The contractor handling the $6 billion 3.9 megawatts (MW) Mambilla Hydro-power project, Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, has said there was due process in the award of the contract.

In a statement, the company’s Chairman, Leno Adesanya, faulted the Economic and Financial Crimes Committee (EFCC) for declaring him wanted.

Adesanya also said his company had no regrets about paying the medical and travel expenses of a former Minister of Power and Steel, Dr. Olu Agunloye.

Agunloye is on trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja for alleged fraud in the contract award to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company.

In an open letter to President Bola Tinubu, Adesanya faulted EFCC for accusing him of bribing Agunloye 21 years after he left office with N3.6 million by paying his medical bill and travel expenses.

“This criminalisation strategy of the Federal Government using institutions, including the EFCC, is manifest in alleging that I facilitated the payments of N3.5 million, N500,000 and N1.12 million (a total of N5.22 million) to Dr. Agunloye in 2019 for his medical treatment in Florida (the United States of America).

“This is laughable because Dr. Agunloye left the government 21 years ago and ceased to be a public officer in 2001.

“There is no alignment between my kindness of 2019 and the build, operate and transfer (BOT) contract of 2003.

“Who waits for bribes to be paid 16 years after a contract has been awarded?

“Which minister will collect N12 million bribe for a $6 billion (today’s rate N11 trillion) BOT contract? Definitely not a Nigerian security guard, let alone a minister.

“In the absence of any credible defence to Sunrise’s claims, the Federal Government, through the EFCC, has continued to desperately hunt down potential witnesses and to scandalise the underlying contract.

“In support of this objective, the EFCC has now secretly filed a charge against SPTC (in charge Number: FCT/HC/CR/618/2023 between the Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Sunrise) pending in a court located in the remote village of Jikowi, on the outskirts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and bounded by Nasarawa State.

“To date, the said charge has not been served on me or Sunrise.

“However, to create leverage in the ongoing dispute, the Federal Government, acting through the EFCC, has now hurriedly declared me a ‘wanted person’ without any justification.

“It is on record that I relocated out of Nigeria in December 2017 due to an assassination attempt on me in December 2017.”

Insisting that he is not on the run, Adesanya added: “I am not missing and have never been missing. I have always made known my willingness to meet and work with Nigerian law enforcement officials at any location where there will be no threat to my life or person.

“Nigerians, what is more fundamental in all that I have said is the need to really understand why the Mambilla project has been stalled for years. One is endemic corruption, and the most dangerous is the issue of the ethnic card.”

Adesanya said he was told sometime in March 2020 that “the North will never allow a Yoruba man to be the local content partner for the Mambilla project”.

Explaining the role of his company in the project, Adesanya said: “In 2001, we established Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (SPTC) as the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to drive this power project.

“In furtherance thereof, SPTC established working relationships with several Chinese state conglomerates, such as North China Power Group (NCPG), China Hydroelectric companies (Sinohydro Corporation of China), and China State Construction (CSCEC).

“Sunrise arranged several meetings for the FGN, and these included meetings in Nigeria and China for then President (Olusegun) Obasanjo and the then Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, and, as a result, two Chinese Presidents visited Nigeria to discuss the Mambilla Project with the FGN.

“The construction of the Mambilla project was based strictly on a Build, Operate and Transfer structure (BOT) without any funds from the FGN, which means that SPTC and its Chinese partners would source for the funds.

“To date, no money has ever been paid by the FGN to Sunrise and/or Leno Adesanya in respect of the BOT contract.

“Accordingly, in 2002, the then Power Minister, Dr. (Olusegun) Agagu, of blessed memory, initiated an international tender and bidding process, and based on the analysis of the tenders, the committee recommended the Sunrise Chinese Consortium of Sinohydro and NCPG for final negotiations, which led to President Obasanjo’s written approval in November 2002; before Dr. Olu Agunleye was appointed Power Minister.

“In April 2003, Dr. Olu Agunloye, in compliance with earlier approval of November 2002, sought and obtained then President Obasanjo’s ‘No Objection’ written Approval to award the $6 billion BOT contract to Sunrise – without any financial commitment from the FGN.”

Adesanya said former President Muhammadu Buhari had directed that existing agreements be honoured, but it was not complied with.

He added: “Stunned by its manifest lack of any defence or justification for the unilateral cancellation and breach of its binding contractual obligations to Sunrise, and the likelihood of being found liable for breach of contract, the FGN through its various security agencies has now resorted to attempting to criminalise and scandalise the Mambilla Power Project with the sole aim of evading the consequent legal contractual obligations of the Federal Government arising from breaches of agreements with Sunrise.

“As a sign of good faith, if the Federal Government is fully determined to execute the 3050MW Mambilla hydropower project as approved by then President Yar’Adua, and reconfirmed severally by President Goodluck Jonathan, I am ready to mobilise my Chinese Consortium partners only if His Excellency Mr. President will personally sign all the financial commitments to the Chinese Eximbank, Corporate and Financial Institutions who had demonstrated their commitments to the project in the past.”

“Hunger is the cry of a god and two gods do the humans worship – the head and the stomach ...We know the body will survive without head Sustenance, but the Stomach, the god that rumbles and thunders when sacrifice is late, this God cannot be slighted” – Wole Soyinka

Salutations to the Gut is the title of an 84-page essay published over 40 years ago by Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate in Literature, Wole Soyinka celebrating the splendour of Yoruba cuisine and gastronomic hedonism, how “the true hedonist has felt in every morsel the soul of the open kitchen”, a witty, whimsical essay about the importance and the culture of food, indeed life itself.  Soyinka wrote that “It is sad - daily the business of the world becomes more hurried, and the few who still possess leisure lack true poetry of food.” How so true, not just for the Yoruba race, but for the whole of humanity. It is not for nothing therefore that the Yoruba also have a popular saying that “the path to the stomach is the path to Heaven.” Where there is no true poetry of food and hunger persists, not only is paradise lost, hope is trampled upon, anger reigns, poverty stalks the landscape. This is summarized in a local saying that “ebi ki n wo inu, ki oro mi wo be”, which means literally that a hungry man is not ready for any kind of communication, because he is angry. 

This explains perhaps why some of the major crises in human history have been woven around the search for food, and the expression of frustration around the lack of same, explained with different phrases: hunger, famine, poverty, scarcity or derivation.  Historically, the scarcity of food, or the non-availability or non-affordability, has often resulted in riots or revolutions. In 1648, there were riots on the streets of Moscow because government imposed a salt tax, which drove up the cost of salt. One of the reasons for the French Revolution was in part because the ordinary people could not afford to buy bread. In 1789, the market women of France marched on the Versailles, and the protest was quickly taken over by revolutionaries who no longer wanted the Monarchy. In 1846, in Ireland, there was the famous Great Famine which led to food riots. During the American Civil war, in 1863, Southern women looking for food organized protests in places like Boston and Richmond, taking over the streets and plundering warehouses where they could find them. The problem was hyper-inflation. During World War I, there were potato riots in Europe, and rice riots in Japan, as the people looked for food to eat. Hunger was also one of the causes of the February 1917 Revolution in Russia. In more recent times, we have had the Egyptian Bread riots of 1977 – food became so expensive, Egyptians rioted; in 1981 – there was the Bread riots in Casablanca, Morocco, and in 1984, the Moroccan Hunger Uprising. There have also been food riots in Venezuela, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the UK, Zambia, France, Haiti, Bangladesh and anywhere else in the world where the god of the stomach rumbles, after being slighted by scarcity, and ignited to rebellion by hunger. When the god of the stomach rumbles, there are casualties. 

What is common in all the narratives is that people become desperate when they cannot feed themselves. Food prices trigger political instability as seen in the Russian and French Revolutions, the Great Depression and during the Arab Spring. The politics of hunger is oftentimes triggered by poor leadership, including corruption, or in other cases by failures in agricultural production such as crop failure or post-harvest losses, and a crisis in one place can translate into further crisis in other states, given the existence of an established global food supply chain. When food prices rise beyond the people’s purchasing power, social unrest is never too far away. This is the tough lesson Nigeria is confronting at the moment. It is sad that this is happening in a country that once advertised agriculture as the mainstay of its economy, and whose leaders still believe that deepening agricultural production could rescue the country from the mono-cultural, oil dependent ditch in which it has found itself. Today, the country faces a “food intifada”, the same country with an arable land area of about 36.9 million hectares, where there were once cocoa plantations in the West, rubber plantations in the Mid-West, rice pyramids in the North, as well as aquatic splendour and a fluorescent blue economy along its coastlines. In living memory, Nigerians talked about “Operation Feed The Nation” (1979) and the “Green Revolution (1980)”, and indeed it was in this same country that a certain Umaru Dikko, Minister of Transport, and Chair of the Committee on Rice Importation, under the Shehu Shagari administration once scandalized the public when he quipped that there was no hunger in Nigeria because no one was yet eating from the dustbin, and that Nigerians should be grateful because government was paying salaries without borrowing – a big favour! Dikko would later become famous for the botched attempt by the succeeding military regime to kidnap him from the UK in July 1984. He died in July 2014. If he were alive today, he would have lived to see that Nigerians now eat from dustbins, and that hungry and angry Nigerians are telling their government that they are “hungry”. And that the government goes a-borrowing and a-sorrowing. 

There have been protests in Minna, Niger State, Ota, Sagamu and Abeokuta in Ogun State, Oyo and Ibadan in Oyo State, Kano in Kano State, Port Harcourt in Rivers State, Sokoto in Sokoto State, Lokoja in Kogi State, and in Lagos, the country’s commercial capital. The reports of the various protests clearly underline the people’s desperation in the face of hunger. In Lagos, we saw reports of people practically falling over themselves, and being beaten as they struggled to buy loaves of bread at a discounted price. Also in Lagos, a Good Samaritan had provided a truck load of tubers of yam to be given out for free. The people didn’t wait for the tubers to be distributed. Chaos ensued as they seized the initiative and grabbed the tubers of yam in a classical, Darwinian, “survival of the fittest” scramble. The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) also tried to intervene by offering to sell seized, contraband bags of rice at a discounted price to the public. It made good on its promise. But at its Yaba depot in Lagos, over 10, 000 people showed up, scrambling, struggling. To cut a long story short, seven persons reportedly died. The initiative has been suspended. In Katsina, villagers and hoodlums besieged an accidented truck bearing grains, and looted the commodities. In Rivers state, aggrieved women added another twist to the matter when they asked the government to address their suffering because they had become sex-starved as their husbands no longer attended to their conjugal duties due to excessive heat in the other room on account of epileptic power supply and confirmed loss of libido because of the psychological pressure induced by the high cost of living! 

In Ibadan, the protesting youths and market women told President Tinubu: “This is no longer Emilokan. This is Shege!.”  In Osogbo, the people chanted: “We can’t cope again”.  In Sokoto, they said: “We are being pushed to the wall.” In Ogun, the people told the government, “We are in pains”. In Lagos, they said: “Baba Tinubu Nigerians are Hungry, Rescue Us”. On February 10, in the midst of all this, the Nigeria Union of Pensioners announced that its members will go naked on the streets in protest. As of January 2024, Nigeria’s headline inflation had risen to 29.90%. Food inflation was over 35.4%- much higher in some of the states. In practical terms, a measure of rice is now N2,000 and a bag of 50kg rice – N70, 000, a bag of maize is as high as N60, 000. People can no longer eat three square meals per day, certainly not those pensioners who receive as low as N450 per month. The country’s minimum wage in the face of hyper-inflation cannot feed one person not to talk of a family. 

It would have been strange if the Nigerian government did not respond to these developments, with the god of the stomach and the gut wreaking havoc across the land having been so badly bruised, and the people so disconcerted. In July 2023, Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu had in fact foreseen the food crisis that the country was likely to face. He declared food insecurity a national emergency, set up a Committee on Food Emergency and moved the assignment to his office and the office of the National Security Adviser. This was understandable. Food inflation was rising. Farmers could not access their farms. The country’s Food Belt had become a theatre of terror and insurgency. But as the harvest became real, and protests showed up in parts of the country, with the people of Lagos even directly confronting the President screaming: “Ebi n pa wa” (“We are Hungry”) as the President went for Friday worship in Central Lagos, and other Nigerians screaming for help, government just had to be seen to be doing something. The Emergency Committee on Food Insecurity met, and the people were told at the end of the deliberations, that the Federal Government would provide 102, 000 metric tonnes of grains - 42, 000 from the National Grains Reserve and another 60, 000 to be provided by big farmers. In the event that this would not be enough, the Federal Government would import grains. 

The big tragedy is that the government appears completely overwhelmed, confused even. Students of Policy Evaluation would readily agree that a government does not announce a state policy on an ad-hoc or impulsive basis. It must be thought through from beginning to the evaluation, in the interest of the people. It looks like the Tinubu team failed the test. About one month later, nobody has seen the promised 102, 000 metric tonnes. As recently as the last National Economic Council meeting held a few days ago, they were still talking about partnership with major fertilizer companies, and promises to make grains available. Nobody has seen any grains. Nobody is even sure that there is anything in the National Grains Reserve. At one point, we were told by the Vice President, that the government will introduce a Commodities Exchange Board. The President showed up later to say that there will be no Commodities Board and that his government will not control prices, nor will it import food. In that breath, the President openly contradicted his own Minister of information, his Vice President and dismissed a court judgment by the Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos, (re: Femi Falana SAN vs AG federation) which had ordered the Federal Government to fix the prices of goods and petroleum products in seven days in line with the Price Control Act, 2004 per Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa, J.  

Confusion galore… and nothing could be more confusing than the Presidency summoning a selected team of 16 stakeholders over the weekend and setting up what they called a “tripartite” Economic Advisory Committee to solve Nigeria’s tripartite problems: a national currency on a free fall and foreign exchange crisis, hyperinflation, and the high cost of living. I suspect that someone in government has suddenly discovered the word “tripartite” and so everything has become “tripartite” including the setting up of a “tripartite” 37-member committee to review the national minimum wage. The optics may look good to the extent that government appears as if it is trying to do something, whatever that is, at least to show the people that “we are trying.” The problem is that the same advisers that Tinubu has invited, with the exception of two or three, were the same people who have been advising government since 1999, as investors and stakeholders – what new thing do they have to offer, apart from the privilege of their access to the corridors of power?  What happens to the National Economic Council (NEC), a constitutional body chaired by the Vice President? And why has the President not appointed a Chief Economic Adviser whose task is to help the President link all possible loose ends between the monetary and fiscal sides of things? Nigeria needs one, and preferably a properly educated Economist.

The biggest response to the confusion referred to parenthetically above, has been the announcement of a two-day warning strike by Organized Labour, led by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), beginning from today. NLC has been abandoned by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), its partner-union with which it originally gave government a 14-day ultimatum to honour a 16-point Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in October 2023, or face a strike. In a confusing twist to the tale, TUC now says NLC is acting unilaterally. A total of 64 other groups have reportedly pulled out of the planned protest. Even the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) told the leadership of the NLC to seek dialogue with the Nigerian Government and shelve its strike. NLC says it would go ahead. Femi Falana, NLC Counsel has written the AG Federation to affirm the constitutionality of the right to protest and the ineffectuality of the two interlocutory injunctions ordered against the NLC by the National Industrial Court in the light of an extant Court of Appeal decision on the right to protest. Again, so much confusion. It is nonetheless important to state that peaceful protest is legal, valid and constitutional and whether or not the NLC succeeds or fails with its two-day warning strike, the key point is that there is disquiet in the land about inflation, the rising cost of living and the hardship that the people face. The people want tangible results not talks, promises, preachments, or optics. 

Many of the states, notably Lagos, Ogun and Borno have introduced palliative measures to help their people. These are welcome interventions. The Federal Government cannot do it alone. The people must see that their home governments care for them and have empathy for them as they experience what for many is the nightmare of a lifetime. The nightmare is so serious that the Federal Government in an attempt to show empathy, and to be seen “to be trying” has now announced that it will implement the Steve Oronsaye Report. I hope someone has read that report and tried to understand it properly. The Report recommends a lean, pruned down, more efficient government, shorn of waste, fat and duplication. President Tinubu does not need months or “a tripartite” committee to implement that. No further confusion, please.

Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), has revealed his latest venture: XMail, a new email service that could challenge Google’s dominance in the market.

Musk announced his social media platform, X, where he confirmed that XMail is “coming” soon. He did not provide further details about the service’s features, launch date, or pricing but hinted that it would be integrated with the X app.

The news comes amid a wave of panic among Gmail users, alarmed by a hoax image claiming Google was shutting down its popular email service by August 2024. The image, which looked like an official email from Google, went viral on X and other social media platforms, causing confusion and outrage among millions of users.

Google quickly debunked the rumor, stating that Gmail is “here to stay” and that it had recently updated its interface to make it more user-friendly and colorful. However, some users remained skeptical and expressed interest in trying out XMail as an alternative.

Gmail is here to stay.

— Gmail (@gmail) February 22, 2024

XMail is one of many products that Musk has launched on his revamped social media platform, which he acquired from Twitter in 2022. Earlier this year, he introduced ChatGPT, a conversational AI assistant that uses natural language processing to generate realistic and engaging responses. Some users have praised ChatGPT as a fun and innovative communication method, while others have criticized it as a potential source of misinformation and manipulation.

Musk has also stated that his ultimate goal for X is to make it an “everything app,” a one-stop shop for all online services and activities. He has hinted at developing other products such as XPay, a digital payment system, and XTube, a video-sharing platform.

Some experts believe that XMail could be a game-changer in the email service industry, which Gmail has dominated for over a decade. According to Demand Sage, a market research firm, Gmail has over 1.8 billion active users worldwide as of 2024.

Rhea Freeman, a social media strategist, told MailOnline that XMail “might happen” and that it would be “interesting to see the uptake.”

“Elon has made huge changes to Twitter and doesn’t seem to have public opinion on side, so whether people will trust X with their email management will be something to watch,” she said.

She added that XMail could have advantages over Gmail, such as being more secure, customizable, and integrated with other X products.

However, she also warned that XMail could face challenges, such as convincing users to switch from their existing email accounts, complying with data protection regulations, and competing with other email services such as Outlook, Yahoo, and ProtonMail.

It needs to be clarified whether XMail is being developed by xAI, a company that Musk founded in 2023 to focus on artificial intelligence research and development. xAI has been involved in some of Musk’s other projects, such as Neuralink, a brain-computer interface, and Starlink, a satellite internet service.

When we making XMail?

— Nate (@natemcgrady) February 22, 2024

Musk has yet to reveal when XMail will be available to the public, but some users are eager to sign up for it. Others, however, are more cautious and prefer to stick with Gmail, which they trust and rely on for personal and professional communication.

First Word: There is hunger in the land. Prices of food items are skyrocketing daily resulting in increased number of Nigerians who cannot afford food. The Nigerian government needs to act beyond providing food stamps. Short term measures should be replaced by longer term approaches to solve the hunger problem in Nigeria which in part is caused by food terrorism nuanced with the present insecurity experienced in Nigeria. To stem the tides of insecurity as a long-term approach to solving hunger, there is need for the government and law enforcement to clamp down on those who make inciteful statements that have the tendency to stir up violence.

A Crime Punishable by Law

Recently, a video of an Islamic Cleric speaking in Hausa against Nigeria's First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu for being a Christian went viral on social media. In the video, the cleric declared that the First Lady deserves to die for not just being a Christian but also a pastor. According to him, the First Lady is not the kind of “people of the book” that Prophet Muhammed said a Muslim man could marry. In Hausa, he said: "Now, Tinubu, his wife is an infidel. As an infidel, she is a leader among the infidels. “God's judgement says she must be killed. She's a pastor . . . a leader of infidels (Christians); Allah says they must be killed . . . " Publicly calling for the assassination of a First Lady is a crime punishable under Nigerian law which prohibits any threat to kill or do bodily harm to a public official - in this case the President - or his family. This is not only an issue of religious intolerance but of public order and national security. Although the cleric in a subsequent video, has offered an apology for his incendiary remarks, the reality is that the brazen disregard and levity with which the lives of Christians are treated in Nigeria is a serious threat to national unity and internal security. It is strange that Christians who believe in God and are followers of Christ, something recognized in the Koran as people of the book will be referred to as arne or infidels by some Muslims. In reality, prescribing death warrants on innocent people in the name of religion is anti-religious and goes against the grain of any godly belief system. This manifestation of religious bigotry and intolerance are hallmarks of radical extremism. It MUST be stopped through constitutional/legal means. Our collective silence on such matters is our collective doom as a nation and we become a laughing stock of nations.

Why the Silence?

The recent threat on the life of Nigeria’s First lady for the singular reason that she is a Christian, married to a Muslim, who is moderate and a nationalistic leader should be condemned by all well-meaning and progressive Nigerians. The Muslim community and leaders in particular cannot afford to remain silent. There needs to be a major release by the Sultan, who commands the respect of many both Muslims and Christians. Why is there yet to be a word from MURIC which claims to be fighting for justice. Why has there not been total condemnation by JNI? Even though notable Muslim voices such as Hon. Mohammed Bello El-Rufai and Sen. Shehu Sani have condemned the cleric’s pronouncements and called for his prosecution. Is it a crime for her to be a Pastor? Recall that this dignified citizen of Nigeria, our First Lady, was at some point a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. How audacious for a cleric to resort to such deadly tactics, dressed in religious bigotry, to intimidate a public official of such high standing! The cleric is also heard saying the Muslim-Muslim ticket that brought President Bola Tinubu to power was a scam. Furthermore, he accuses the President of not being able to convert his wife. And so, what? Is the ability to convert a non-Muslim wife to Islam a qualification for becoming President of Nigeria? Is that what the Muslim-Muslim ticket is all about? Well, I have had one or two occasions to listen to both the President and the Vice President speak and they sounded both as if they want to work for a better Nigeria. They claim to be ready to serve this nation and we need to give them the chance to prove themselves. Religious extremism exhibits ignorance and selfish ambition, and will lead us nowhere, except towards anarchy and chaos.

Therefore, as a Social Justice and Peace Advocate group, we condemn this unprovoked call for the death of the First Lady in its entirety. Such flagrant threats to public safety should not be ignored, or there will be no Nigeria as we know it. Clerics who resort to such extremist ideologies and tactics should be condemned within Christendom and more frequently within the Muslim community where such has been rampant. In this instance, it is the responsibility of Islamic leaders not to allow such voices to go uncensored within their fold.

An Affront to Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB)

Many problems are currently plaguing Nigeria. One is the total disregard for Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB). Due to Nigeria’s multifaceted complexities, the disregard for FoRB has ripple effects that have resulted in violence and have a tendency to spiral out of control, if care is not taken. Consequently, we declare that the Federal Government must take this threat seriously and deploy its legitimate instruments to ensure that nothing happens to Senator Pastor Oluremi Tinubu.

Our country is currently battling a protracted insurgency that has lasted for over a decade. FoRB issues such as this must be handled within the full ambit of the law. Freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental human right which Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees everyone. Chapter 4, Section 38 of the Nigerian constitution also gives every Nigerian the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. To protect the rights of everyone, the government must be seen upholding the rule of law without prejudice or preference. In doing so, government must be bold enough to call a spade a spade. Failure to do so had caused impunity to abound. When religious clerics like the one in the video make such outrageous public remarks, they promote disaffection and ill-will, and give their followers reason to perpetuate mayhem and violence in total disregard for FoRB. Their hate speech and politically-motivated religious rhetoric is a threat to social cohesion and peaceful coexistence because it breeds religious intolerance and disregard for human dignity and life. Such religious leaders are not patriots, as they do not have the interest of the nation at heart.

Recommendations

1. Leading religious leaders, through NIREC, should meet over this threat to the First lady. This should be addressed and tackled in the open and not through a back door approach.

2. Mr President should give priority to peace building and conflict transformation approach on a national scale.

3. A National Peace and Reconciliation Commission should be set up to promote peaceful coexistence among Nigerians.

4. Respect for Freedom of Religion and Belief (FoRB) should be elevated to the level of national discourse and social action as a conversation, practice and structural framework.

5. The public use of words that depict religious intolerance such as arne (infidel) and kafir (pagan) amount to hate speech and should be outlawed not only in our Criminal and Penal Codes, but also in our Constitution.

Conclusion

Religious diversity should not be a source of grief for Nigerians. True religion should be an instrument of peace not destruction and death. Like Maya Angelou said, “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.” She added: “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” And as the current UN General Secretary, Antonio Guterres, said: “We have to transcend our differences to transform our future.” Nigerian religious and political leaders need to instill these social and religious truths into our national consciousness and discourse in word and practice. The Revd Dr Gideon Para-Mallam (President and CEO

…As EKSG moves to support households, formal and informal sectors

Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, has approved a set of carefully designed relief programmes to alleviate the hardship being experienced by the people of the state in the face of the current global economic downturn.

These programmes include the payment of one month salary arrears to State and Local Government workers totalling over N2.7 billion. With this payment, the Government has cleared the salary arrears owed to State Government workers, and will ensure the arrears owed Local Government workers are cleared this year.

The Governor also approved an increase of N600 million per month in the subvention of autonomous institutions including the Judiciary and all tertiary institutions. This is to allow the institutions implement the wage award being implemented for State and Local Government workers.

In the same vein, Governor Oyebanji also approved the payment of two months pension arrears owed State and Local Government workers totalling N1.5 billion, as well as N100 million monthly gratuity payment to state pensioners and an increment of the current N50 million monthly gratuity to local Government pensioners to N100 million. (This brings total monthly gratuity payment to N200 million).

The State Government has also committed the sum of N1 billion to improve food production, especially to embark on land preparation, driven by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security’s tractorization subsidy scheme, and an input supply programme to support small scale farmers. Similarly, the Government is also committing a whopping sum of N1.2 billion it recently got as first tranche of the World Bank-financed Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support ( L-PRES) Project to transform the livestock subsector.

The money would be spent on empowering livestock farmers, boosting livestock productivity as well as creating a conducive environment for youths and private sector involvement in livestock businesses. This will include revamping all veterinary clinics across the local government areas and the state veterinary hospital; development of poultry sector across the value chain from production to processing; Feed formulation and artificial insemination (AI) training and support, among others.

Additionally, the State is also launching a N500 million loan programme in partnership with Access Bank to support medium and small scale businesses. This is in addition to N1 billion cooperative fund to provide low interest working capital for cooperatives and members. These programmes will ensure that small scale businesses, a critical part of the State economy, also benefit from the relief programme, and help kick start the economy.

The final set of the programmes include a continuation of the conditional cash transfer to low income households as well as the CARES programme which among other focuses on livelihood support, labour-intensive support, technology support for small businesses and support for agric produce and for which the sum N3.5 billion is earmarked.

It also include the free bus service for students and workers within Ado-Ekiti and Ikere-Ekiti, which will now be extended to Ekiti State University (EKSU) and other major towns; and the distribution of food items to the 177 wards of the State being coordinated by the Local Government Councils and Community Development Associations.

All these are in addition to ongoing infrastructure projects across the State, boosting power supply to critical areas including connecting the EKSU Campus to the IPP; which will also help lower the cost of logistics- a big driver of commodity prices; the free malaria treatment for elderly citizens and children as well as free delivery for pregnant women at all primary health care centres across the state.

Governor Oyebanji assured the people of the state of his administration’s commitment to the welfare and wellbeing of the citizens, urging them to cooperate with government at the local, state and federal levels as concerted efforts are being made not only to cushion the effect of the economic situation, but to grow the economy in line with the shared prosperity agenda of the administration and the renewed hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Olayinka Oyebode
Special Adviser, Media to the Governor
26-02-2024.

Despite Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rising above 3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, experts have stated that the rising price of goods and commodities is pushing more Nigerians into poverty.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed that the economy grew by 3.46% in the fourth quarter of 2023 having slowed to 2.54% in the third quarter.

The NBS, in its latest report, stated that the Q4 GDP pushed the average 2023 GDP to 2.74% In 2023.

Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew averagely by 2.74% which was lower than the 3.10% the economy recorded in 2022.

The report showed that the performance of the GDP in the fourth quarter of 2023 was driven mainly by the services sector, which recorded a growth of 3.98% and contributed 56.55% to the aggregate GDP; while the agriculture sector grew by 2.10%, from the growth of 2.05% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2022.

“In the quarter under review, aggregate GDP stood at N65.9trn in nominal terms. This performance is higher when compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 which recorded aggregate GDP of N56.7trn, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 16.12%.”

Oil production surges to 2-year high

The report indicated that oil production rose to an average of 1.55m barrels per day (mbpd) in the fourth quarter of 2023, highest since the third of 2021.

It said the daily oil production of 1.55 million was higher than the daily average production of 1.34mbpd recorded in the same quarter of 2022 by 0.21mbpd and higher than the third quarter of 2023 production volume of 1.45 mbpd by 0.10mbpd.

On the other hand, the non-oil sector grew by 3.07%, which is lower by 1.37% points compared to the rate recorded in the same quarter of 2022 and 0.32% points higher than the third quarter of 2023.

It went on to say the agriculture sector grew by 14.94% year-on-year in nominal terms in Q4 2023, showing a decrease of 3.74% points from the same quarter of 2022.

Nigeria moving towards strata of poor country – Expert

Commenting on the GDP report, a financial expert and senior partner at SPM Professionals, Paul Alaje, noted that the Nigerian economy is far worse today when compared to 2021 or 2019.

Alaje pointed out that the situation had worsened and that the country could no longer be labelled a middle-income country but a poor country “because when you divide the real GDP by the exchange rate, it will give you less than $200bn. Where were we as of 2022? We were close to $500bn, which means more than half of the economy of Nigeria has disappeared into devaluation policies.”

He noted that despite the last seven months seeing income remain the same or increased, the rate at which commodity prices had increased was far more than the income that people were earning.

“What it means is that the purchasing power has significantly battered, and when the purchasing power is battered in a country that is poor, with high level of insecurity, high inflation and poor exchange rate, people will become poor, deprived and hungry.”

He said already, the economy was weak in 2022, thus, the comparison of 2023 with 2022 showed the economy further tanked.

A fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants of England and Wales, Alhaji Kabiru Ahmad, said while the economy improved, the agricultural sector did not do more owing to insecurity.

He said: “There should be a kind of producer price that will be a benchmark for trade in the agricultural commodity which is absent currently. You go to the market and the price is based on what the market brings. Before, at the end of any farming season, there will be an announcement on how much each commodity will be sold so that the farmer will know what he will get in the market.”

A mass protest is ongoing on the streets of Benin City, the capital city of Edo State, organized by Civil Society Organizations (CSO), over the prevailing economic hardship in the country.

Naija News understands that the members of these CSOs stormed the streets displaying various placards, including ones that read “Put an End to Economic Hardship” and “Federal Government, Address the Hunger Crisis in Nigeria Immediately.”

The latest demonstration in Edo follows a similar protest by residents of Ibadan, Oyo State capital, who also voiced their concerns regarding the economic challenges they are facing.

Earlier, a human rights group known as the “Take It Back Movement” also organized a protest in Lagos State to denounce the exorbitant food prices and the overall high cost of living in the nation.

It is worth noting that this protest in Lagos occurred despite the warning issued by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Adegoke Fayoade, on Sunday.

Naija News reports that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has reiterated its commitment to organizing a protest starting tomorrow (Tuesday).

The NLC made the announcement on February 16, stating that the protest would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The reason behind this protest is the alleged failure of the government to fulfil the agreements made on October 2, 2023, after the removal of the fuel subsidy.

This decision comes after a 14-day ultimatum given to the Federal Government to address the prevailing hardships.

Nollywood actress and entrepreneur, Iyabo Ojo has reacted after Lizzy Anjorin failed to show up in court for their hearing.

A video shared by the actress on her Instagram page minutes ago reveals that Lizzy Anjorin did not show up for the court hearing with the said evidence in her possession.

Iyabo Ojo and her lawyer who spoke in the video disclosed that the case has been adjourned till the 10th of April and the court will be serving another order to her colleague.

The mother of two also mocked Lizzy Anjorin that the new order will be pasted everywhere on her wall to bring to her remembrance the date of the hearing, if she fails to accept it. Iyabo Ojo captioned the video:

“April 10th is round the corner……. the court will be serving you once again, Liz, and this time, the court has given the order for it to be pasted everywhere on your wall if you don’t accept it ……. this court se, we must go and you must bring all your evidence ???? by force by fire”

Months back, it was reported that Iyabo Ojo and Lizzy Anjorin stirred the internet by consistently washing their dirty linen publicly.

Iyabo Ojo had shared a video where she was mimicking and mocking Lizzy Anjorin humorously. Lizzy, obviously offended by this went on to reveal some intimate details about Iyabo Ojo, accusing her of promiscuity and being Gistlover, amongst other things.

Following the allegations, Iyabo Ojo threatened a legal action against Lizzy, demanding a public apology or risk paying N500 million for her libelous publication and if her terms were not met, be ready to be sued for N1 billion.

Their fight escalated when Iyabo Ojo made a mockery of Lizzy Anjorin after he was accused of stealing N90k at a jewelry market in Lagos.

Defending herself, Lizzy debunked the reports and blamed it on people like Iyabo trying to set her up.

Watch Iyabo Ojo and her lawyer speak in front of the courthouse below:

 

 

 

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The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has told the federal government to put aside the national pride of striving to achieve local food sufficiency and immediately begin importing food.

The TUC stressed that it is a population that is alive that can celebrate the gains and beauty of any government policy.

Speaking on behalf of the congress, the TUC President, Festus Osifo, during a press conference in Abuja on Monday, said Nigerians are hungry and battling economic hardship, so it is time for the federal government to begin the importation of food in order to mitigate the soaring prices of food across the country.

According to him, Nigerians have never witnessed this level of hardship before, even during military regimes, adding that it is time for the government to jettison policies that are not effective and get capable hands to man the affairs of the country.

“Nigerians must live to see tomorrow before we can understand how beautiful a government policy is. The national pride of striving to achieve food sufficiency locally should be temporarily relaxed. Governments at all levels should immediately purchase sufficient quantities of food items from different parts of the world and share them with vulnerable Nigerians.

“Importing food abroad at this point will assist to reduce the hyper-inflation of food in the country. FG should allow importation of food items for Nigerians consumption within the next two weeks,” Osifo submitted.

The TUC President further called on President Bola Tinubu to, without considering partisanship, ethnicity or tribal issues, strengthen the economic management team of his administration and get them to develop homegrown solutions to the hardship facing the country.

Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has thanked Nigerians for standing in solidarity with him during his travails in the United Kingdom.

Announcing the development, Ekweremadu’s successor and the Senate Minority Whip, Senator Osita Ngwu, detailed that the former Deputy Senate president thanked Nigerians from all works of life for their prayers and support.

Naija News reports that Ngwu stated that the former deputy senate president extended his greetings when he visited him in the United Kingdom.

In a statement issued on Monday in Abuja, the lawmaker representing Enugu West Senatorial District said Ekweremadu, who is currently serving a jail term abroad for organ harvesting, “acknowledged God’s mercy and kindness in his life, accepted his current situation with faith as well as grace, and did not express any sentiment suggesting that he had been forgotten by Nigerians.”

Senator Ngwu expressed shock, suggesting that the public was being led astray by those spreading false information about Ekweremadu.

He said he would never have bothered to provide a rebuttal if it weren’t for the need to safeguard the public from being misled by fake news.

The statement by Ngwu read, “It has come to the attention of the Senate Minority Whip and Senator for the Enugu West District, Distinguished Senator Osita Ngwu, that a malicious story has been circulated by some individuals, who are known for engaging in malicious activities.

“These individuals’ stock-in-trade involves targeting innocent citizens with false accusations and spreading rumours. Their claim that the distinguished Senator Ekweremadu is lamenting that Nigerians have forgotten him in London is completely false.

“The former Deputy President of the Senate holds a special place in the hearts of the people of the Enugu West District. No amount of cheap blackmail or indecent innuendos can alter the fact that he has served my constituents with excellence, and my people pray for his continued well-being and safety.

“I recently visited Senator Ekweremadu and had a lengthy conversation with him. During our meeting, Senator Ekweremadu expressed gratitude for the prayers and overwhelming support and solidarity he has received from Nigerians from all walks of life since his recent ordeal.

“It is worth noting that the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, His Excellency Mr Peter Obi, a close friend of Senator Ekweremadu, was reported to have also denounced the diatribe allegedly published on social media by the nefarious group. Mr Obi cautioned them against hiding behind credible platforms to promote ulterior interests.”