Vice President Kashim Shettima has disclosed that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is facing the difficult and challenging task of fixing the problems confronting Nigeria.

Shettima said the current administration has no plans of deceiving Nigerians or making life more difficult for citizens.

This was as he assured that the current economic challenges confronting the country would soon be over.

He spoke yesterday in Lagos during the 29th pre-Ramadan lecture organised by the University of Lagos Muslim Alumni, UMA, with the theme, “Economic Reforms for Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects for the Future.”

Represented by his Special Adviser on Political Matters, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the Vice President urged Nigerians to react to the current realities “in a responsible and mature manner.”

He said: “Yet, my brothers and sisters, we do not have the choice of continuing in the direction that brought us where we are today. We have to fix this country, and failure to do this is not an option. All the options we have are difficult and challenging, and they are, without a doubt, more telling on the poor. If there are easier and reliable alternatives to the policy choices we have adopted, we would have adopted them.

“Our administration does not plan to make the lives of Nigerians more difficult. Nor do we intend to deceive fellow citizens that the change in direction and the expected outcome can be achieved without pain or sacrifices.

“We are also acutely aware that ours is a set of related Nigerian problems, and the solutions we seek must be genuinely informed by a Nigerian context, not the experiences of others or the preferences of special foreign interests which are removed from consequences of mis-steps or errors of judgement.

“We expect that Nigerians should express their feelings over our circumstances in a responsible and mature manner. We are also a deeply religious people, and we believe in the powers of faith and prayers.”

[DailyPost]

The Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Housing, Barakat Odunuga-Bakare, has disclosed that the state’s monthly rental scheme will be enforced before the end of 2024 or early next year.

She stated it during a recent press briefing of the Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority in Ikeja, Lagos.

She said, “We all see what is being done in other climes, rents are collected monthly. Hence, we are looking and hoping that before the end of the year, or by early next year, we will be able to implement the policy of monthly rental. Also, the rental would be charged according to tenants’ earnings.

“The good part about it is that we would be test-running it first within the public sector since we can ascertain how much everybody is earning, and once we see that it works in the public sector, we can now push it out to the private sector.”

Odunuga-Bakare reiterated that the N5bn allocated for the monthly rental scheme was still set aside and untouched.

She added that the fact that the scheme was slow to take off showed that the Lagos State Government was still trying to perfect one thing or the other.

She noted, “The last administration that initiated the monthly rental scheme was coming to an end when the scheme was to be introduced.  Now, we have a new administration and the governor wants the scheme to come into effect by the end of this year or early next year.”

Recall that in 2021, the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had said the current rental model in which people pay yearly rent in advance to property owners has become inadequate to address contemporary realities in the housing sector, especially in cities where demand for property is high and expensive.

Sanwo-Olu advocated rental policy

The governor advocated a monthly rental system, which he said would be affordable to low- and middle-income earners pressured by the yearly rent obligation.

Sanwo-Olu made the recommendation at the 10th meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development held in Lagos recently.

He urged policymakers to consider the suggestion and initiate a regulatory framework that would aid the transition to a new rental system.

The governor said Lagos was already working out monthly rent modalities to accommodate residents not keen on the state’s homeownership scheme.

He said, “In Lagos, we operate a very robust rent-to-own programme of five per cent down payment and six per cent simple interest rate payable over 10 years. We are working on another product, which is a purely rental system, where residents will pay monthly.”

The then Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, corroborated Sanwo-Olu’s position, stressing that the yearly rental system had created inequality in the housing supply and widened the affordability gap for low-income earners.

[Punch]

“Nigeria can’t be tired of helping the poor. Forget about the government and its voodoo economics on subsidy. The social consequences of mass hunger are never pleasant. The developed world today has various social safety nets for vulnerable families and individuals in poverty. The society that does this is neither stupid nor is it a spendthrift. It has simply come to accept that people can be poor without being hungry. My people say when hunger is removed from poverty, poverty is dead. Looting of stores and trucks are bad omens. These acts nudge us to wake up and act responsibly. We may not eradicate poverty but every good society, from the earliest times, knows that the way to peace and security is in taking starvation out of people’s poverty.”

Wise old Tortoise sat his children down. “My dear ones, two things are essential for your growth and wellbeing in life: Always tell the truth, and never ever take whatever is not yours.” The attentive children nodded; they promised to do as their father counseled. They bowed before their dad and left. Four years down the road, there was a severe famine in the land. Food was as scarce as masquerade’s shit. Husbands bartered their wives for grains; wives traded their husbands for a basket of yam. It was as bad as Ireland’s Great Hunger of 1845 which killed one million out of a population of eight million people.

Upright Tortoise’s household was hit by this mother-of-all-famines. There were casualties in his neighborhood. His own children may soon join the fallen. Tortoise panicked. What was he going to do? He talked to himself. He went out one day and came back home with a solution to hunger in his home. On his head was a big basket containing a variety of food items. Tortoise told his children that he found the foodstuffs abandoned in the forest. “It must have been God at work,” he told his children. His disappointed children exchanged looks. They knew that their father had just lied. He stole the items and they told him so: “Father, but you told us never to take what is not ours, and never to lie.” Embarrassed, Tortoise could only mutter some incoherent words. Then he found his voice: “I did it for you, my children. These are terrible times.”

This last Friday at a place called Dogarawa near Zaria, a truck driver transporting cartons of noodles thought it was time to say his Jumat prayers. He parked his BUA truck and joined the congregation. Like predatory soldier ants swarming a bunch of palm nuts, an army of looters invaded the truck and stripped it of every item it was carrying. “Not a single carton of the noodles the truck was carrying was left by the hoodlums,” an eyewitness told a reporter. The driver was helpless. The people he shared the prayer ground with largely made up the looting party. The invaders left the mosque for the truck. They were contemptuous of the law and disdainful of morality. They had no fear of God to whom they prayed. They chose food over faith. “Ba imani (they have no faith),” a disappointed man who video-recorded the event lamented. Ten of the looters were arrested. I will be shocked if the looters agree that they committed any offence.

“Hunger makes a thief of any man” is a popular quote among famine and poverty scholars. It is originally from Pearl Buck’s 1931 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Good Earth. The book is the first volume of her House of Earth trilogy which largely contributed to her winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. The novel’s protagonist, poverty-stricken Wang Lung, nurses a starving family. One day, one of his sons brings home stolen meat. Wang Lung sees the stolen item and vows that his sons must not grow up to become thieves. In anger, he throws away the stolen meat. But his wife disagrees – there is a family to feed. She gets up, calmly picks up the meat and cooks it. Wang Lung may deplore that act of thievery and his wife’s disgraceful act of receiving a stolen property, but the hungry must eat. The food is ready; the family eats the forbidden and washes it down with cold water. Fast-forward to years of unremitting poverty and hunger. The same upright Wang Lung later in the story joins a food riot, invades a rich man’s house, takes all the rich man’s money and builds his wealth from the heist.

I am scared because rain does not fall on one roof. In 2024 Lagos, a stampede for rice killed many. Yesterday (Sunday), there were reports of yet another invasion of a government warehouse in Gwagwa, Abuja, by looters of stored food items. Some of the looters probably left Sunday’s church service to partake in the looting. A week before the Zaria truck looting incident, some trailers loaded with foodstuffs in the Suleja area of Niger State suffered the same fate. Bags of rice and other food items in the vehicles were looted by wanton boys and girls. The loot-takers probably thought they were poor because the truck owners were rich. Such a line of thought is dangerous. It is equally dangerous to assume that the hungry are responsible for their own hunger and should, therefore, fix themselves.

Jibia is a border town in Nigeria’s North-West. One Sade Rabiu, a leader of that community, told Qatar-based Aljazeera last week that his people were dying of hunger. “Poverty can lead to theft and murder…anything for survival,” the community leader was quoted as saying. What he said was very unpleasant but may be brutally true. Colonial archives are replete with records of hunger-induced crimes in every corner of Nigeria. Kostadis Papaioannou in 2014 did extensive work on this issue covering the years between 1912 and 1945. He quotes documents and persons; he cites books. He uses “historical newspapers and government reports to explore food shortages, crop-price spikes and outbreaks of violence.” The picture you get after reading his 43-page report tells you that what we saw in Zaria on Friday and in Abuja yesterday were simply a reenactment of the blights of the last century. Nothing new is happening under our heavens. The poor have refused to change in their larcenous reaction to hunger; the society has remained inattentive to implications of mass poverty. In 100 years, we’ve moved without progressing.

There was a very bad famine in Nigeria in 1913 which saw people doing the unthinkable to survive. There are always social consequences for food inadequacies. Colonial official A. C. G. Hastings (1925: 111) recalls that “…the ghost of famine stalked aboard through Kano and every other part. The stricken people…ravenous in their hunger, seized on anything they could steal or plunder.” In a particular province, “the local inhabitants, in need for food, plundered and stole everything in their way.” That was in 1913. Similar experiences dotted the years of lean or no harvest throughout our colonial period. Judicial statistics, police and army documents on that period, according to Papaioannou, showed increased crimes in Ogoja (present Cross River), Ondo and Enugu – all due to increased food prices, decreased income, and generally heightened economic pressures.

People react differently to hunger. Dirty, hungry Tortoise tells the soap hawker at his backyard: “When I have not washed my inside, how can I wash my outside?” Last December, the General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, asked members of his church to redirect their offerings from the church to the poor and the needy in their communities. He said: “All the offerings are not just for the church. There are poor people around. There are unemployed people around. There are indigent people around. We must build our campground – I understand; we are going to build it. But, while you are building (the church), your neighbours are dying. Those who do not have anything to feed are there. Your brothers, your sisters have nothing to send their children to school. Which one comes first when your house is leaking and your mother is dying? How will you spend it (your money) —mending the leaking room or taking care of your mother?” He said his church would go back to “the good old days” when religion served God by taking care of the poor. And, truly, unlike now, the poor used to have a space in the heart of priests and prophets.

Pastor Kumuyi’s sermon was a breath of fresh air. In that short message, he radically redefined religion’s engagement with the people. The former should subsidise the latter; it should not be the other way round. I am not a member of Kumuyi’s church and, so, I do not know how far he has gone in making real what he said on the pulpit. But he did well and should not be alone. Others, particularly the Imams of northern Nigeria, should extend their mandates beyond leading prayers and mobilising the poor for politics. A Jumat service and a looting spree happened at the same place, same time in Zaria last Friday. How else do we define failure of religion? People are stealing to survive. Pastors are losing their flock to satanic fodders; Imams are losing their followers to grains of haram.

The rich cannot continue to ignore the poor – particularly when the poor are poor due to no fault of theirs. We (the elite) are an unfeeling lot. We relate with hunger only as mere media content. We take it as mere texts read in newspapers and as staid social media posts. We think today’s suffering is unreal, contrived. How do you tell the hungry that his hunger is not hunger; that it is exaggerated, or that his loud protests are sponsored? It is time we dispensed with our disgust for the dirt of the poor. Time is running out. We should stop gawking at the grotesque of want. Can we “stop a moment” and “see the poor” as Rebecca Harding Davis asks the rich to do in her ‘Life in the Iron-Mills’? Can we, like Davis, stop taking heed of our “clean clothes” and plunge “into the thickest of the fog and mud and foul effluvia” and save our skins by stopping the hunger in the land? The clock is ticking. Any age that packs what Jacob Riss (1890) calls “ignorant poverty” and “ignorant wealth” into its social space incubates a big bang. New York’s Fifth Avenue is a metaphor for world-class luxury. ‘The Man with the Knife’, Riss warns, stands at the corner of the “Fifth Avenue”. Helping him to drop the knife is helping ourselves.

Nigeria can’t be tired of helping the poor. Forget about the government and its voodoo economics on subsidy. The social consequences of mass hunger are never pleasant. The developed world today has various social safety nets for vulnerable families and individuals in poverty. The society that does this is neither stupid nor is it a spendthrift. It has simply come to accept that people can be poor without being hungry. My people say when hunger is removed from poverty, poverty is dead. Looting of stores and trucks are bad omens. These acts nudge us to wake up and act responsibly. We may not eradicate poverty but every good society, from the earliest times, knows that the way to peace and security is in taking starvation out of people’s poverty.

There was a time Western Europe burnt its fingers trying to de-subsidise the needy and legislate the poor out of existence. It failed. I use England here as an example. In 1834, England introduced what it called the New Poor Law to regulate paupers and their unenviable lives. The rich and powerful welcomed the law; they applauded its provisions which reduced the cost of looking after the poor. The new law created what was called ‘workhouses’ to house and hide the poor. The privileged were happy that the workhouse provision would “take beggars off the streets and encourage poor people to work hard to support themselves.” Critics called the workhouses “prisons for the poor.” Of course, the workhouse concept failed; it suffered riots and the structures were victims of attempted arsons. You are very conversant with Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. The story draws its plot from this experience of structures without humanity; its message mimics mansions of well-fed masters and hungry, scrawny inmates. If the Poor Law had worked and the workhouse had been a success, Oliver Twist would not have asked for more.

Between 21 and 25 October, 2009, I was in Las Vegas, United States for that year’s Conference of American Black Mayors. One of the leaders who spoke at that event was the then vice president of Malawi, Mrs Joyce Banda. Banda, who spoke on the African woman and resilience in the face of hardship, said “African women don’t cry. They don’t feel pain. Touching fire is nothing.” The African woman was always a hero in very bad times. She would feed her family even from nothing. Banda likened her to Hare who was seen cooking something in a season of hunger. The story teller said all the other starving, helpless animals saw smoke coming out of Hare’s hearth and rushed to her kitchen. “I am not cooking food. I am boiling stones,” she told her guests. Disappointed, the guests hissed, and Hare told them softly not to rebuke her: “At least I am doing something about the situation.” Our government has repeatedly told the hungry to be patient (E lo f’okàn balè). I hope what is cooking in Abuja’s pot is not what Hare was boiling – stones.

ON Sunday, 24 February 2024, the Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, concluded an extraordinary summit in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, precipitated by the announcement on 28 January 2024 by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic of their joint decision to denounce the Revised Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and leave the regional bloc “without delay.” From within Nigeria, the anchor state in the region, many around government exuding hubris under the guise of patriotism claimed that “the three countries would have more to lose.”

  By the time they finished counting the costs of the possible withdrawal of these three countries, however, the extraordinary summit found the costs to the Community rather prohibitive. Between them, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger represent 10% of the GDP of the region; 17.4% of the population, and 54.35% of the landmass. The Summit concluded that their departure will “have political, socioeconomic, financial and institutional implications for the three countries as well as for ECOWAS as a group” and “will constitute a reduction of the market size of ECOWAS”. They, therefore, issued an appeal to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic to “reconsider the decision [to withdraw from ECOWAS], in view of the benefits that all ECOWAS Member States and their citizens enjoy for being part of the Community.” 

  To sweeten the appeal, the Summit decided to withdraw most of the existing sanctions against the three countries and to invite them “to technical and consultative meetings of ECOWAS as well as to all security-related meetings.”

  One of the institutions adversely affected by the issues concerning these three countries is the Court of Justice of ECOWAS. In existence since 1991 and functioning since 2006, the Court is the judicial organ of the Community and is composed by five judges elected by the Heads of State and Government for a tenure of five years. 

  At the end of July 2022, three judges of the ECOWAS Court respectively from Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria, were due to rotate out at the end of their terms, to be replaced by judges elected from Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali. This would have enabled the two surviving judges from Cape Verde and Sierra Leone to become the senior members judges of the court, all but assuring their succession to the offices of President and Vice-President of the Court. The current Judge President is from Ghana and his Vice is from Côte d’Ivoire.

  However, while they are suspended, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea from ECOWAS cannot propose any candidates or their nationals for election into vacancies in any of the institutions of ECOWAS. Confronted as a result with an inability to fill judicial vacancies on the ECOWAS Court, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Community decided at the end of their Summit in Guinea Bissau on 12 July, 2022 that in order “to facilitate the functioning of the Court of Justice in its task of administering justice in the Community…. the judges, nationals of Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria, are maintained in office until the appointment and entry into office of their successors.”

  The effect of this was to maintain the status quo with respect to both the composition of the court and of its leadership, in effect extending the tenure of the judges from the three named countries. In turn, the judges whose ambitions of becoming the new leaders of the court it also frustrated or deferred, did not take this lightly. 

  The week after the conclusion of the extraordinary summit of the ECOWAS Heads of State in Abuja at the end of last month, the Chief Justices of the Member States of the Community convened also in Abuja as the ECOWAS Judicial Council. The meeting of the Judicial Council also marked the passing of the baton of leadership of the Chief Justices of the Community from Guinea Bissau’s António André Lima to Nigeria’s Olukayode Ariwoola. 

  The Chief Justices grappled with two things. First, almost assuredly instigated by their Judges on the ECOWAS Court who now want to become leaders of the court, the Chief Justices of Cape Verde and Sierra Leone at the meeting of the Judicial Council loudly complained about the expiration of the tenure of the judges from Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. At their behest, the Judicial Council resolved to advise the Heads of State to “set in motion the process of filling those vacancies to avoid potential infraction of statutory provisions governing appointment of Judges to the Court.” They were unable to offer any advice to the Heads as to how to do this while the countries from which the putative judges would come remain suspended from ECOWAS. There’s a limit to what the incredible powers of even Chief Justices can accomplish.

  The second thing they grappled with was the low level of compliance with decisions of the ECOWAS Court of Justice. On this, they received and considered a report from the Judge President of the Court, Ghana’s Edward Amoako Asante. Thereafter, the Chief Justices divined that the main reason for the low level of compliance with decisions of the Court of Justice is that litigants do not have to exhaust domestic remedies in their respective countries as a criterion for admissibility before proceeding to the ECOWAS Court of Justice. 

  To address this problem, the Chief Justices promptly decided to constitute a sub-committee of themselves comprising their peers from Cape Verde, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Togo in order to review the treaties and protocols governing the ECOWAS Court of Justice so as to write into them a requirement for exhaustion of domestic remedies and also “explore the possibility of creating a pool of qualified judges to serve as appellate judges on an ad hoc basis.”

  In a manner of speaking, this amounts to killing the ECOWAS Court of Justice with an effusion of high judicial attention. In nearly every one of the attending ECOWAS countries, the office of Chief Justice is a shrine to judicial despotism. The word of the Chief Justice is not open to question. Cases linger in court until the day after eternity except those which affect senior politicians to whom most Chief Justices seem beholden. By comparison, the ECOWAS Court of Justice has been something of a judicial miracle in West Africa. Cases receive prompt attention, the judgements are clear and understandable and litigants are treated as if their issues deserve serious attention. The ECOWAS Court is everything that the national court of the member states are not.

  It is, of course, a misconception to take the machete of exhaustion of domestic remedies to a regional court of Justice. The design, treaty law and doctrine applicable to the legal system of the Community makes the idea of exhaustion of domestic remedies anathema to an integrated regional system. Imposing the doctrine on the Court of Justice will render it both irrelevant and impotent. 

  Around 18 years ago, beginning 2006, former Gambian dictator, Yahya Jammeh, sought to get ECOWAS to implement similar ideas. A concert of concerned citizens and governments in the region rallied and killed it. The true tragedy this time is that it is not a dictator, soldier, or politician who wants to ransack the ECOWAS Court before killing it. Rather, it is Chief Justices of the region wielding with maximum malevolence an appearance of commitment to due process and the rule of law. This is why citizens of the sub-region have a duty to resist them. On May 6-7, the Chief Justices propose to convene again in Abuja to “deliberate on the reports and recommendations of the Committees for adoption.” The citizens of ECOWAS States may have less than three months to save the ECOWAS Court.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Governance is not about sharing blame, making excuses, or the individual exonerating himself. It is about getting the job done.

So, when in the face of serious financial and economic crises which have seen hunger envelop the land like a shroud and the national currency waterboarded, Olayemi Michael “Yemi” Cardoso, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor exonerates himself, something serious must be wrong.

He told the country: “I think it is very important for Nigerians to understand that the Central Bank Governor — I, and my team — are not responsible for the woes that we have today; we are part of the solution.”

It is yet to be seen whether Cardoso and his team are part of the solution, but they are partly responsible for the crises we are facing. First, he accepted the myth that the Naira needs to be floated – without a life jacket or anchor. Secondly, five days after his September 23, 2023 appointment as CBN Governor, the Naira to the dollar, at the parallel market, was N1,009. The next month, it sank to N1,140, and in November to N1,590. In February, 2024, it fell to N1,710. All these were under his watch.

It can be argued that since his appointment, Cardoso has been trying to get an handle on the controls, but if he knew the Naira devaluation was being manipulated like the government insists, why was he further punishing the country by using the fake rates to determine the Customs duty?

The CBN instructs the Customs on the exchange rate to be used for calculating import duty, and the cost is, of course, passed on to the consumers. So, why would Cardoso as the Central Bank Governor of an import-dependent country, continuously increase import duties based on the fake devaluation of the currency and not expect hyperinflation?

When Cardoso was appointed, Customs exchange rate for import duty was N770.88/$. On November 14, 2023, he adjusted it to N783.174/$. The following month, he raised it to N951.941/$. Then, came the craziest part: On February 2, 2024, he raised the Customs rate from N951.941/$ to N1, 356.883/$. The very next day, he moved it upward to N1,413.62/$ and within four days, moved it to N1,417.635/$. What manner of Central Banker in the world increases the Customs duties thrice in one week?

How are investors and manufacturers expected to plan with such volatility in duty payments? How does Cardoso engage in such pseudo-economics and expect stable prices?

Why should employers, marketers and Nigerians be so punished due to the inability of the Central Bank to check criminality in the foreign exchange market? So, how, like Pontius Pilate, does he wash his hands clean of the crises Nigerians are facing?

But, rather than subject Cardoso’s performance to critical analysis, the response from the Presidency is to present him as some superstar. In his February 17, 2024 piece titled: ‘Olayemi Cardoso’s dilemma’, Tunde Rahman, Senior Presidential Aide to President Bola Tinubu, told the world that: “Cardoso is obviously a perfect fit for the CBN top job.”

Then, as if making excuses for Cardoso’s possible failure, Rahman wrote: “But in the wake of the floating of the naira, some of the variables shaping the value of the national currency – including limited production in the country as a result of insecurity, the high taste for imported products, dwindling exports, poor dollar remittances, humongous school fees of Nigerian students abroad and medical tourism, all of which engendered a strong demand for dollar, far outweighing supply – seem to be clearly beyond his control.” Seriously?

Another official appointed by this government that does not only need to speak less, but also leave partisan politics to politicians, is Mr Adewale Bashir Adeniyi, the Comptroller General of Customs. In the wake of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, sanctions against Niger Republic in August, 2023 which included the closure of borders, Adeniyi, like a butterfly, hopped from one border crossing to another, giving instructions. What was his business with enforcing border closure which is the duty of Immigration and the security services? But he is an actor.

Tragically, on February 23, 2024, he carried his Nollywood acts too far. In the face of serious hunger, he announced that he is going to crash the prices of food items and shore up the Naira. How is he going to do it? By selling seized goods to the public at rock bottom prices. For instance, he said his agency would be selling a 25 kilogramme of rice at N10,000; that is a quarter of its current market price. You will think he has a million bags to sell. Laughably, all the Customs had, at least for the megacity of Lagos with some 18 million people, was 20,000 bags of assorted grains!

In a Lagos where just a few days before, Nigerians were whipped for over-crowding a bread distribution point where N100 loaves were being given out, it was expected that there would be a huge turnout at the Yaba Customs warehouse sales point. In realisation of this reality, the Customs National Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Maiwada, announced that the agency would carry out the sales with a firm commitment to transparency, fairness, and public safety. I am not sure if there was transparency and fairness in the process, but what we all know is that there was no public safety as seven Nigerians died at the Lagos sales.

Not unexpectedly, Customs laid the blame on the doorsteps of the victims. It claimed that after its stock was exhausted, the crowd broke through its barriers demanding for more items to buy, and in the process, there was a stampede leading to the loss of lives.

After this tragedy, it is unlikely that the quixotic Adeniyi who with a few thousand bags of grains announced he would crash food prices in the country, would be made liable for these avoidable deaths. If the Customs truly wanted to help a needy population, it would simply have donated the items to the internally displaced camps or orphanages that are spread across the country. The Presidency needs to call Adeniyi to order so that his next reality show would not be more tragic.

Also, the Presidency should avoid knee jerk actions like invading warehouses in the name of searching for hoarded food. We know the causes of hyperinflation in the country. These include unreasonable increases in the prices of petroleum products, lack of local refining, sinking of the Naira, banditry and terrorism that have forced many off the farms, wholesale looting, high cost of governance and the poverty-inducing programmes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which have been imposed on the country. 

Governance, is not rocket science.

EFFORTS by the Federal Government to curb the rising inflation will lead to N5 trillion cash mop up from the banking industry as the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN implements the hike in banks’ Cash Reserve Ratio, CRR to 45 per cent.

The CRR which represents banks’ cash reserves for purposes of meeting cash obligations on demand was moved from 32.5 percent to 45 percent in apparent bid to curtail inflation.

This is one of the outcomes of a virtual meeting, tagged Foreign Portfolio Investors Call, organised in collaboration with NGX Group, which was addressed by the CBN Governor, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, Deputy Governor, Economic Policy, Mohammad Abdullahi, and moderated by the Group Managing Director/ CEO of NGX Group, Mr. Temi Popoola.

While speaking at the meeting with FPIs in response to inquiries about the impact of the hike on banking system liquidity, CBN Deputy Governor Abdullahi said that the banking system has a shortfall of N5 trillion to meet the 45 per cent CRR.

He, however, said that the apex bank will not debit the banks N5 trillion at once adding that the apex bank will implement the new CRR in a way that will not be disruptive to the industry. He disclosed prior the MPC decision, the effective CRR for the industry was close to 40 per cent. He added some banks already have surpassed the 45 per cent CRR and they would be refunded the excess while banks with shortfall will have build up their cash reserves. Excess liquidity The estimated N5.0trillion which represented the outstanding system liquidity in excess of the initial CRR range is expected to impact the liquidity of many banks adversely.

Financial Vanguard learnt the decision to tighten came against the backdrop of deanchored inflationary trend which rose to 29.9 percent yearon- year, the highest since return to democracy in 1999. But financial analysts project the inflation rate would remain elevated in the near-term amid persisting exchange rate pressure, rising energy cost, and sustained fiscal imbalances. In defending the huge jump in MPR and CRR, the CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso, highlighted the disruptive impact of deficit financing to the Federal Government by Ways & Means, and also the direct intervention of the apex bank in the real sector which is estimated in excess of ¦ 10.0 trillion.

He also noted the structural inefficiencies within the foreign exchange market, and the need to collaborate strongly with fiscal authorities to effectively manage non-money factors. Analysts’ recommendations Commenting on this development, analysts at Afrinvest West Africa, a Lagos based investment house, said: “We suggest that in addressing inefficiencies, the apex bank prioritises the use of policy to minimise distortions and should remain focused on improving supply rather than countering the symptoms of illiquidity.

“In assessing impact on markets, we anticipate an immediate and strong bearish repricing of fixed-income yields especially on short-dated bills. “Furthermore, expectations of higher interest environment over the near-term coupled with liquidity squeeze amid costlier Standing Lending Facility (SLF) access should strengthen bearish sway”. Free entry, exit for FPIs Meanwhile, Cardoso assured the FPIs of free entry and exit from the forex market. He added that the focus of the apex bank is to ensure stability of the exchange rate and ensure reasonable price discovery. He also reiterated commitment of the CBN to achieving price stability adding that the MPC members are unanimous on the need to tame rising inflation and the 400 basis points hike in MPR is a strong signal to this effect. Cardoso assured the FPIs on policy consistency adding that the various measures introduced by the CBN in the forex market were product of extensive debate and strong conviction that is the right direction to go. Higher interest rates in TBs Speaking further at the meeting, Abdullahi assured the FPIs the CBN will from today review upward interest rate on Treasury bills, TBs, in tandem with the hike in MPR. He further disclosed that from today, the CBN will increase frequency and size of Open Market Operations, TBs, to expedite liquidity mop up and provide instruments for FPIs to invest.

Protocols:

Your Excellency Mr. Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, GCON,

Your Excellency, Governor Alex Otti, OFR

Honourable Deputy Speaker of the  House of Representatives, Chief Benjamin Kalu, CON

Your Excellency, Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR

Your Excellency, Former President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR

Your Excellency, Mr. Peter Obi, CON

Honourable Minister of Power,

Honourable Minister of Petroleum Gas

Distinguished Senate Committee Chairman for Power

Distinguished Senators,

Honourable Members of House of Reps

Your Excellency, former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, CON

Honourable Members of House Assembly,

Honourable Commissioners,

My Partners and Financiers of the Aba Integrated Power Project,

My Lords Spiritual and Temporal

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of Geometric Power and other investors in this project, I welcome you to the commissioning of the Aba Integrated Power Project (Aba IPP).

Your Excellencies, this project is a child of necessity.  It was born 20 years ago, when the desire of Aba Industrialists, including the small and medium scale industries, to have additional and good quality power supply, and our desire to contribute our quota towards increasing power supply in the nation converged. It became apparent to us that the best way to ensure that the Aba metropolis would quickly have  reliable and affordable electricity was to build this autonomous power project to serve the Aba metropolis, with excess power delivered to the national grid. At the same time, the then World Bank President, Mr Wolfenson and the then Finance Minister who is now the Director General of WTO, Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala came on March 17^th 2004 to meet with the Aba Industrialists, including the Aba and Ariaria Manufacturers (SMEs). At the meeting, the Ariaria manufacturers were asked to identify their number one problem which if addressed would significantly improve their production; they unanimously said that it wass reliable electricity.

Your Excellencies, this convergence of desire for reliable electricity is what led us to this historic Aba IPP. At that time, our development partners from the IFC of the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) and I, wanted to find a business model for power development in Nigeria that was sustainable, that could  stand on its own, and could be easily replicated by various investors in other major cities and industrial clusters in Nigeria. At that time, as of now, Nigeria could not afford sovereign guarantee for all of its power needs. We, therefore, developed a model of customized embedded generation that would not require Sovereign Guarantee. Consequently, we set about developing this integrated power project to satisfy the electricity needs of Aba metropolis at a time when the Power Sector Reform Act of 2005 was not yet enacted. Upon our request, the Federal Government concessioned Aba metropolis to us, to ensure security of the investment in the project and a big relief to the Federal Government on a sovereign guarantee. In line with the arrangement, we have built 141MW Power Plant with state-of-the-art equipment from General Electric (GE) and rehabilitated the entire distribution network in Aba. In addition to the Power Plant, we have built over 105 km of 33kV Over Head Lines within the Aba metropolis. You can see Your Excellencies, that the steel tubular poles used to build the 33kV line infrastructure is unlike any other in Nigeria. We have also built over 40km of new 11kV lines in Aba in addition to rehabilitating thousands of kilometres of sub transmission and low voltage lines. We have completed 5 new substations consisting of the Power Plant’s 3x60MVA Sub Station; four (4) brand new 2x15MVA substations at various parts of Aba town. In addition, we have refurbished the only three existing dilapidated Substations which we inherited as part of our acquisition of the Aba Ring-fenced Area from EEDC by building three (3) brand new control buildings with outdoor substation gantries within the premises of those existing sub stations. In order to ensure the reliability of gas supply, we built a 27km gas pipeline from Imo River to this Power Plant and built the gas infrastructure to support the supply of reliable gas to the Power Plant. To date, we have invested approximately US$800Million.

Your Excellency, Mr. Vice President, Excellencies, Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, this power project is now completed and ready for commissioning.

There are many people and institutions that have made today possible.

This project was initiated by the grace of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo when he was President. He was gracious and visionary enough to approve the request which his then Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and I presented to him. He has continued to provide support to the project since then.

We thank Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for her unwavering support for the project which has continued.

When the project’s only financial security which is ARFA was wrongfully sold by the BPE during privatization, it was President Buhari’s team of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, GCON and Minister of Power Babatunde Fashola, SAN that mediated an out of court settlement for the return of Ring-fenced Area to Aba Power but with refund of what was paid by the core investors in EEDC including penalties we had to pay on behalf of the Federal Government.

The Government of President Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima has also continued to support the project. Mr. Vice President just last week intervened to resolve a way forward on what was becoming a very dangerous issue for Aba Power. Prior to that, the Honourable Minister of Power had also intervened on another issue. We thank you Your Excellency, for making the time to come to commission this historic project.

I want to use this opportunity to thank president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, for giving me the opportunity to highlight the possibilities for sustainable power delivery in Nigeria. The work we did with the roadmap to the power sector reform and privatization was a paradigm shift that opened up huge investment opportunities that have yet to be fully tapped.

Various administrations in Abia State have over the decades provided support in their various ways and as needed. Starting from the administration of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, to Senator T.A Orji, to Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, and the current administration of Dr. Alex Otti. Dr. Ikpeazu played an active role during our road shows with financial institutions in Nigeria and internationally. He was very unequivocal in eloquently communicating to potential investors in this project of the benefits of the Aba IPP to the State, and the numerous reasons why the Abia State Government will continue to support the project. In the case of the current administration, the Governor’s support started when he was the CEO of Diamond Bank, and to now as Governor of this State. He has been chief liaison for the project companies with various FGN agencies. The planning and execution of the commissioning has been seamlessly managed by the Government and the staff of Geometric Power. This relationship is critical for the success of a government and that of a private company operating within a State and which is an instrument of rapid economic development of the State. We thank Your Excellency for your support. We will continue to enlist Your Excellency’s support as we continue to serve the people of Abia State with reliable and affordable electricity. This is a partnership we cherish and would continue to build.

We started this project when Nigerian banks could not lend to the power sector. The sector was a NEPA monopoly. It was the concession granted to us by President Obasanjo that made it possible for financing consideration. Yet, it was only Diamond Bank with vision and wisdom of its founder, Dr. Pascal Dozie that saw the viability of this project and mustered the courage to lend to it. This move boosted the confidence of Stanbic IBTC which joined Diamond Bank. Subsequently, two FGN institutions helped the two banks to create more room to lend more funds to complete the project. AMCON bought part of the debt of the banks, while CBN through the Power and Aviation Intervention Fund managed by BOI provided further funds to the project of which the two banks took up the credit risk. We are forever grateful and proud of Dr. Pascal Dozie and these Nigerian financial institutions for the vision in doing what all the banks should be doing to ensure that major infrastructure projects can be undertaken. Diamond Bank’s successor Access Bank has continued to be a key supporter. In fact, if the then CEO Dr. Herbert Wigwe of blessed memory, the CEO of AMCON, the CEO of Stanbic Bank, CEO of BOI, and the CBN did not agree to the restructuring that brought in Afreximbank, this project would have died an unnatural death. I also use this opportunity to appreciate the CEO of AMCON for his steadfastness, encouragement, and integrity.

Much appreciation goes to Afreximbank and its President, Prof. Benedict Oramah. Again, it is the capacity to look through a rubble and see gold that I use to describe how Professor Oramah and his team evaluated Aba IPP that was stalled for several years. The bank has a first-class team that processed our facility. I cannot mention each person for fear of missing any important contributor. Please, just know that Afreximbank and its team are, and will remain very dear in our hearts forever. We like to recognize the professionalism of their Technical Adviser, Tetra Tech for doing an excellent job throughout the due diligence process and continuing.

We very much appreciate the key Federal Government institutions that have been and continue to be key success factors for Aba IPP. They include Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, TCN, NDPHC, GACN, NCP, BPE, and others.

We particularly want to thank the NNPCL, and its associated companies, NUIMS, and NEPL for their concerted focus in ensuring that the Imo River AGG plant is refurbished after many years of its being moribund. They have also continued to work towards ensuring that we have reliable gas supply. Thanks to the GCEO of NNPCL, the CUIO of NUIMS, the MD of NEPL and your various key officials who worked very hard at various levels to achieve today.

Now that this project is completed and being commissioned, the test of whether Nigeria can have reliable electricity is here. That test is partly about gas supply. We can guarantee that if we have reliable gas supply, we will provide reliable electricity to Aba metropolis. The onus is now on the Government to demonstrate that reliable power is possible in Nigeria by ensuring that this project gets reliable gas supply.

We would like to thank our power plant host community, Umuojima Ogbu of Osisioma LGA, the various host communities where we have our infrastructure spread over the nine (9) LGAs, the traditional rulers, the mayors, and all our customers in the metropolis. The last few months have been very challenging due to the inadequate supply of power from the grid. We thank you for your patience and pledge that we would ensure that we keep our promise of empowering the people by providing reliable and affordable power supply to Aba DisCo customers.

Your Excellencies, our team has worked very hard and made personal sacrifices to ensure that this project will be a success. We will forever remain grateful to them for their fortitude and endurance. In the last 20 years, we lost a few of them, and other pillars of supporters of Aba IPP. We pray for the repose of those heroes past. Their labour was not in vain.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President, thank you our Governor Otti, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen.

Let there be light in the mighty Enyimba City!

Thank you for listening

Transnational Corporation Plc (Transcorp Group) wishes to announce the listing of its subsidiary, Transcorp Power Plc (Transcorp Power or TP Plc) via listing by introduction on the Main Board of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), on Monday, March 4, 2024.

There will be a “Facts Behind the Listing” at NGX Group House at 2:45pm, where the Management of TP Plc, led by the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Peter Ikenga, will provide information to Trading License Holders, Analysts, Press and Investors about the listing and the Company.

Following this listing, Transcorp Group will have two subsidiaries listed on NGX, demonstrating its commitment to creating value for the Nigerian public and catalyzing economic growth in Nigeria. Transcorp Group will continue to maintain a significant holding in Transcorp Power Plc.

Transcorp Power operates the Ughelli Power Plant in Delta State, with an installed capacity of 972MW. At the time of acquisition, the plant had an available capacity of 160MW. Transcorp Power invested and increased the available capacity to 680.83MW (a 227% increase) within four years of acquisition, surpassing the 5-year target of 670MW set by the Bureau of Public Enterprises. Transcorp Power Plc is a member of the West African Power Pool and a participant in the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Market. Today, Transcorp Power supplies electricity to the ECOWAS Regional Market.

About Transcorp Group

Transcorp Group is one of Africa’s leading, listed companies, with strategic investments in the power, hospitality, and energy sectors, driven by its mission to improve lives and transform Africa.

Transcorp Group’s power businesses, Transcorp Power Plc and Transafam Power, provide 15% of Nigeria’s installed power capacity. Transcorp Group is committed to developing Nigeria’s domestic energy value chain, though its investments in OPL287.  The Group’s listed hospitality business, Transcorp Hotels Plc, owns the iconic Transcorp Hilton Abuja, Nigeria’s flagship hospitality destination, and has launched digital platform Aura by Transcorp Hotels.

Signature of Authorized Signatory

Name of Authorized Signatory

Designation of Authorized Signatory

Chairman, Transcorp Power Plc, Emmanuel Nnorom

Managing Director/CEO, Peter Ikenga

It is becoming increasingly difficult for landowners to build houses due to the increment in cement prices.

Naija News reports that a bag of cement now sells between N10,000 to N14000.

Reports have indicated that Nigerians are now seeking alternatives due to the high price of building commodities.

The high cost of cement has affected rent, and even homeowners who built their homes decades ago have also increased rents.

Naija News understands that containers are now used to build houses in Nigeria, thanks to the advanced technology and production system.

According to Punch, Nigerians who can no longer afford cement now use containers as an alternative.

An auto dealer in Benin, identified as Folawe Adeniran, told the aforementioned publication that he wanted to build a brick office on leased land but changed his mind due to the cost of cement, block and sand.

He said, “It took me nothing less than N2 million to build a two room and toilet a few years back when I started my business.

“Now I received a quotation of N4 million to do such on a lease land as I intend to build another branch for my business.

“The engineer told me that he had to cut costs to arrive at that figure which excludes workmanship.

“He cited the cost of cement and sand which is also affecting the price of blocks.

“I had to resort to building with containers

“This building is made with containers and is heat free as people used to think building with containers attracts lots of heat.

“I spent less than N3 million to achieve this.

“If it were a permanent land, I would still opt for container building.

“Many business owners whose businesses require building on leased lands and personal lands are now using containers to build.

“That is what the economy has turned everyone to.

“Business is not smiling because the economy is not.

“It is only a well to do man involved in fraud that will be comfortable with the way the economy is.

“Even when you build with bricks in those days it takes you a few years to recover what you spent on such a building if it is for commercial purposes.

“I pity the average Nigerian who has plans on building. What will they build.?

“God help us.”

Another trader, Friday Badmus, also told the publication that he made a container apartment on his quarter plot land when his rent was due last year.

He said, “It was a funny day when my landlord told me in November that he wants to increase my rent of a two bedroom flat to N800,000 from N600,000.

“I was so worried because the place I have land was not well occupied by people yet and was thinking about how to raise N800,000 and still foot my family bills with low sales in business.

“I had made up my mind not to borrow but manage what I have to have peace of mind.

“My wife was the person who brought the idea of building a container apartment of a room and parlor.

“She brought her savings and I added mine and with support from family and friends we had our container building.

“You won’t even know it is built with a container if I don’t spill.”

A construction worker identified as Blessing George explained, “The construction costs range from N100,000 – N150,000 per square meter, depending on final specification and finishing.

“These containers are used for transportation and can be converted to comfortable apartments with standard interior finishes and designs.”

“The area where cement is required is the concrete foundation to place the containers.

“These container houses are mostly used for commercial purposes and personal apartments.

“The high price of cement which is making people seek for other building alternatives is pushing many to opt for the container houses.”