Nigeria’s foreign exchange volatility may linger for a while due to low crude oil production and limited foreign exchange inflows into the country, Daily Trust on Sunday reports.

The development is weighing heavily on the financial standing of Nigeria and its international reputation as a country that is ready for businesses despite the recent assurances by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that all bottlenecks to investment had been removed.

“Africa has moved beyond the false past notions of business disincentivisation and poor adherence to the rule of law. We now fully recognise the nexus between the inflow of investor money and the sanctity of contracts,” Tinubu recently said during his visit to Germany.

But key to boosting investors’ confidence is the seamlessness in repatriation, which every investor doing business in Nigeria would be desirous of. In addition, foreign businesses would see a business environment with strong foreign exchange liquidity and one that guarantees not only a return on investment but predictability of returns.

As at last week, foreign businesses were said to have lost over N900 billion due to naira devaluation in 2023 alone.

Daily Trust on Sunday reports that Nigeria’s currency has suffered massive depreciation against the foreign currency. Exchanging officially at N800, it has recorded over 500 per cent depreciation in the last eight years. This was in addition to the debilitating inflation, which is now at 27  per cent.

At the heart of this is the liquidity challenge in the country’s forex market, which has seen the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) accumulating over $10 billion in forex forwards to commercial banks and businesses operating in Nigeria.

The effect has been much visible in the airline industry, earning Nigeria the notoriety of being the only country blocking the largest chunk of airlines’ $1.6bn blocked funds in Africa.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has been calling out Nigeria over the development, which is said to be responsible for the surge in airfares across international destinations as airlines had to adopt an anticipatory forex rate in pricing their tickets.

Beside the foreign airlines, local carriers are also baring the pangs of forex scarcity, leaving their aircraft stranded abroad while incurring huge demurrage on a daily basis.

Azman Air, for instance, has three of its aircraft stranded abroad. Manufacturers are unable to access foreign exchange to import raw materials. The president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Prof Cyril Osifo, told our correspondent that prices of drugs were on the increase because of the high forex price to import Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs).  He said it was high time Nigeria boosted domestic production.

 Why Nigeria’s crude export not translated into forex liquidity

An analyst, Babatunde Adeniji, said Nigeria’s Letters of Credit had become mere papers to foreigners as they no longer honoured them in doing business with Nigerian companies.

The National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, recently opened up that the Tinubu administration inherited a “bankrupt country” from his predecessor.

“We are facing very serious budgetary constraints. It is okay for me to tell you. It is fine for you to know. We have a very serious situation.

“We have inherited a very difficult country, a bankrupt country, to the extent that we are paying back what was taken. It is serious.

“But this administration is doing its best to meet our requirements, including that of the armed forces,” Ribadu said at the Chief of Defence Intelligence Annual Conference, hinting that the present administration is “paying back what was taken.”

Our correspondent reports that Nigeria’s public debt hit N87trn in the second quarter of 2023, up by 75 per cent from Q1 2023.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) said Nigeria’s total public debt rose to N87.38trillion in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023, recording an increase of 75.29 per cent. It was worsened by what experts call abuse of Ways and Means, which represents the loans taken directly from the CBN Act, and must not exceed five per cent of the previous revenue. But this was largely abused, prompting the Senate to quickly amend the act to increase it to 15 per cent.

For the 2024 budget, the federal government has proposed N26.01trn, with N8.25trn for debt servicing and other parameters as explained by the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Abubakar Bagudu.

“The assumptions include the oil price benchmark, which I said for 2024, we were assuming $73.96, oil production of 1.7 8million barrels a day at the exchange rate of $700.

“Then the inflation of 21 per cent and gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 3.76 per cent. The aggregate expenditure is estimated at N26.01trn for the 2024 budget, which includes statutory transfers of N1.3trn, non-debt recurrent expenditure of N10.26trn, debt service estimated at N8.25trn, as well as N7.78trn being provided for personnel and pension costs.

“Debt service increased because N22.7trn Ways and Means was securitized, meaning that it became a federal government debt at 9per cent.”

Analysts, however, said the parameters might not align with the current macroeconomic realities in the country.

Inflation has crossed 27 per cent; oil production is currently at about 1.3m barrels a day, lower than the OPEC Quota and the exchange rate, which is hovering around N800/$.

Crude swap, a serious trap

There are reports that Nigeria has entered into crude oil swap deals running into billions of dollars by previous governments.

Apart from the fact that Nigeria is not meeting the OPEC quota of 1.7m barrels per day, the ones being supplied currently are said to have been paid for in crude oil swap deals, which the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has promised to terminate.

But data from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) indicated that the NNPCL exchanged crude oil valued at N2.6trn for refined petroleum products in 2021 under the Direct Sale Direct Purchase Agreement (DSDP).

The NNPC allocated a total of 98.92 million barrels of crude oil valued at $7.11bn (N2.73tn) for the local market in 2021. However, no crude was delivered to any of the local refineries in 2021.

“Instead, the NNPC used 95.25 per cent of this crude for crude exchange for products at the international market under the DSDP arrangement, while 4.75 per cent was sold at the international market.

“This may be due to the fact that none of the refineries were operational in 2021. The sum of N2.23tn ($5.85bn) was the actual domestic crude sales receipts in 2021, out of which the sum of N1.64tn ($4.30bn) represents 2021 sales receipts, while the sum of N588.68bn ($1.55bn) relates to settlement of prior year receivables,” the report stated.

The report also showed that the NNPCL lifted and exported a total of 24.84 million barrels of crude oil valued at $1.70bn on behalf of the federation in 2021.

It stated that the sum of $1.58bn was traced to the respective bank accounts as the actual sales receipt in 2021, of which the sum of $1.55bn represents 2021 sales receipts, while the sum of $24.32m relates to settlement of prior year receivables.

While experts said this was not new in the international crude oil market, they said Nigeria must be able to ramp up crude oil production to service the local refineries, which are expected to come on stream in a few weeks time like the Dangote Petrochemical Refinery, the Port Harcourt Refinery and other refineries, which the federal government has promised to revive, as well as the tens of modular refineries being licensed across the country.

An oil and gas expert, Jasper Nwachukwu, said the crude oil market was a future market, which means that supplies of months to come must have been bid for by the prospective buyers.

But he said Nigeria was facing a forex shortage despite being an oil-producing state because of mismanagement.

The expert said the NNPCL, which should have been the saviour for Nigeria in terms of relieving the country in its present forex liquidity crisis, was also not “liquid.”

Nwachukwu said, “Crude oil is a future market. Oil of the coming months has already been sold to refineries; that is why eventually, if they can’t make it they have to declare a force majeure, but besides that, in the Nigerian context, I think the problem is that we are spending too much money on debt servicing. We have borrowed so much money during the last administration and we are expending almost 90 per cent of our incomes to pay for debt servicing.

“Secondly, the NNPC is also not very liquid. They have to export cash calls from their JV partners. So these cash calls are coming from that same point, and most importantly of course is the issue of corruption, not knowing how much oil we are selling on a daily basis. You may know what you are producing but you don’t know how much is sold because part of it is stolen by oil thieves. Essentially, you can only guess and your guess work will turn out to be false.

“Then we are also not able to meet our OPEC quota. We are short of our OPEC quota by almost 300,000 barrels a day, so that is also a huge amount of money you are going to get.

“Until these characters in government find a way to spend less because they are also spending more than they are earning to maintain their lifestyle – buying SUVs of N150m, spending money to buy a yacht, and so on.

“We are not earning the amount of money we should be earning from our oil, whatever we earn is used on servicing debts, and we are still borrowing more.”

‘Govt running on life support’

The expert said the implication of not making enough money from the sale of crude oil is that the government cannot meet its obligations to the citizens.

“At the end of the day, we will have a government that is not well conversant with what it’s supposed to do. The government is running on life support, like it is in an intensive care unit.

“You want to be throwing money at every opportunity, even the ones that don’t need money,” he added.

On the solution, he said, “I can’t tell you what I think is the solution because I don’t know it myself. I don’t see forex coming down soon because it is a business for some highly placed government guys. They jack up their prices for the common man and they want it to go on.

“There are refineries in Europe that need this oil; and you know refineries cannot shut down, so they are waiting for crude oil, and they are on 24/7. So it (advance crude oil sale) is an international way of doing business and not peculiar to only Nigeria. The little money we get is used to service debt and not to boost production.”

Dr Garuba Dauda, another oil and gas analyst and expert, said, “I am of the view that we need to do serious thinking on the forex liquidity thing. Why Nigeria’s situation seems to have defied solution is that we are facing artificial scarcity caused by hoarding. Privileged people are buying up dollars in circulation to secure themselves in the face of an increasing fall in the value of the naira. This practice is putting pressure on forex demand, thus compounding the situation.

“Nigeria needs to address this issue by adopting the approach of Singapore. The approach is buying up the dollars that pass through the CBN, while denying speculators access to information about the country’s foreign/forex reserves,” he said.

A chartered accountant and financial risk expert, Olabode Afolayan, said to optimise the forex earnings, citizens must cut their appetite for foreign made goods and also de-dollarise the economy.

He said importation was putting so much pressure on the naira, adding that there should be a change of mindset by Nigerians.

“We need to have a change of mindset and be more patriotic. We need to buy more homemade items than importation. Although people are not buying Nigerian made things due to quality, we need to do what the Chinese did by going local.

“We need to start producing our own televisions, our engineering students in the universities should be able to build local technology for this, we need to start manufacturing en masse,” he advised.

He also urged the government to clamp down on Nigerians hoarding the dollars as they are very powerful. The government is doing more to maintain momentum against the dollar.

“We need not sabotage the effort of the government; and the government should talk to those hoarding the dollar because they are the big boys of Nigeria and not ordinary Nigerians.

“When they hoard, the government should clamp down on them because the government is doing everything to make naira appreciate by clearing the forex backlogs and clearing trapped funds of foreign airlines. I learnt the government cleared some of this outstanding issue; hence the naira appreciated,” he added.

Forex liquidity rising – CBN

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso, speaking in Lagos on recently during the 58th annual Bankers Dinner, said there was an improvement in the forex market liquidity.

He said, “We have already witnessed improvements in FX market liquidity in recent weeks as the market responded positively to tranche payments, which have been made to 31 banks to clear the backlog of FX forward obligations.

“We have been subjecting these payments to detailed verification to ensure that only valid transactions are honoured. In a properly functioning market, it is reasonable to expect significant FX liquidity, with daily trade potentially exceeding $1.0bn.

“We envision that with discipline and focused commitment, foreign exchange reserves can be rebuilt to comparable levels with similar economies.”

[DailyTrust]

During a panel discussion at the ongoing COP28 climate change conference on Saturday in Dubai, President Bola Tinubu emphasised the need for alternative energy investments for African countries to transition away from fossil fuels conveniently.

“How do you tell a grandmother to stop using firewood to prepare her food?” Tinubu asked. “It is for me to invest in solar energy, alternative energy.”

The Nigerian leader said that while there is an urgent need to address climate change and “heal the bleeding earth,” African countries also desperately need new investments to help them adapt to the global transition to renewable energy.

“Yes, we have the market and sufficient housing that you can electrify with solar panels. There is iron ore; there is investment there, too,” Tinubu said.

“Risk management is very key for Africa. The opportunities must be translated sooneest. We are moving forward with urgency, and we will maximize the value given in return for those resources,” he added.

The president, during the panel on African Green Industrialization hosted by the COP28 Presidency and the President of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, stressed that Nigeria and Africa require significant investments in clean energy infrastructure in order to fully move away from dependence on fossil fuels.

Without providing alternatives, he suggested it was unrealistic to expect citizens to change entrenched habits.

“Global manufacturers must partner with us to invest in the health of our collective environment,” Tinubu urged.

“Africa doubles as an unrivaled opportunity in this respect. We are removing all obstacles that are inhibiting progress as Africa’s largest economy. The investment environment is becoming cleaner and better.”

Tinubu said Africa contributes the least to climate change but faces an outsized economic burden from the global transition to renewable energy and green technologies.

He added that the continent must not be victimized amid the disruptions caused by climate change mitigation efforts worldwide.

“But how will Africa not be a victim of all these changes? How do we get value for our resources. We all agree that the earth is crying for healing, but how do you tell a grandmother to stop using firewood to prepare her food? It is for me to invest in solar energy, alternative energy.

“Here, you must encourage investment, and equally consider: how would this investment affect us? Yes, we have the market and sufficient housing that you can electrify with solar panels. There is iron ore; there is investment there, too. Risk management is very key for Africa. The opportunities must be translated sooneest. We are moving forward with urgency, and we will maximize the value given in return for those resources,” the President affirmed.

Tinubu affirmed Nigeria’s commitment to urgent climate action but said real progress requires reciprocal investments in Africa to help countries leverage their massive potential to contribute to the new global green economy.

COP28, otherwise known as the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, is the 28th UN Climate Change conference being held from November 30 to December 12 at the Expo City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

COP conferences are held for governments to agree on policies to limit rising global temperature and adapt to impacts associated with climate change.

Six months after the Federal Government announced the removal of fuel subsidy, the hardship occasioned by that decision is yet to abate.

This is also as the citizens continue to await the palliatives promised by both the Federal Government and the various state governments.

While the Federal Government announced a N35,000 wage award, different state governments have also pledged sums ranging from N10,000 to N25,000.

The impact of the volatile exchange rate has also not helped the common masses.

DAILY POST reports that the prices of staple food items, transportation and other essential services have continued to skyrocket.

The government had promised to take critical steps, including rolling out Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, vehicles.

However, the citizens groan that none of the promises of the government has come to fruition.

Transportation

Due to the high cost of the Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, popularly known as petrol, transportation fare tripled across the country. With the petrol price hovering at about N600 to N650, there is no hope in sight that transport fare would come down anytime soon, a development that is eating deep into the pockets of the citizens.

President Bola Tinubu on August 1, revealed that his administration was making provision to invest N100 billion between to acquire 3,000 units of 20-seater buses powered by CNG.

Tinubu, who spoke on the widespread economic strain that befell the country following the removal of the petrol subsidy, said his administration placed a high priority on enhancing welfare and living conditions of the citizens.

He said the FG approved infrastructure support fund for the states, and now plans to invest N100 billion in procuring CNG buses for mass transportation.

“This new infrastructure fund will enable states to intervene and invest in critical areas and bring relief to many of the pain points as well as revamp our decaying healthcare and educational infrastructure.

“The fund will also bring improvements to rural access roads to ease evacuation of farm produce to markets. With the fund, our states will become more competitive and on a stronger financial footing to deliver economic prosperity to Nigerians,” he said.

However, DAILY POST observed that commuting across the country is becoming more difficult as the transportation fare continues to skyrocket without any noticeable intervention by the government.

A taxi driver operating in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, Mr Jibila Audu told DAILY POST on Saturday that transportation fare would continue to soar if the price of fuel fails to come down soon.

According to him, despite tripling transport fare, “those in the business are still not making profit due to the cost of fuel.

“Life generally has not been easy for anybody since this government came in. Three days after the president took over power on May 29, everything changed. I was working with a construction company and doing very well before this government came in.

“Now this (taxi driving) is what I am doing to survive. And I can tell you that there is no gain in it. By the time you buy fuel for about N50,000 and it takes you only on a few trips, you will come back to realise you made no gain”, he lamented.

Cash transfer

The President had also in his maiden Independence Day broadcast to Nigerians on October 1, 2023, announced the cash transfer programme which, according to him, would target vulnerable citizens.

Thereafter, on October 17, he launched the distribution of the N25,000 per month to 15 million households.

The conditional cash transfer, according to the government, is one of 15 items in the Memorandum of Understanding between the Federal Government and the Organised Labour on October 2, 2023.

Speaking on the situation, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Ondo State and political analyst Adebayo Mathew told DAILY POST that the citizens were yet to receive any cash transfer from the FG.

“I am yet to see or hear of anyone who is benefiting from this cash transfer programme. I am beginning to see it as a scam.

“The level of poverty in the city is becoming something else and all our government can do is to be telling us promises.

“Right now, you can’t buy anything in the market, not even drugs. I’m talking of essential goods and services that nobody can survive without.

“When was the last time you heard people talking about launch? Anyone who can afford breakfast and dinner is obviously rich.

Majority of Nigerians survive on one meal per day. This is not what Nigerians bargained for. Yet some people are there buying exotic cars and only give fake promises to those who elected them”, Adebayo said.

Local refineries

Many have argued the refineries would have been fixed before the removal of subsidy. But the government has assured that the Port Harcourt refinery will commence operations by December 2023.

According to the federal government, the cost of petrol would drop when the local refinery finally commenced operation.

However, a cross section of Nigerians have expressed scepticism on the possibility of the refinery commencing operation in 2023, saying it could be a “mere promise as usual”.

Some Nigerians, who spoke with our correspondent, expressed pessimism, saying it is impossible for the refinery which is currently under rehabilitation to commence operation before the end of the year.

According to an On Air Personality working with Jordan FM Ushafa, Abuja, Mr Kelvin Adanu, “even if the refinery is commissioned this month, it will not produce anything.

“It is over a year now since former President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the Dangote Refinery. Up till this last month of 2023, the refinery is still not working.

“We are used to all their lies. Moreover, it is not a guarantee that if the refinery begins to work, the price of fuel would come down. The best way to endure this government is not to expect anything. It is when expectations are not met that frustration comes in.”

But Comrade Jare Ajayi, the National Publicity Secretary, Afenifere Worldwide told DAILY POST that Nigerians ought to remain hopeful and wait until the year ends.

“For us, we don’t want to say much on this yet. We are hopeful that the promise will be fulfilled before December 31. It is after that, we will issue a statement”, he said.

While urging the FG to stick to its deadline, Ajayi expressed confidence that the high cost of petrol which had led to the soaring price of commodities in the market would crash when the local refineries commence production.

[DailyPost]

What is your academic background and what do you do for a living?

My name is Alvin Ilenre. I studied History and International Studies at Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, Oyo State. I’ve been out of jobs since February 2022. So, I just hustle basically. Before then, I had done several things here and there but that’s it for me. Those were things I did before. Right now, I’m unemployed. That’s it for who I am for now.

You were seen recently in a viral video burning some documents, which you described as your certificates. Did you truly burn the certificates?

Yes, of course. I burnt my certificates. I burnt them because I was going through some things and I needed to give myself closure. That was why I burnt them. 

What were the certificates you burnt?

I didn’t know where I dropped my secondary school certificate amid all these, but the certificates I burnt were my university, primary school leaving, and National Youth Service Corps certificates. Also, there were certificates I didn’t burn. I need to state that I’m a minister of God, a trained minister even though I won’t mention my ministry. I didn’t burn the certificates from the ministry, because I was impacted by the grace of God over there so, I never burnt those. But I burnt the educational certificates that are useless in the country.

What were the things you were going through that made you destroy your academic certificates?

The reason why I burnt the certificates is not far-fetched from the kind of society we are in and a lot of people in the country can relate to these things that we’re talking about here. It is frustrating being in a country where your certificate is not regarded. We’re in a country where a certificate has been bastardised. You know, we behave like we don’t know what’s happening whereas the country is decaying. I have a lot of points but I’ll mention a few.

First of all, I graduated from school and I wanted to get a job, but someone was telling me to go and bring N2.5m. Where will I get that from? Where should I get it from? Where will I get N2.5m to get a job? If I had that money with me wouldn’t I start a business, or maybe go outside the country, to one African country where electricity is steady, and start a business? You can’t start a business in this country and your millions will not go down the drain.

Two, I’ve had issues with people, friends, especially female friends, who told me that they were offered jobs on the condition that they would have sexual relationships with the employers or whoever wanted to make it happen. Jobs are not got with credibility, credence, and authenticity again. It is now who can sleep their way to employment. These are things that are happening.

Are you not bothered that you may need the certificates you destroyed one day?

At least, I went to school and it was only my certificates that I burnt. If I approach an employer for a job and they doubt my qualifications, they can go to the university. The university will prove that I graduated from the school. At least, I am better than some persons whose studentships cannot be authenticated by the universities they claim to have attended. So, those are the things we’re talking about. It is sickening; I’m a person who likes doing things the right way, but when you want to do things the right way in this country, you are seen as a fool and are neglected. These are decays in society that we’re not talking about. Military jobs are by slots; then, what are we talking about?

Private businesses are running out of the country. Even when you want to do business, you’re not even sure because there is no light, no road, no basic infrastructure. So that’s the thing. And I’m not the only one on this table, we have a lot of young people on this table who can attest to what I’m talking about. So, that’s part of the reason. I will tell you my mind; let’s shake all the tables and speak truth to power. How many of them (politicians) in power truly have (academic) results? You’ll go to school for years in Nigeria – five years, six years, without graduation. However, their children are taken abroad for studies. When they go abroad and finish in time at the same age when you’re still languishing in school, they’ll get jobs in the civil service and get level 12. When you finally graduate after many years, you’ll now struggle to get a government job and when you do, what you’d get is level eight. Let’s look at our educational system and talk to ourselves.

Why do you not think you can still get a job?

Get which job? Impossible! I’m done! If I can’t create a job myself, so be it. I’m telling you that for 13 years, I’ve not used a certificate for anything. If you look at the video that went viral, I didn’t look hungry. Yes, it’s not too rosy because I left my job just about a year ago. If I have a problem in my life right now, maybe a problem with paying rent, I have to squat with whoever I can squat with. But I know myself, I can hustle and within a short period, be back on my feet. Is it a job that you have to bribe your way through to get? Don’t you see what’s going on in the country? We are setting up this country for doom and that’s courtesy of our leaders.

Don’t you consider setting your academic certificates ablaze too extreme?

I don’t consider burning my certificates to be extreme. We need to make a statement; we need to be heard; we need to be hard; we need to let the people know. I’m not speaking for myself alone. Some people have burnt themselves because of how tough this country is. Some people have swallowed poison, and many people have died of depression. I’m not speaking for myself alone; I did that for millions of Nigerian youths who are jobless. I don’t think it is extreme; if anyone feels that it is extreme, they should not burn theirs, but I’ve burnt mine.

Did you do what you did out of frustration and anger?

Well, it’s a mixture of both but that is done already.

Are you not bothered that you may regret your action?

I’ll never regret it. I’ll never regret it because I didn’t burn the knowledge I have, but I only burnt the certificates. Also, I think it is high time we let the generation behind us know that unnecessary attachment of importance to certificates without knowledge should end. We have people who just want to have certificates without having anything in their heads; that should stop. Let us burn all the certificates and get real education.

If I ever need the certificates again, I’ll print others from a third party and you have to collect them. I’ll just have to contact a friend, who has a certificate to show me his, go ahead to print, then give it to whoever I want to give it to. After giving them (employer) and they think I didn’t go to school, they should go and check the records; they’re there. At least, my academic records are going to be seen, unlike some people whose records are missing.

Does burning your academic certificates not mean that the energy, effort, and money spent to obtain them was a waste?

No, they’re not a waste from my point of view. Waste can be put in different perspectives but this particular subject and action cannot be described as a waste. It is also not a waste of money. We must emphasise knowledge, we must give relevance to what is in someone’s head over what they have on paper. We must emphasise and preach that gospel.

What was the reaction of your parents and close friends when you decided to burn the certificates?

Fortunately, I happen to be the son of an activist, Alfred Ilenre, and I guess that the blood runs deep and we cannot just sit and watch corruption, irrelevance, and injustice thrive in Nigeria. My father is deceased now, but from what he passed on to me and what I have learned while growing up, we speak the truth about what we’re going through and we’re not cowards. If my father were alive, the Alfred Ilenre that I know, who was a journalist and an activist, would be proud of me. He would sit me down and congratulate me. My mum, on the other hand, who’s alive, feels a little bit sad that I burnt my certificates, but I’ve sent people to speak to her. However, she has always known who I am and that is the same way with those who have always known me. They know that it is not something that I cannot do. I should have burnt them a long time ago and I feel this is even late.

Do you think burning your certificates will prompt the government to make better decisions in the interest of the youth?

Burning the certificates, I believe, will sensitise the people and make the government aware of certain things that are not being done rightly. See, I know that our government is stone-hearted, but at the same time, they have a conscience. As I earlier mentioned, this is beyond me. We’re making consultations; I have sacrificed my certificates and I’ve spoken to other people. We want to sensitise Nigerian youths to certain important things, call for better knowledge and make them see it better. This issue of certificates and education in Nigeria to me is like weaponising illiteracy in the life of the poor man, whereas, the children of the rich are sent abroad to be well educated and get the right knowledge, while the children of the poor in Nigeria get certificates that their children will come back to lord over. The government may not do anything now because it is their handiwork, but with consistency in advocacy and showing our dissatisfaction, they’ll be forced to do it in the future or the people will force them to do it.

What can the government do better?

Nigeria’s educational sector has to be better; it is the foundation. The curriculum used in Nigeria is a mess. We have to trash it and adopt a new one. We have to sensitise our teachers to avoid strike actions like a plague. All the strikes they embark on are just greedy actions; they don’t affect the students positively. We need to have people who are truly capable as ministers of education. Ministerial positions, especially for a sector as critical as education and every other sector should not be assigned because of bias. Let our minister be someone who has risen through the ranks in the ministry, someone with good antecedents to fix the educational system. That is the way to make things right in Nigeria. We should not have someone who’s blockheaded as minister of education or someone who doesn’t understand how the ministry works. Things can’t get better that way.