Presidency, Governors Worried Over Rising Dollar Against Naira
The Nigerian Presidency and governors of the 36 states have expressed concern over the rising rate of Dollar against the local currency, the Naira, and insisted that urgent measures should be taken by relevant stakeholders to arrest the drift.
The concern was expressed today at the meeting, in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, of the National Economic Councils (NEC), which has all the governors as members and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as chairman.
The concern came on the heels of a brief presentation by the governor of the Central Banak of Nigeria Mr. Godwin Emefiele, on Forex Policy options.
Members were openly worried over the current situation of the exchange rate and called for an urgent review of the current Forex Policy, especially the gap between interbank and the parallel market rates.
This was even as the CBN Governor assuaged the fears by members, calling for patience and understanding.
He gave assurance that the situation is being closely managed.
This was even as the minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, assured the Council members that Federal Government has a recovery plan that will take Nigeria out of the woods.
He said that consultations on the plan are ongoing to firm-up the plan with clear roles for all the stakeholders and the States.
He told the Council that the plan will address the following:
Agriculture and food security
Energy sufficiency-power and petroleum availability
Improving transportation infrastructure
Industrialization, SMEs, and manufacturing
Stabilization of the macro-economic environment
Also, the minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, reported that eight Accounting Firms have been appointed to start the verification process of the monthly Budget Support Loan Facility based on the approved Fiscal Sustainability Plan by the States.
The agric minister, Audu Ogbe, informed the Council of the massive wheat production in the States of Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi and Zamfara among others.
He said that the States are appealing to the Federal Government to make plans for the purchase of excess wheat to ensure price stability and sustainable production.
Council, thereafter, agreed to discuss and make adequate buy-back arrangements in order to support price stability. [myad]
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that it had disbursed the sum of $2.83 billion for utilization in the critical sectors of the economy between December 2016 and January 2017.
Federal Ministry of Finance has described as a lie, claim by the Governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, that the ministry is withholding statutory allocation due to Ekiti State.
The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and governors of the 36 states of the federation are flexing muscles at each other over the alleged diversion of the refund made to states from the excess charges of Paris Club.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has given new directive to all Deposit Money Banks in the country to henceforth, render their returns in a uniform format, by converting all forex sales and purchases to Niara and US Dollar only.
The Board of Directors of Guaranty Trust Bank plc, has announced the appointment of Mobolaji Lawal as an Executive Director and Babatunde Soyoye as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Bank.
Few days ago, a United States based journalist, Professor Farooq Kperogi wrote on his facebook wall about the existence of a so called “propaganda” group known as Buhari Media Centre. My first thought was that the publication is one of what has clearly become his new found love of attacking the person of President Muhammadu Buhari for whatever reason. But seeing how far the intent of the so-called expose has helped in deceiving gullible Nigerians into believing his hatred, masqueraded as the criticism of the president, I felt the need to set the records straight and tell Nigerians that Kperogi deliberately twisted what is never a secret, to garner more support for his new found love.
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, has said that too much talking, seminars, conferences and other ceremonies have no impact on the welfare of the people living with HIV/AIDS in the country.
The acting Director-General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Mrs. Mariel Rae-Omoh, has rolled out plans to take tourism to the next level, one of which to work with professional bodies, associations and stakeholders.
Like Patience Jonathan, Like Andrew Yakubu, By Olusegun Adeniyi
I need friends who can offer me cash gifts in Euro, Pounds and Dollars.
So, if you don’t hear from me anymore, it is because I have concluded you do not know how to give what true friends give to their friends!
When the late Dele Giwa wrote, more than 30 years ago, that Nigerians have been shocked to the state of “unshockability,” he was basing his thesis on the fact that there is hardly any public protest after revelations of scandal, no matter how huge.
But then, the Yoruba people have a saying that if you face calamity so big that even your tears would not help, you must use humour to deal with the situation.
That, I guess, is what many Nigerians have learnt to do over the years though there is another category of Nigerians who take delight in celebrating their oppressors which is a different matter altogether.
Meanwhile, the lesson from the joke with which I opened the page is that the surest way of “making” stupendous wealth in Nigeria today is to befriend the right kind of people in the right places but such “friends” must also be subversively generous enough to make you a billionaire.
The flip side, however, is that a society with a preponderance of such “beneficial owners” of wealth obtained not from work but rather as “gifts from friends” is doomed.
That unfortunately is the story of Nigeria today.
It is indeed very telling that at a time the federal government is making a song and dance over the oversubscription of its $1 billion Eurobond, one percent of that sum was retrieved from the residence of just one former career public officer who was not even elected.
With the whistle blower policy recently introduced, this may be the season for all ill-treated aides and aggrieved wives to come forward with details of movable and immovable assets got “from their friends” that some fat cats have been hiding from the public.
As I once wrote on this page several years ago, there are inherent lessons in Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” published in her 1974 collection, “The Wind’s Twelve Quarters” that will serve us as a nation, especially in such a time as this.
The major theme in the interesting story – which teaches profound lessons – is the place of morality and how different people within a given society accept certain norms while others would simply walk away. Using Omelas as a metaphor for Nigeria today, we can examine the different aspects of our society and the rot within but that is a task for another day.
On Tuesday, a Federal High Court sitting in Kano presided over by Justice Zainab Abubakar ordered the forfeiture to the federal government of the sum of $9,772,000 and £74,000 recovered from Mr. Andrew Yakubu, a former GMD of NNPC.
Since the case is already in court, we must wait for Yakubu’s side of the story in this incredible country where even “grass cutters” now attend government-sponsored anti-corruption rallies to talk down on the rest of us!
While I commend the Ibrahim Magu-led Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for its tenacity and the efforts that led to the discovery in Yakubu’s house, there is one quick issue here that we must not gloss over: our society is what it is today because we have imbibed the ethos that wealth is not related to work.
So, the corruption we are talking about is far deeper than mere stealing; it is about looking for “miracles” and all sorts of magic formula for illicit “gifts from friends”; after all, what are friends for?
In my presentation titled “Between Waste and Nigerian Work Ethics” at the maiden edition of Pastor Poju Oyemade’s “Platform Nigeria” in Abuja on 1st May 2015, I made allusion to this when I said:
“… many of us know the ‘Okada’ rider of yesterday who now owns a fleet of cars simply because he has worked his way to become a pimp for some politicians who conspired to foist him on the rest of the society either as council chairman or a lawmaker.
“We also know the struggling business man of yesterday who could not even pay his house rent but who is now a subsidy billionaire with Private Jet to boot, just because he is fronting for some unscrupulous powerful political office holders who abuse their public trust.
“Let us not even talk about the low cadre civil servant who has made it big, after being posted to the Pension office, where he feeds fat on the misery of pensioners…”
Considering the damage corruption has done both to our national psyche and socio-economic well-being, some of the questions I have posed in the past remain:
Will the sensational stories we read in the media every day lead to the successful prosecution and conviction of some big fish in the pool of corruption to serve as deterrence to others?
Are institutional mechanisms being put in place to make it difficult for people to fiddle with public funds and easily get away?
What legal/judicial reforms are ongoing to ensure that public officials who steal billions are not asked to pay peanuts in fines to walk free?
When are we going to get to a situation in which being invited to serve in public office would not attract celebrations and all manner of expensive social and religious thanksgivings?
It should worry all of us that because of the “gifts from friends,” Nigeria is now defined by majority of the Seven Social Sins identified by Mahatma Gandhi which are:
– politics without principles
– wealth without work
– pleasure without conscience
– knowledge without character
– commerce without morality
– science without humanity and,
– worship without sacrifice.
However, the real issue for me today is not even the magnitude of the money usually stolen from public treasuries in our country but what the “beneficial owners” do with such money.
That is where the double jeopardy that has become the lot of our people comes in.
After some crooked officials might have cornered to themselves what belongs to the people, the next thing is to lock up such “gifts from friends” either in some bank accounts (home and abroad) or convert them to Dollars and store in some silos or/and overhead/underground tanks.
That way, the money does not work for them or the society.
As I wrote in my 23 June, 2013 piece, “The Craze of Dubai Weddings,” having stored up such illicit treasures, they can afford to:
– mark their birthdays in Toronto
– keep their mistresses in Alaska
– celebrate the weddings of their children in Hong Kong and
– bury their parents in Baghdad.
And when they finish the loot, as they most often do, they then begin to hustle again for contracts or appointments.
I saw many of them at the Villa between 2007 and 2010, men and women of yesterday who came to see my late boss for “just anything.”
These basically are people who cannot turn N10,000 to N10,010–all they know how to do is spend easy money, “the gifts from friends”!
Imagine if Yakubu had taken half of the money he locked up in his safe to Lagos and spread it by investing in many of those young Nigerian serial entrepreneurs who are creating hubs in the growing tech-ecosystem in the country, employing young people like themselves, generating incomes and making profits.
With that, he would have added value to the society, helped to put many of our young citizens to work and on top of that, he would have also be earning huge financial rewards by turning black money into white!
However, like the others like him (and there are still many out there), he had to bury his “talent.”
And now, he must face the consequences!
Email: olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com [myad]