one state! As they say, every politics is local! Synergy is required between Minister and governor to deliver the goods to Ekiti. The human resources abound in Ekiti, which is touted as the state with the highest concentration of professors and academics in Nigeria.

If Ekiti must move from being a sleepy civil service state to a business destination of choice, the time is now! It is do-able. Otunba Gbenga Daniel started a similar revolution in Ogun state and, today, that state is no longer the sleepy civil service state that it used to be but has one of the highest IGR in the country. Ekiti can follow suit.

If Oyebanji and Alake achieve that for Ekiti, their names with be etched in gold, just as we mention Gbenga Daniel’s today.

“Nigeria is a composite of contradictions; what is poison in the south is sweet sauce in the north. The Ovimbundu (Bantu) people of Southern Africa say that the mist of the coast is the rain of the desert. In the place where I come from, mass children is interpreted as mass misery (omo beere, òsì beere). We also warn that marriage is easy to contract, what about soup money? Mass weddings were conducted yesterday, last year and in the last decade in the North. What happened to them? Where are the benefits beyond their adding to the hardship of the destitute? Where I come from, we say a mother does not feel the weight of her baby (omo kìí wúwo l’éhìn ìyá è). But the trunk of the North’s elephant is, by choice, made a burden for it to carry. The North’s way of life hurts where I come from – Western Nigeria. I am not the only one who has this thought. While the southern bird avoids waters that degrade the girl-child, the duck of the North preens and bathes in them. Embarrassing stories such as of this mass wedding stuff are so common with northern political and religious leaders. A hail of threats against counter views comes common too. And when they happen, questions are asked down south about the sense in sharing this Nigerian complex.”

A minister suffered severe abuse and reprimand from the elites of the North last week because she asked the North to choose mass education first before mass marriage. Sixty-four years after independence, we are still struggling to understand Nigeria’s Muslim North and its ways. A 1950 letter to the editor of Gaskiya, northern Nigeria’s preeminent Hausa newspaper, should tell us something about the mystery of the region.

The letter appeared in the newspaper’s number 391 of 8 March, 1950 on page 2.

It reads:

“To the Editor – I beg to lay this complaint before you, so that you may approach the Sultan in order that I may achieve my desire. I am of slave descent, belonging to one of the families of court slaves. Both my father and mother were slaves of a certain emir. My mother’s name is Munayabo, and my father’s Ci-wake. A well-to-do man has fallen in love with me, and I love him too, but he has got four wives already. For this reason, we find it difficult to make arrangements for living together. I asked a learned mallam, who told me to ask my father’s consent first, according to Islamic law, and also that of the authorities. If they agree to the proposal, I can become his concubine, Islamic law allows it. This is what the mallam told me. Well, Mr. Editor, my father, Islamic law, I myself and the rich man have agreed, only the authorities remain. May they agree to make proper arrangements for me so that I may be allowed into the harem of the man. My father’s and my mother’s names show that I really belong to a family of former slaves.

“I believe there are quite a number of girls such as me in the North. We have found that if girls in our position were allowed by the authorities, as is permitted by the law, to live as concubines in the harems of princes and well-to-do and important officials, the number of prostitutes who walk the streets would be reduced considerably. In this way, it may be possible for some of us to give birth to children who will one day be useful to the country. In this way, I may give birth to a son who may even one day become an emir. This will be better than our walking about in the towns and giving birth to children without proper fathers. Our religion permits it, but it is the authorities that are closing the door against us. I am sure that if the authorities allowed it, certain great houses in the North would accommodate thousands of us.

“Mr. Editor, I have given you a full explanation. We have come to an agreement with the said rich man, and are only waiting for the consent of the authorities on behalf of the Sultan. I wish you would lay my statement, as set out here, before the authorities and not allow room for destructive criticism. I should like the critics to understand that it is not my father who is trying to sell me into slavery. It is at my own free will that I desire to live in a big harem with a man who has already got four wives. I adjure you by Allah, Mr. Editor, to publish this letter so that I may get a reply and permission from the authorities.

(Signature)”.

I got the above letter from Joseph Schacht’s ‘Islam in Northern Nigeria’, published in Studia Islamica, 1957, No. 8. The author said the signatory of the letter was “a well-educated young girl who had passed with distinction through the modern Government College for Girls.” Note that the letter was not written in the 19th century. It was written a few years before independence.

For better or for worse, a lot has shifted since that letter was composed. I do not think girls are still born over there into ‘slavery’ and thus have to beg to be allowed to marry. What I know (and everybody knows) is that the North routinely stages mass weddings for hordes of nameless girls and ladies. Are they children of slaves?

I am a Muslim from southern Nigeria and each time strange things happen in the North in the name of Islam, I exchange glances of surprise with my brothers here. Schacht (1902-1969), the author of ‘Islam in Northern Nigeria’, was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading western scholar on Islamic law. In that article, he said the Muslims of our North whom he saw in 1957 “form a very isolated community.” He wrote that “most of their isolation is voluntary and intentional” and that “they are generally afraid of being contaminated by modern ideas, and particularly by the non-Islamic South.” I strongly believe they still prefer their isolation from “modern ideas” and from the South. And we are still in the same country. Shouldn’t we just restructure and redefine boundaries and contacts?

I am being very careful choosing my words as I write this. I have written some paragraphs and cancelled them because I am, like the girls of Niger State, an orphan with no capacity for self-defence. But, it would appear that northern Nigeria’s biggest business today is mass wedding and mass production of children. After child-making, it has religion, very economically lucrative political religion. With this combo, it wrecks itself and stunts the country, and sows contagious poverty across the land. I hope no one is going to contest these.

I will be shocked if you did not follow last week’s big fight between the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, and the northern elite led by imams from Niger State. The woman offended the North because she said no to a plan to shell out 100 orphaned girls to some randy men in a mass wedding. And because of that, press conferences and acid rains of sermons poured across the swarthy region on Friday. They said the ‘condescending’ female minister from the South overstepped her bounds. They said it was their religious culture to assist female orphans to solve their problems by marrying them off en masse, so that they can multiply and fill the earth with children. They did not tell us if their culture has plans only for the girls while male orphans are left to roam the street as Almajirai.

The image a mass-wedding evokes in me is that of tethered rams at sallah markets. Or, more appropriately, a mass of what slave merchants called dabukia (female with plump breasts) and farkhah (female with small breasts) in mid-19th century Sokoto, Kano and Katsina slave markets. I have read some defences for the botched mass wedding of Niger State. Some said the girls and their families begged for it and the speaker paid as a man of God. Let us assume the girls truly begged for the weddings, couldn’t their helper just give the ‘help’ without the humiliation of a mass sale?

Yet, it is said that the loud mass weddings we see in the North are followed almost immediately by quiet mass divorces. Yusuf M. Adamu and Rabi Abdulsalam Ibrahim, both of Bayero University, Kano, did a seminal work on what they call “the rashness of divorce in Hausa society.” In their ‘Spheres, Spaces and Divorcees in Zawarawa: A Hausa movie (2018)’, quoting Solivetti (1994:252), they say Hausa Muslim society has “one of the highest rates of divorce and remarriage in the world.” It is also in that piece that I see a raw passage on commodification of marriage in Hausa land. A character in the movie exclaims: “The prices of things in Nigeria are rising, especially crude oil, gold and diamond. The prices are rising. But why has the value of women fallen so low? (Tattalin arziki ya na ta tashi a Nijeriya, musamman ma na man fetur da gwalagwalai da lu’ulu’u. kullum dada hauhawa su ke. Amma farashin mata, ya a ke ya fadi wanwar?).” Read the various defences in support of the controversial mass wedding in Niger State. Do a character assessment of the suitors, especially the two said to have assisted their in-laws to pay ransom but now want “marriage without delay or their money back.” Have the angry Imams and mallams asked what kind of husbands those ones will be?

Nigeria is a composite of contradictions; what is poison in the south is sweet sauce in the north. The Ovimbundu (Bantu) people of Southern Africa say that the mist of the coast is the rain of the desert. In the place where I come from, mass children is interpreted as mass misery (omo beere, òsì beere). We also warn that marriage is easy to contract, what about soup money? Mass weddings were conducted yesterday, last year and in the last decade in the North. What happened to them? Where are the benefits beyond their adding to the hardship of the destitute? Where I come from, we say a mother does not feel the weight of her baby (omo kìí wúwo l’éhìn ìyá è). But the trunk of the North’s elephant is, by choice, made a burden for it to carry. The North’s way of life hurts where I come from – Western Nigeria. I am not the only one who has this thought. While the southern bird avoids waters that degrade the girl-child, the duck of the North preens and bathes in them. Embarrassing stories such as of this mass wedding stuff are so common with northern political and religious leaders. A hail of threats against counter views comes common too. And when they happen, questions are asked down south about the sense in sharing this Nigerian complex.

‘Season of Migration to the North’, described by a reviewer as a “sensual work of deep honesty and incandescent lyricism”, is a 1966 novel by Sudanese novelist, Tayeb Salih. Its setting should have been northern Nigeria. Forced marriage is part of that story. And, in that story, we hear the voice of Hosna bint Mahmoud promising “like the blade of a knife” that “if they force me to marry, I’ll kill him and kill myself.” And, she does just that. Such involuntary, fatal nuptials are routinely tied in our North. They always do it. We will always beg them to stop because their way hurts us.

The people I am begging here are the real kabiyesis of the North – the Imams and the mallams. They make the rules and reign as the lords of the north-west, the north-east and parts of the north-central. But, will they listen and stop? They will not. They are what the Yoruba call kò níí gbà, omo elétíkunkun. And we won’t keep quiet.

Nigeria is an unending struggle against conscientious ignorance. The fundamentalism that rules Afghanistan has its professors in northern Nigeria. It is not edifying to faith. Read again the letter I started this article with. Pre-independence northern Nigeria had what was called ‘Fight Against Ignorance Committee’. There is no need to ask what the result of that initiative was. If the committee succeeded, the North would not have the world’s largest number of out-of-school-children; it would not attack a minister for asking it to choose education over marriage; banditry and terrorism and mass poverty would not be the region’s stable staple.

So, when we ask the elite of the North to drop their bad ways, it is not because we hate them and their North. No. It is because we benefit from the Hausa wisdom that emphasises peace over pie: “it is easy enough to find food but hard to get away to a place where you can eat it in peace (Ba samu’n abinchi ke da wuya, wurinda zaka chishi ke da wuya)”. We live in the same house with the North, and while doing so, we strongly believe that we deserve our peace. That was why that woman minister from the south, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, tore the North’s mass-wedding scroll and insisted on Nigeria adding real value to the lives of those 100 hapless girls. It is the reason I wrote this.

Ex-Big Brother Naija (BBNaija) housemate, Ka3na, has been criticized for claiming that she recently made about a billion dollars while asleep.

In a post via Instagram on Monday, Ka3na said she made $900 million from selling properties in London, United Kingdom.

While sharing the screenshot of a message from her agent informing her of the success of the transaction, the former BBNaija housemate boasted that she would retire as a young billionaire.

“$900,000,000 while I sleep. Retiring as a young billionaire. [hash tag] Ka3naTheBossLady,” she captioned the post.

Her claim, however, stirred criticism from fans and friends.

@karo_okogbe said: “You go school? You know wetin be 900 million??”

@germanyhiltonn: “Lol, you lie alot Sha”

@adenlylfatima: “even if it’s true, must u bring it here”

@smoochleezeagu: “What is now our business”

@realnexy: “Na which kind of play be this, $900,000,000 aunty why you Dey lie to all this gullible people ??? Ehn baby why”

@chldora5: “Believe the Internet at your own risk.”

@official_assurance03: “If this convo is real then you don fall victim with this I dey see that’s pure scam conversation there.”

@onyl_best_girl: “Be like dem don hack Bosslady acc.”

@queenjey_abikwl: Looks like those photos yahoo boys dig up to use for scam anyway.”

@soniaemodi: “this one resemble photo wy dem dy send give client and the story too.

[DailyTrust]

Liverpool have officially confirmed that Arne Slot will be their manager from the 2024/2025 season.

The Dutchman replaces Jurgen Klopp, who took charge of his last game on Sunday.

Slot will resume work on June 1 with the Premier League side.

He emerged as Liverpool’s top choice, after they missed out on Xabi Alonso and Ruben Amorim.

In April, Slot disclosed that Feyenoord and the Reds were in talks over a compensation package.

It is believed Liverpool have paid around £9.4million (£7.7m plus £1.7m in add-ons) for the 45-year-old.

“Liverpool Football Club can announce Arne Slot has agreed to a deal to become the club’s new head coach, formally taking up the position on June 1, 2024, subject to a work permit.

“The 45-year-old will join the Reds from Feyenoord ahead of the 2024-25 season after a deal was reached with the Eredivisie club for his services,” Liverpool said in a statement on Monday.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, on Monday, May 20, supported the proposed 300 percent increase in the salaries and allowances of judicial office holders in the country by President Bola Tinubu.

The National Judicial Council (NJC), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMAFC), among others, also endorsed the proposal.

The AGF, NBA, NJC, RMAFC, and other critical stakeholders spoke during a one-day public hearing on a Bill titled: “A Bill for an Act to Prescribe the Salaries and Allowances and Fringe Benefit of Judicial Office Holders in Nigeria and Related Matters, 2024.”

The public hearing was organised by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal Matters chaired by Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (APC – Borno North).

Fagbemi in his presentation, urged the committee to note that the efforts to improve the remuneration of judicial officers in the country has a chequered history.

He said: “I wish to remark that the Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, etc.) Bill 2024 is quite innovative, aside from the increment in the basic salary, it also took cognizance of certain peculiarities of the administrative structure and operation of the judiciary.

“This Bill will birth an appropriate and commensurate remuneration that will ensure judicial independence and integrity.

“The present-day but sad reality is that the judiciary has stagnated on the same salary scale for over 16 years, this is totally unacceptable and quite antithetical to any meaningful judicial reform.

“I strongly commend this Bill for your kind consideration and do urge the Senate to support and ensure the passage of this Bill in the national interest of promoting the rule of law.”

He added: “In consultation with the judiciary and other key stakeholders, we are also interested in ensuring a holistic review of our judicial system to respond to the justice needs of Nigeria.

“This is why I am taking immediate/urgent steps to establish a Working Group on the review of the Constitution and other relevant laws. The Working Group will, among others, focus on the key provisions aimed at achieving the judiciary that responds to the evolving justice needs of Nigerians.

“At the appropriate time, and I promise very soon, we will come up with proposals for Constitutional and Statutory reforms of the Judiciary in particular, and the Administration of the Justice System in general.”

Details shortly…

[TheNation]

Ahead of the formal opening of the Students’ Loan portal this Friday, the Nigeria Education Loan Fund has said it will commence with students in federal tertiary institutions.

This comes as the Fund has said only students whose institutions have uploaded their data on its dashboard would be eligible to apply.

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Fund, Akintinde Sawyerr, stated this on Monday at a Pre-Application Sensitisation Press Conference in Abuja.

He said 1.2 million students from federal government-owned universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and technical colleges would benefit from the first phase of the scheme.

While calling on students in federal tertiary institutions to visit the website, www.nelf.gov.ng to apply from May 24, the Managing Director said students in state universities and vocation skills centres would apply at a later date.

He said the requirements to apply include the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board admission letter, National Identity Number, Bank Verification Number, and a completed application form from its website.

“The loan application process has been streamlined to ensure easy access for all eligible students in federal tertiary institutions.

“Applicants can access online support to assist with any questions or concerns during the application process.

“We believe that education is a vital investment for the future. We envisage that the student loan initiative of Mr. President is a testament to this commitment,” he said.

One of the key features of the programme, he stressed, is the absence of physical contact between the loan applicant and NELFUND.

According to him, the portal provides a user-friendly interface for students to submit their loan applications conveniently.

He encouraged students in federal tertiary institutions to take advantage of this opportunity to secure the required financial assistance for their education, even as he urged applicants to submit their applications as soon as possible to ensure timely processing.

He revealed that in addition to the interest-free loan, applicants will also receive monthly stipends for upkeep. He, however, did not state the amount, saying: “That figure will be capped.

We will look very closely at each application and make a decision based on several factors as to what fees will be paid to them.

“The fees for the institution are going to be paid not to the students but to the institution.

And that will be paid at the maximum of that fee per session. We will only pay for a session at a time. Because people drop out of institutions, they change institutions.”

The NELFUND boss also pointed out that institutions have vital roles to play in providing the Fund with data on fees payable by students at the institution, departmental, faculty and other levels.

Sawyerr said the agency is also working with security agencies to ensure that people do not take advantage and defraud the process.

President Bola Tinubu had last month signed the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Act (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill, 2024, into law, with a promise that no student would be denied the opportunity to build his future regardless of background.

The Act empowers the Nigeria Education Loan Fund to provide loans to qualified Nigerian students for tuition, fees, charges and upkeep during their studies in approved public tertiary institutions and vocational and skills acquisition establishments in the country.

The new law which repeals the Student Loan Act, 2023, removes the family income threshold so Nigerian students can apply for these loans and accept responsibility for repayment according to the Fund’s guidelines.

[Punch]

Leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and their Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, counterparts have put the civil society allies on notice over their planned industrial action should government fail to reverse the hike in electricity tariff and conclude the minimum wage by May 31.

In a joint communique issued today leaders of the two labour centres, gave the federal government and National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, month ending to reverse the hike.

This came as they reiterated their May 31 ultimatum for government to conclude the new minimum wage or face a national strike.

Details soon...

[Vanguard]

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, says he still faces difficulties travelling in Africa with his Nigerian passport.

Dangote spoke recently at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.

“I still complained to President Kagame. I told him that as an investor, I have to now apply for 35 different visas on my passport, and I told Mr. President, I really don’t have the time to go and be dropping my passports in embassies to get a visa,” he said.

“But you see, the most annoying thing is that yes, if you are treating everybody the same, then I can understand.”

Using the French passport as an example, Dangote said Patrick Pouyanne, chairman of Total Energies, does not need 35 visas on his French passport to gain access to African countries.

“You don’t need 35 visas on your French passport. This means you have a freer movement than myself in Africa,” he said.

Speaking further on businesses within Africa, he said right now, “our main job is to make sure the regional markets all work. Once they work, then we can now go to Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). But then, for AfCFTA also, we need to make sure that it works”.

“We cannot have a very promising continent and our intra-trade rate is less than 16 percent. Okay, so we Africans will have to do it. If we are waiting for foreigners to come and do it, both the development of Africa, it’s not going to happen,” he said. 

“So it can only happen to us Africans. We must risk our sources and make sure that we lead, then we will have people who actually trust and believe in Africa like Patrick to come and help us to push to the next level.”

Also, at the event, the business mogul announced that Nigeria will not have to import petrol into the country by June when Dangote refinery commences production of the product.

[TheCable]

So many people are today going through horrible things and difficult times. They seem to have come to the end of their life journey, end of their career or their vision. It is like man and God have since abandoned them. Some have been dealt terribly by Satan, enemies, friends, relations and life misfortunes. Even those that they trusted, loved and helped have betrayed, injured and abandoned them. Some are struggling to bounce back while many others have completely given up, resigned to fate – waiting to be ‘deleted’ and forgotten. In fact they have been left to rot away – with no hope and no future – licking their wounds and tears in secret. Where are you now? Yes, I am asking you. What is your current situation? Were you betrayed? Were you attacked, fatally bruised and wounded? Were you robbed?  Or maybe you are presently abandoned to die? Tell me. Listen now, your story is not worse than the man Jesus described here “…A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’ Luke 10:30-35

   My God! Listen, your help is coming! He is sending somebody to lift you out of that situation. And surprisingly it will come from where you least expected. I just prayed for a man who thinks everything had come to an end. No money, no peace in the home, no favour, no love and no trust from relations and no hope. And the worst is that he was totally betrayal by those he trusted physically and spiritually.  You know it is easier to endure when you lose physical things. But when those that should help you emotionally and spiritual also disappoint, it makes the matter worse and will take God’s grace for you to survive and still move on. This is why the punishment, the curses for betrayers, spiritual, priestly fraudsters and fakes will always be greatly multiplied. Don’t defraud the innocent, the gullible and the wounded who are seeking for healing in the name of God or religion. Don’t manipulate people to extort and steal from them in the name of God and spiritual help. If you do, your end and reward will sure be painful and disastrous. But that is not what we are talking about today. Our friend, the Jewish man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. The men of the underworld, the robbers, and the bandits attacked him, beat him up, stole all his money and goods and left him there on the highway to die. Yes, people can be that wicked. Very wicked! But they were simply imitating their father the Devil whom the bible said that he goes about killing, stealing and destroying. That has been his ministry everywhere, throughout ages.