Orders CBN to stop payment to MDAs till further notice

As part of the ongoing efforts at taking firm control of his Administration, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has reportedly directed the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN to stop further payments to the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, MDAs, of the Federal Government till further notice.

A presidency told the Saturday Tribune in Abuja on Friday that the Presidential order was issued before the embattled CBN boss Godwin Emeifiele was suspended and handed over to the Department of State Services DSS for further action

According to the source, the directive which came immediately after President Tinubu assumed office was to ensure accountability in the MDAs and to prevent looting of government treasury

The source said that the directive was total and clear, with no exception
Investigation revealed that following the development, the MDAs to have placed a total embargo on payments to their creditors till further notice and as well finding it difficult to operate as no more money coming from the government, CBN

A Director General of a federal Government Agency who confirmed the development to Saturday Tribune in confidence said that the directive had grounded operations for the second weeks running now as the Agency had no money to run its operations

According to him, “Federal Government has placed an embargo on CBN to stop further payments to the MDAs, we are not expecting money from anywhere, debts are piling up, even money we are owing Media Houses for advertisements, we have no money to settle the debts

” The saving grace we have is that the staff salaries are being paid directly from the office of the Accountant General of the federation, I think the situation will be normalized very soon”.
This came just as President Tinubu approved the suspension of the Assistant Director In Charge of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS). and others In the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, OAGF, for alleged Salary Padding
It was gathered that the Assistant Director at the OAGF in charge in charge of staff salary was alleged to have connived with some staff to pad up the salaries of an unspecified number of lower-level staff.

According to findings, many civil servants across several Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), including the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), have been suspended for alleged salary padding on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

The development was confirmed by a top official in the office of the Accountant General of the Federation, who hinted that those identified had been placed on suspension pending investigation.

According to him, “The scam was discovered when a level 7 officer whose salary should be in the range of N60,000 was paid over N400,000, which was in the range of a salary package of a Director.

” The salary padding racket had been on for a while among a small clique of civil servants in different MDAs with the IPPIS office in the OAGF as the epicenter
The source further hinted that ” a staff suspected to be connected with the breach has been suspended to allow for a thorough investigation.”

“All necessary steps are being taken to strengthen the controls around the IPPIS payment platform, and an independent forensic audit of the entire payroll system is underway to ascertain if the reported breach is isolated or widespread,” the source further added.

Justice H. Muazu of the FCT High Court has ordered the Department of State Services, DSS, to allow the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, to be accessed by his lawyers.

Recall that President Bola Tinubu had on June 9, suspended Emefiele to enable investigation into allegations against him.

The CBN Deputy governor, operations, Folashodun Adebisi Shonubi, was directed by the president to step in in acting capacity.

Hours after his suspension, Emefiele was apprehended by the DSS and has since been in its detention in Abuja.

But his legal team led by J.B. Daudu SAN filed a fundamental right application against the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation, DG, SSS and SSS, seeking to assess their client so that they can prepare their defence.

He noted that the secret service had refused to grant them access.

“The lawyers of the applicant shall have access to the applicant immediately and regularly, at reasonable time pending the determination of the application.

“Hearing is adjourned to 20 June, 2023 by 10am,” the judge held on Friday.

Predictably, prices are shooting through the roof in the wake of the inevitable removal of fuel subsidy. Prices of goods and services such as transport fares have risen dramatically and without notice. You get to a petrol filling station from where the previous day you bought fuel for N210 a litre and today from the same station the price has shot up to N550. Subsidy is a mechanism to retool some ailing areas of a nation’s economy or indeed to promote certain economic activity such as agriculture. According to the USDA, Economic Research Service, (an official website of the U.S. Government), the United States Government subsidizes agriculture, focusing on the production of grains, oilseeds, cotton, sugar, and dairy products. This is because agriculture and related industries provide 10.5 percent of employment in the country. What the related industries consist of can be obvious to anyone. They are a chain—food and beverage manufacturing and resultant stores; food services; eateries/drinking places; textiles; leather products; and forestry and fishing. Farming thus contributes $164.7 billion of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is 0.7 percent, excluding the contribution of the related industries.

USDA says in 2021, “21.1 million full and part time jobs were related to agricultural and food sectors. Direct on-farm employment accounted for about 2.6 million of these jobs, or 1.3 percent of U.S. employment. Employment in agriculture and food related industries supported another 18.5 million jobs. Of this, food services accounted for the largest share –11.8 million—and food/beverage stores supported 3.3 million. The remaining agriculture-related industries together added another 3.4 million.” Prof. Daniel A. Summer of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California states that the average rate of ‘producer support estimate’ for the heavily supported commodities in the US ranges from 55 percent of the value of production for sugar to about 22 percent for oilseeds. For the less supported commodities, the rate is typically 5 per cent. He is drawing his figures from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He goes on to state that among the OECD members (a group of high-income countries), “producer support estimate rates average about 31 percent of total revenue for the main grain, oilseed, sugar and livestock products.”

I have gone to this length to show that providing subsidy in itself where it is called for is not a sin. But in our own case, Nigerians are Nigerians! We drag the Nigerian factor into all our activities. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo once said, for Nigerians, “nothing principled, nothing clean and nothing pure.” The brazenness in doing evil is unbelievable. Consider this: The Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative has said the government has spent N16 trillion on petrol subsidies in the past 16 years. It is alleged that in certain instances, claims were filed for payment of subsidies for fuel not supplied. The scandal of the abolition of fuel subsidy thus became a subject of discussion and disdain in international institutions. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have stated that the removal of fuel subsidies “is one of the fiscal reforms urgently needed to lift Nigeria’s development outcomes, which are severely constrained by the inefficient use of resources.” Speaking in the same vein, a former World Bank President David Malpass, said: “Nigeria’s government urgently needs to strengthen fiscal management, create a unified, stable market-based exchange rate, phase out its costly, regressive fuel subsidy and rationalize preferential trade restrictions.”

The issue of subsidy has been a cause for concern to different administrations in this country, indeed from 1973. It has driven every administration to its wit’s end. It was such that on 11 May, 2016, Muhammadu Buhari announced that the Federal Government would no longer be paying subsidy on oil. The price quickly rose from N87 to N145 per litre following the pronouncement. But then he did not walk his talk; subsidy continued, even though his discomfort on it did not ease, going by the statement of the erstwhile Finance Minister, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmad. She spoke at a television interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She said, fortunately, all the frontline presidential candidates took the position that should they win the election, subsidy would be scrapped. Buhari wanted the subsidy to go. Mrs. Ahmad said the cost of N3.25 trillion on subsidy must be exited. Consequently, the complete stop to the expenditure head, initially scheduled for April 2023 may now be moved up to July, 2023. She said out of fear of possible social dislocation, the Administration considered it a hot potato and suggested that the gradual removal may commence in the second quarter of this year.

She went on: “So, the decision was to extend the period from June 2022 by 18 months, beginning from January 2022. So in June 2023, we should be able to exit. The good thing is that we hear a consistent message that everybody is saying this thing needs to go and that it is not serving the majority of Nigerians.” Even though the Buhari Administration saw the necessity to remove subsidy, it still considered it hot charcoal, considering the possible social backlash that may arise therefrom. Ahmad said at the encounter with the television that what had been considered safer “is for the current administration to maybe at the beginning of the second quarter, start removing the fuel subsidy because it’s more expedient if you remove it gradually than wait and move it all in one big swoop.” That approach is not acceptable to the new sheriff in town, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in view of the experiences of Nigerians with the consequences of a piecemeal approach.

How did the issue of subsidy all start? It began under President Ibrahim Babangida when the price of PMS was raised from 15.3 Kobo to 20 Kobo. His Administration raised it again on March 31, 1986, from 20 Kobo to 39.5 Kobo. On 10 April of the same year, the price increased from that to 42 Kobo. According to DAWN Commission in Ibadan, on 19 December, 1989, the price of fuel went from 42 Kobo to 60 Kobo, and on 06 March, 1991 from 60 Kobo to 70 Kobo. Interim Head of State, Ernest Shonekan jerked it up from 70 Kobo to N5. That was on 08 November, 1993. Shortly after, Abacha drove his menacing tank through the corridors to seize power. To endear himself to the citizenry, on 22 November, he reduced the price to N3.25. But barely a year later, on 02 October, 1994, he shot it up to N15 from N3.25. After massive street protests, he brought it down to N11 by an announcement made on 04 October, 1994. General Abdulsalami Abubakar who took over from Abacha increased it from N11 to N25 a litre in one go on 20 December, 1998. Following unrelenting protests in major towns and cities, he brought it down to N20.

When the subsidy first came to national consciousness in 1973, Authorities said the subsidy was to cushion Nigerians against the oil shock of that year. So when Olusegun Obasanjo assumed office as President in May, 1999, he made subsidy the bedrock of his economic policy. No sooner he settled in than he increased the pump price per litre from N20 he inherited from Abdulsalami Abubakar to N30 on 01 June, 2, 000. This was promptly rejected by the people. There were also massive protests which got him to reconsider his position; he reduced the price to N25 on 08 June and further down to N22 on 13 June, 2,000. The instability in pricing went on still. The price went from N22 to N26 to welcome Nigerians to a New Year on 01 January, 2002, then to N40 by 23 June, 2003. By the time he was leaving in May, 2007, the price had climbed up to N70. When Umar Musa Yar’Adua came in that year, he reduced it to N65 a litre, predictably after demonstrations on the street. Obasanjo had tried strenuously to convince the nation of the constraints of subsidy to economic development. His oil chief, Kupolokun went round media houses to convince editors on why subsidy must be thrown out of the window.

In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan kicked up the price from Yar’Adua’s N65 to N141. He was forced to bring it down to N97 after days of protests particularly at Ojota in Lagos. The price was subsequently reduced to N87 as a result of a fall in crude oil price in the international market. This was the price he passed on to President Buhari. On 11 May, 2016, nearly a year of his assumption of office, he announced that the Federal Government would no longer be paying subsidy on fuel. The price then went to N145 a litre.

Every time the price went up, the government functionaries would go into lecturing the citizens on the imperative of scrapping fuel subsidy, and that what would have gone into subsidy would be used to provide infrastructure. At a time, commercial vehicles on which were boldly written: ‘Federal Government Assisted’ plied the roads to make light the burden on the people. Indeed, General Abacha introduced price differentiation in fuel, and marketers were to designate special pumps at oil filling stations for sale to commercial vehicles.

President Bola Tinubu in his character took the bull by the horns and scrapped the subsidy once and for all. Whether the hour of inauguration was the right time is a different matter. I would have thought, though that the inauguration hour was an occasion for back-slapping, dancing, and rejoicing in renewed hope for a brutalized citizenry. It called for an address that would bring tears running down cheeks, soul-stirring speech; the occasion called for soothing words on the juices his ascendancy has in store and he was only to drop hints that hard times were ahead but that with joint and collaborative working, the nation would overcome. He could then have elected some other day, even if it was the third day to drop his bombshell. He would still have proven that he meant business. It is noteworthy, however, that he made up for this in a subsequent address in which he assured his fellow citizens that he shared in their pains. That was moving. It was as it should be. Other steps he has taken after the inauguration are certainly welcoming and well received. Leadership is a sacred responsibility for which we must be thankful for the privilege to serve and to rescue our people from fear, agony, and hopelessness.

Between 2006 and 2013, N10 trillion had been spent on subsidy, three times the budget allocation for health and two times the budget allocation for education in the 2014 fiscal year. The four refineries in the country with a combined production capacity of 445, 000 barrels a day have not been working for years; attempts to fix them have been unavailing even after gulping trillions of Naira. Given our nature, the Nigerian character, we have proven incapable of managing subsidy. It has been abused long enough. It has kept investors away; it has to go and that is what Bola Tinubu has done with it—kicked it out of the way.

All said, productivity over dependent consumerism is the answer. Pricing is a question of demand and supply. It is in the supply of goods and services which flow from productivity that will stem rising prices. If paper income goes up, everyone else will adjust his prices to meet his costs. It is a vicious circle. This is a subject for another day, for at the root of an economic downturn is the breach of the Law of Balance. Whenever and wherever imbalance manifests, be it in man, be it in a system, there must be disharmony or even collapse.

GOVERNOR Fubara on Friday alleged that some police personnel under Rivers State Command were still operating as Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) despite federal government disbandment of that tactical unit nationwide.

The governor at a meeting with Rivers Commissioner of Police, CP Nwoyi Emeka, in Government House, Port Harcourt, brought up the allegation against growing outcry among residents that a secret SARS in still operation, harassing, abusing and extorting members of the public.

Charging the new man at the helms of Rivers Police Command to ensure immediate end to such impunity, Fubara urged CP Emeka, “To get to the bottom of the complaints from citizens in consideration of security matters, as the people were always directly affected during security breaches.

“Let your familiarity with Rivers security terrain be an advantage to effectively combat crime and criminalities in the State. I urge you to deploy your wealth of experience in fighting crime and insecurities in the State. “

CP Emeka had briefed Fubara that under his watch in the last two weeks, the fight against criminal elements has been formidable with appreciable results, assuring that with more support from government and Rivers communities, more milestone will be achieved for a safer Rivers.

“My primary duty here is to tackle crime and criminality effectively. And to achieve this, all hands must be on deck as we seek the help of the Government of Rivers State and good spirited people of the State to achieve this”, he emphasised.

… Billionaire Loses $4.12bn In Less Than Three Days

Africa’s richest man and the Chairman of Dangote group, Aliko Dangote, has seen his wealth decline by $4.12bn since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) liberalised the naira and harmonised the rates at the Investors’ and Exporters’ (I&E) foreign exchange window.

Naira was on 13th June, 2023 floated leading to the official price declining to daily high of N791 at the I&E window on Thursday

The decline went above the parallel market rate trading around N757 per dollar.

As Nigeria struggles to regain the trust of investors with more transparent FX regime, banks can now sell and buy forex at market rate not dictated by the apex bank.

Data gathered from Bloomberg Billionaire Index on Friday showed that Dangote’s fortune which he makes from Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar and Nascon Allied Industries among others crashed to $16.8bn from $20.92bn held a day before the CBN announced the new FX regime.

Dangote’s ranking has also fallen from 74th to 99th richest person in the world since the naira began to crash.

The majority of Dangote’s wealth is from his 86 per cent share in Dangote Cement, traded on the Nigerian Exchange Limited.

If the naira continues to decline, the billionaires wealth is most likely to plunge as his companies are quoted in naira on the country’s stock market, financial experts believe.

The naira lost its value from N464 per dollar before the policy to N702 as of the end of trade on Thursday.

Although the policy has been described as beneficial to the country in the long-run, it is expected that the regime will fuel inflationary pressures, according to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria.

“In the short term, we expect a depreciation of the currency in the official window because of the huge demand backlog.

“But as the market conditions normalizes and moves towards equilibrium, the rate would moderate,” the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprises, Muda Yusuf said in a emailed comment to THE WHISTLER.

Vice President Kashim Shettima is undergoing an interesting notional transformation in Nigeria’s fractured public sphere. Before and during the last presidential election, his opponents, particularly in the South, tagged him as the “founder of Boko Haram” even though he was a mere commissioner in 2009 when Boko Haram burst forth into national consciousness and he had exactly zero connection with the group’s founding.

People who couldn’t sustain the charge that he founded Boko Haram (because the chronology of Boko Haram’s emergence and the rise of his political stature don’t align) caused a 2017 photo of him dining on a mat with Fulani herders whose children he enrolled in a secular school he built for them when he was governor of Borno to go viral on social media. The Fulani herders were labelled “Boko Haram terrorists” with whom Shettima was allegedly hatching sinister designs.

Several fact-checks, including by the BBC’s Global Disinformation Team that famously exposed in a January 18 investigation that “parties give out cash, lavish gifts, government contracts and even political appointments” for disinformation against political opponents, revealed that the photo emerged from an innocuous, publicly available record of Shettima’s move to promote Western education among the children of nomadic Fulani people in Borno, which is paradoxically a direct attack on Boko Haram’s ideology. 

But the fact-checks did nothing to attenuate the narrative that he is a Boko Haram sponsor, or that the viral photo was merely the photographic record of his meeting with parents of children he enrolled in a Western school.

Neither Shettima nor his media team, to my knowledge, did anything to dispel the reputationally damaging falsehoods about his connections to Boko Haram. He even made a joking reference to his being the “sponsor of Boko Haram” when he announced his appointment of two Christians as his first volitional hires as vice president, indicating that it doesn’t worry him.

The reference to appointing Christians as his personal aides was unnecessary because he is on record as the first governor of Borno to appoint southern Christians as aides. His Chief Detail was a certain Ifeanyi Onwubuya. One Christopher Godwin Akaba who is my Facebook friend also served as his Special Assistant. And Chief Kester Ogualili was his Special Adviser on Community Relations.

Shettima probably hasn’t cared to correct the false narrative of his Boko Haram associational baggage because it doesn’t cause him any reputational harm in his natal constituency, by which I mean Muslim northern Nigeria. But he now has a reason to be worried about his acceptance in this constituency for a different, even ironic, reason.

This week, his forceful, impassioned appeal to northern Muslim senators to concede the senate presidency to a southern Christian in light of the current political power configuration that is disproportionately tilted in favor of Muslims caused offense to many Northern Muslims and earned him the rather ironic label of being an “anti-Muslim” -- or, if you like Christophilic--Muslim. 

(I am using Muslim Christophilia here to denote notions of excessive, often compensatory, empathy for Christians by a Muslim who wants to show that he or she is not bigoted against Christians. It’s the opposite of Christian Islamophilia).

In an address to an informal gathering of senators on June 11, Shettima said, “For me, under the current dispensation, the worst, the most incompetent Southern Christian is better than the most puritanical Northern Muslim for the Presidency of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” And all hell broke loose in Muslim northern Nigeria. 

Shettima’s media aide initially issued a statement that accused critics of Shettima’s statement of being “mischief makers” who “twisted” his words in the service of a predetermined agenda. That was both inaccurate and unhelpful. Several of the people I read criticizing him over the statement were well-meaning, non-partisan people who aren’t given to unwarranted toxicity.

I first became aware of Shettima’s speech from a Facebook friend by the name of Muhammad Sulaiman Abdullahi who is an editor with an online newspaper called The Daily Reality. He was peeved by what Shettima said, but I don’t know him to be politically partisan. 

Even Northern Elders Forum’s Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed who criticized Shettima’s words as “unfortunate” and helped amplify the reach of his speech isn’t a “mischief maker.” He is a deeply intellectual yet temperate, amiable, and mild-mannered person.

Nonetheless, I think the reaction to Shettima’s speech in Muslim northern Nigeria, even from Baba-Ahmed, missed the context of his text. It was obviously a case of the main point of a speech being lost in a maze of figures of speech. He deployed intentional exaggeration and rhetorical contrast to aggrandize the point he wanted to make. 

He proceeded from the assumption that his audience agreed with him that a “puritanical Northern Muslim” embodies the ultimate standard of perfection. That leap isn’t surprising because, like me, Shettima was raised by a father who was an Arabic and Islamic Studies teacher. (Shettima’s father taught Arabic and Islamic Studies to former Borno State governor Mala Kachalla in primary school in Maiduguri).

 Shettima deployed the ideal of a “puritanical Northern Muslim” as the basis for a contrast with the “worst, most incompetent” southern Christian to dramatize the exigency (or what Martin Luther King, Jr would have called the “fierce urgency”) of electing a Southern Christian senate president because the president, vice president, speaker, and Chief Justice of Nigeria are (in the case of the speaker would be) Muslims.

So, the operative term was “under the current dispensation.” In other words, he wanted to communicate the idea that sometimes circumstances dictate the ideals we should promote. I made a similar, if reverse, argument in my June 12, 2022, article titled “A Muslim-Muslim Ticket in APC?” which opposed the Muslim-Muslim ticket Shettima is a beneficiary of.

I wrote: “When Obasanjo favored northern Christians in appointments during his administration, he defended his action by insisting that he was guided by considerations of competence, not religion or region. 

“Some of the same people who're defending the prospect of a Muslim-Muslim ticket in APC using ‘competence’ as a defense (as if competence is delimited by religion or region) told Obasanjo that sensitivity to intra-regional diversity trumped ‘competence.’ Hypocrisy seems to be grafted into our DNA.”

If he had chosen to be plain, Shettima’s speech would have read something like, “I am the son of an Islamic Studies teacher and deeply respect the ideal of a pious Muslim leading the polity. But to tell you how much I want a Southern Christian to be Senate president since every other position in the highest reaches of government is occupied by Muslims in a multi-religious country like Nigeria, I’d be prepared, under the circumstance, to sacrifice the leadership of the pious Muslim leader I’ve been brought up to cherish, which tells you how much invested I am in averting the disruption that I think will result from electing another Muslim as a senate president.”

Contrary to what many northern Muslims understood him as saying, he was actually manifesting praise and approval for the hypothetical “puritanical northern Muslim.”

The only criticism of his speech that is valid, in my opinion, is that which says his concerns for reflecting religious plurality in leadership at the top is at best self-serving. Had he rejected being a running mate to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a fellow Muslim, on account of the sameness of the faith he shares with the president, he would have stood on firm moral grounds to campaign against the dominance of one faith in the leadership of the country. 

Well, Shettima has now apologized because he has understood that if, as a leader, your communication isn’t understood by your followers, the fault lies not with the followers who misunderstood you but with you the leader. As I pointed out in my September 17, 2022, column titled “Shettima as Tinubu’s Chief De-Marketer,” the vice president needs to be attentive to his communication style.

I wrote: “He appears to just love the show of erudition and bibliophilia that comes from his exhibitionistic verbal swagger. It may excite his admirers and may even be cherished by Nigerian rhetorical scholars, but it’s a treacherous political minefield.” I am sure he will agree with me now—and has learned his lesson.

- Speaks On Feud With Tinubu As Lagos Gov

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, has said that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 presidential election, Peter Obi remains the candidate for a better Nigeria.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC in March declared the then-candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress and now-president, Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the election.

The announcement was trailed by legal suits from opposition parties and their candidates, including LP and Obi, challenging the process that produced Tinubu as the winner.

However, in a recent chat with media personality, Chude Jideonwo, former president Obasanjo insisted that despite President Tinubu being declared as the winner of the last election, Obi remains the candidate that the country needs.

He said, “For the Nigeria that I believe we need to have at this point in time, Peter Obi is still the best candidate.”

On what he considered his greatest legacy, the former president said, “That I came here [earth] and God was immeasurably kind to me and showed His grace on me.”

Obasanjo also spoke on the infamous third-term fiasco during his administration, revealing some governors were behind it all.

He said: “The governors, some of them, were doing it for themselves”.

“Because if the president did a third term, they too would have had a chance for a third term.

Also, the former President Olusegun Obasanjo spoken on his feud with President Bola Tinubu when the latter was the governor of Lagos state.

When asked about the allegation that he (Obasanjo) attempted to cripple the economy of Lagos, Obasanjo said, “That was absolute nonsense. If he doesn’t know then he doesn’t know anything.

“Is it that one that made him to have ALPHABETA?” Obasanjo added.

Recall that the former governor of Lagos State claimed that he received zero allocation from the federal government when he was governor.

Tinubu governed Lagos state from 1999 to 2007, before contesting Nigeria’s president in 2023, under the All Progressive Congress (APC).

Meanwhile, Obasanjo also revealed that some state governors were involved in the infamous third-term fiasco.

In 2006, a bill seeking to amend the 1999 constitution and extend term limits by another four years, hit the brick walls at the national assembly.

Obasanjo has consistently dismissed seeking to extend his stay in office beyond 2007, saying some governors were behind it all.

The Nigerian Navy has challenged Niger Delta leader and former agitator, Mujahid Asari Dokubo, to produce the names of officers involved in crude oil theft.

Dokubo, had on Friday, alleged that the bulk cases of oil theft recorded in the oil-rich region were traceable to the Nigerian Army and Navy.

He said this while briefing State House reporters after meeting President Bola Tinubu behind closed-doors at the Aso Rock Villa.

“The military is at the centre of oil theft and we have to make this very clear to the Nigerian public that 99 per cent of oil theft can be traced to the Nigerian military, the Army and the Navy especially,” Dokubo had said.

But in a swift reaction, the spokesman of the Nigerian Navy, Commodore Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, described the allegation as “spurious and unguarded”.

He said oil thieves were angry because troops of Nigerian Navy and entire military have continued to deny them avenues to sabotage economy through ongoing “Operation DAKATAR DA BARAWO”.

He maintained that the maritime armed force in collaboration with relevant stakeholders would continue to deny crude oil thieves avenues to sabotage Nigeria’s economy.

Ayo-Vaughan, in an interview with Daily Trust, said “Let him bring the names. The Nigerian Navy is interested in the names of those involved because the Navy has no tolerance for any form of criminalities whatsoever, not even that height of theft as alleged by Asari Dokubo.

“The Navy has an operation in the Niger-Delta that has been running for over one year plus to curb oil theft. Operation DAKATAR DA BARAWO has denied oil thieves more than N76billion worth of crude oil. The money that would have helped them to further increase their illegal artisanal refineries.

“So, the Navy is actively fighting oil theft. For anybody to make such spurious allegations, bring the names. He (Dokubo) is in the Niger Delta, he has boys in the Niger Delta.

“The company that was given a contract by the NNPC on pipeline surveillance, they are working with the Nigerian Navy and Operation Delta Safe in the Niger-Delta to curb oil theft.

“For somebody to just make such unguarded statement, bring the names. You know that there is an operation (Operation DAKATA BARAWO) going on in the Niger Delta being run by the Nigerian Navy since April last year. The Navy has been running it in synergy with the NNPC.

“NNPC holds regular meetings with the Chief of Naval Staff to review the operations. Just last week, the Chief Executive of NUPREC was here to have a meeting with CNS. Just two days ago, the management team for the other one on downstream regulatory authority were also here to have a meeting. For us, if you want to make such spurious allegations, bring the names. Simple!”

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is excited with the new Central Bank of Nigeria policy to unify the different foreign exchange windows and allow banks sell forex at market rate.

The lender is now willing to support Nigeria in its fight to forge a new path for economic prosperity.

The IMF said, “The Fund greatly welcomes the authorities’ decision to introduce a unified market-reflective exchange rate regime in line with our long-standing recommendations.

“We stand ready to support the new administration in its implementation of FX reforms.”

For more than four years under President Muhammadu Buhari, the IMF had advised Nigeria to scrap the different FX windows and allow the country’s currency to float.

The IMF used it as a prerequisite for Africa’s biggest economy to access its loan.

The suspended CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele had kicked against the advise citing its impact on the naira and as well as on the consumer price index which measures inflation.

But Just 15 days after the new administration came on board, CBN told banks they can buy forex from any source at any rate and sell at any rate subject to a maximum of N1 bid-ask spread between the buy and sell rate.

The CBN however restricted the sales of the forex to eligible transactions.

“The benefit of having a unified exchange rate is that it will save the money that the government is losing by giving access to forex to some people below market rate. It is a subsidy and the subsidy regime should end.

“If there is a single rate market, government will get more revenue, because they can sell all the forex at their disposal at the market rate,” Ayo Teriba, the Chief Executive Officer of Economic Associates in an interview with THE WHISTLER.

Nigeria owed the IMF, $3.27bn as of December 2022, according to the Debt Management Office.

Corrupt judicial and immigration officials in Nigeria are helping human traffickers in the country to act with impunity. This is the conclusion of the United States government in its latest report titled ‘2023 Trafficking in Persons Report: Nigeria’.

“The government of Nigeria does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so…Corruption remained a significant concern in the judiciary and immigration services, and it contributed to impunity for traffickers…,” the latest U.S. trafficking report stated.

The U.S. government noted that corruption and complicity continued to contribute to impunity for trafficking offences in Nigeria despite the government’s efforts to improve law enforcement.

The report, which the U.S. Department of State released on Thursday, stated that while the Nigerian government demonstrated overall increased efforts to combat trafficking compared to the previous reporting period, it failed to fully meet the minimum standards for trafficking elimination in the country.

The report also stated that corruption remained a major issue in the judicial and immigration agencies, contributing to traffickers’ impunity and accused the Nigerian government of failing to investigate or prosecute any members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) for prior forced recruitment or use of child soldiers; potential sex trafficking in government-run IDP camps continued.

“Corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action and perpetuating impunity for trafficking crimes,” stated the report. “The government reported investigating two officials for involvement in trafficking crimes – a member of the National Immigration Service and a member of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps.”

It added, “The government reported one investigation of sexual exploitation by a government official initiated during the previous reporting period was settled out of court, and two other investigations initiated in the previous reporting period against members of the CJTF for alleged sex trafficking of IDPs are awaiting trial.”

The U.S. government also mentioned that the lack of proper training of some local judges, compared to the federal and state judges, contributed to the corruption and misapplication of relevant trafficking laws.

It said the local judges did not have the prerequisite knowledge of anti-trafficking law, which hindered the government’s ability to hold traffickers accountable.

“Local judges did not have the same standardised training requirements as federal and state judges, which contributed to corruption and misapplication of the law. Some judges were unfamiliar with the anti-trafficking law, which hindered the government’s ability to hold traffickers accountable,” the report explained, stressing that “despite numerous previous allegations, the government did not report investigating any CJTF members for child soldiering recruitment or use.”

In highlighting the country’s achievements, the report stated that the Nigerian government initiated investigations into 1,242 cases, including 511 sex trafficking cases, 282 labour trafficking cases, and 449 cases of unspecified forms of trafficking; initiated prosecutions of 78 suspects, including 67 suspects for sex trafficking and 11 suspects for labour trafficking, and continued prosecuting 35 suspects for unspecified forms of trafficking “from previous reporting periods.”

The U.S. Department of State further revealed that Nigeria convicted 97 individuals, 50 for sex trafficking, six for labour trafficking, and 41 for unspecified forms of trafficking.

“This compared with convicting 13 individuals in the previous reporting period. Of those convicted, 94 were convicted under the 2015 TIPLEAA and three were convicted under violence against persons laws,” it noted.

The report made recommendations to the Nigerian government to strengthen its resolve and system to tackle trafficking and corruption, urging it to hold complicit officials as well as individuals affiliated with the government – including security officials and CJTF members – criminally accountable for trafficking offences, including for the sex trafficking of IDPs and past forced recruitment or use of child soldiers.

The report also recommended strengthening “efforts to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable groups, such as children in religious schools, IDPs, returning migrants, and children in domestic service,” including facilitating “training for local, state, and federal judges on human trafficking and the 2015 anti-trafficking law, specifically the provision prohibiting the issuance of fines in lieu of imprisonment in collaboration with international partners.”