International scammers were believed to have duped the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of the sum of $441,000 out of which $251,000 was blocked and recovered. The incidence has resulted in the suspension of a CBN’s Deputy Governor of the Financial System Surveillance, Joseph Nnanna. Also suspended, as announced by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele for failing to follow financial regulations and due process, were four deputy directors of the apex bank. Information reaching us indicated that out of the total amount the bank was duped, it was $190,000 that the fraudsters were able to cash. It was gathered that two of the scammers have been arrested in Dubai in the United Arab Emirate and are currently being questioned by investigators. From their modus operandi, the scammers apparently timed the execution of the fraud to take place when the CBN governor and other deputy governors were out of the country. The suspended senior officials of the bank were seen to have derelicted against the bank’s regulations regarding respond to spam emails which they ought to first cross-check to ascertain the authenticity of the mails. It is said that CBN has stringent payment process before authorising the release of funds and that those officials authorised the release of the funds when the governor and several senior officials of the bank were on a flight to China last month. The deputy directors affected by the suspension include the deputy director in charge of payment, the deputy director trade and exchange department, and the deputy director in the office of the governor, who heeded Nnanna’s directive to pay when they themselves ought to know CBN’s payment due process. A statement posted on CBN website only stated that the bank had uncovered and aborted fraud without giving details. The four-paragraph CBN statement, signed by the Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okoroafor, and titled, ‘CBN Uncovers and Aborts Fraud,’ reads: “A highly sophisticated plot to defraud the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by some criminal minded elements has been uncovered and aborted by the bank. “Although preliminary investigations so far have not revealed any accomplices within the CBN, management has decided to place all key personnel involved in the transaction on suspension. “This is to ensure a full and unfettered investigation. “This incidence has been reported to relevant authorities. The CBN wishes to assure the general public that the security of the bank remains intact.” Hackers have been on the prowl lately breaching accounts of banks around the world. Recently, hackers breached Bangladesh Bank’s systems and attempted to steal nearly $1 billion from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Though a typo error by the hackers aborted their $1billion heist, they however netted more than $80 million before the cyber heist was uncovered. The hackers appeared to have stolen Bangladesh Bank’s credentials for the SWIFT messaging system, which banks around the world use for secure financial communication. They then bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with about three dozen requests to move money from the Bangladesh Bank’s account there to entities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20 million, to a Sri Lankan non-profit organization was held up because the hackers mis-spelled the name of the NGO, Shalika Foundation, prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction. [myad]
A helicopter described in security circle as ‘mysterious’, flew over, and raised security concern in Opialu Village in Edemoga District of Okpokwu Local Government Area of Benue State. The security siege mentality in the highly populated village is not unconnected with the appearance of a similar helicopter shortly before the recent mass killing in Agatu District in the same Benue State. Information reaching us said that two occupants of the ‘strange’ helicopter which barely touched the grounds at the St. Theresa LGEA Primary School at Opialu at about 5 pm on March 10th, waved their hands at mainly pupils who were playing football on the mission ground. The helicopter, which did not land, was said to have been close enough for the pupils and others who ran towards it to see that one of the two occupants wore an orange colour dress. An eye witness account said that the helicopter tried to land twice, came so close and then zoomed off and went away only to return. Chief Emmanuel Onuh, the Chairperson of the Opialu Community Development Association reported the matter to the Divisional Police Headquarters at Okoga. The eye witness quoted the number of the helicopter as AB-ANA. It was suspected that the helicopter is one of the de-commissioned aircraft, either of the Nigerian Air force or one of the charter companies. Daniel Ojo, the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Okpoga, the headquarters of the Okpokwu Local Government Area did not pick his phone today after several attempts but police sources at Okoga confirmed that a report had been lodged at the station. The police said that the community has been placed on alert even as they warned against taking the law into their own hand. It was learnt that the police had specifically drawn the attention of the community to anything strange and which could be a bomb on the farms or within it, asking the local chief to, in such instance, alert the police for action. [myad]
Northern Christians under the umbrella of Northern States Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have alleged that more than 1,000 teenage girls in the North have been subjected into Kaduna shortly after the election of new executive members of the association that there have been increased cases of abduction and forceful marriage of underaged girls in the region.
He warned traditional rulers and religious leaders in the region not to encourage forceful marriage of innocent underage girls against their wish, saying that that such practice is a violation of the constitutional rights of the girls and the Nigerian laws.
Rev Pam challenged the traditional and religious leaders to lead campaigns against underage forced marriages, noting that such practices have a disastrous impact on the education, health and emotional well being of the girls.
Rather than forcing the girls into early marriage, the new Northern CAN Chairman called on the traditional rulers and government in the region to send the young girls to school to enable them secure a better future.
He also called on security agencies to be proactive in such cases and ensure that perpetrators of such crime against humanity are brought to justice.
On Nigeria joining the Arab nations in the fight against terrorism, the Christian body urged the Federal Government to come out clean and explain to Nigerians the modalities involved in the coalition, and to ensure that their lives and property are guaranteed. (Channelstv, News Express).
President of the United States of America, Barack Obama has asked Presidential contenders to the White House to stop the insults in their campaigns. His call came a day after a rally by Donald Trump was called off amid clashes.
Obama said candidates should not resort to “insults” and “certainly not violence against other Americans”.
Obama, who will be standing down next January following November’s presidential election, was speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Dallas on Saturday.
He said: “What the folks who are running for office should be focused on is how we can make it even better – not insults and schoolyard taunts and manufacturing facts, not divisiveness along the lines of race and faith.”
Trump, who leads the race for the Republican nomination, cancelled his Chicago rally after fighting broke out between his supporters and protesters. His rivals and others have accused him of using inflammatory rhetoric.
Yesterday, Trump suffered heavy defeats in Republican caucuses in Washington DC and Wyoming.
The clashes at Trump’s Chicago rally on Friday began more than an hour before the event was due to start, and continued after it was cancelled.
Yesterday Trump campaigned in Ohio, one of several key states – also including Florida and Ohio – holding primaries on Tuesday. In Dayton, Ohio, he was briefly surrounded by Secret Service agents on stage after a man tried to breach the security cordon.
Trump has taken a strong anti-immigrant stance, promising to build a “great wall” at the border with Mexico.
Commenting on relations between Muslims and America earlier this week, he said: “Islam hates us.”
Speaking to Fox News after Friday’s events in Chicago, Trump denied fostering division.
“I represent a large group of people that have a lot of anger,” he said. “There is tremendous anger out there on both sides.”
Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, have both called the incident “sad”.
Texas Senator Cruz accused Trump of creating “an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discourse.”
Rubio and another Republican challenger, John Kasich, suggested they might not rally behind Mr Trump if he wins the nomination.
Rubio said it was “getting harder every day” to keep his promise to unite behind the eventual Republican nominee.
Kasich said Trump’s rhetoric “makes it very difficult” to support him.
On Saturday, Cruz won a convincing victory in the Wyoming caucus, while Rubio narrowly defeated Kasich in Washington DC. Trump came a distant third in both contests.
Cruz also won on the island territory of Guam.
In the Democratic race. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is continuing his challenge against frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton won the first ever Democrats’ vote in the Northern Mariana Islands. [myad]
Federal Government has declared total war on pipeline vandals and the sabotures of power infrastructure that have combined to drastically reduce power generation/transmission as well as fuel supplies thereby inflicting untold hardship on Nigerians. In a statement in Abuja today, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the repeated attacks on oil and gas pipelines and the willful shutdown of power facilities by protesters amount to economic sabotage which no government will tolerate. ”Vandals, whatever their motives are, cannot and will not be treated with kid gloves because their actions constitute a clear and present danger to the nation’s economic, social and political well-being. The attack on the Forcados Export Terminal that has affected gas production by oil firms and reduced gas supply to power generating plants and the shutdown of the Utorogu gas plant are totally condemnable and cannot be allowed to continue. ”Also, while this Administration will not do anything to abridge the constitutional rights of any individual or group to carry out protests, it will also not tolerate a situation in which anyone will hide under the guise óf legitimate protests to sabotage power infrastructure. The shutdown of the national transmission facility in Osogbo and the Ikeja Disco by some unionists amount to economic sabotage.” Lai Mohammed said that the government is not unaware that as it steps up the fight against corruption, corruption will vigorously fight back in many forms, including the destruction/sabotage of key national infrastructure to make the government look bad. ”However, nothing will make this government to slow down in its anti-corruption fight and no one who is corrupt will be spared.” The Minister appealed to Nigerians to join hands with the government to check the activities of the unscrupulous and unpatriotic elements who have taken it upon themselves to continuously work against the interest of the people. ”When oil and gas facilities are vandalized, the impact is felt directly by Nigerians. When power infrastructure is sabotaged for whatever reasons, Nigerians bear the brunt. While those actions may be aimed at discrediting the government, those who pay the price are the vast majority of innocent, law-abiding and well-meaning Nigerians, not just the vandals or the saboteurs. This is why Nigerians must not allow the few recreants behind these attacks to hold sway.” Lai Mohammed said that power situation is gradually improving as generation has now increased to about 4,000MW even as the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has assured that the prevailing fuel queues will gradually ease in the next few days. [myad]
There is today in Nigeria an entire generation of Nigerian-passport wielding men and women who do not actually know, to borrow Achebe’s words that indeed “there was once a country”. These children born in a season of austerity, and raised during the years that the locusts ate, have become angry citizens. They are angry because they live in a country that makes them feel less worthy than the human standard. The only Nigeria that they know is a country that makes them feel ashamed of their own origins. Many of them have enjoyed the privilege of foreign education and exposure to some of the best traditions in other parts of the world, but when they return to their own country, right from the airport, the snow of failure and inefficiency strikes them in the face, leaving them with no option but to wonder quo vadis Nigeria? It is the same question that their parents asked and the tragedy is that their own children except something else happens, are likely to ask exactly this same old and vexed question.
The angst of this young generation is made worse when they are told that Nigeria was not always like this. In their late 20s to thirties, these children have only known that Nigeria where fuel scarcity is a fact of daily life, and part of the mechanism of survival is to know how to draw fuel with your mouth, or negotiate black market purchase of fuel, while lugging jerry cans, either at the fuel station or a roadside corner where you cannot be sure of the quality of fuel- all of that in a country that is the world’s sixth largest producer of crude oil. These children have only known a country where the roads are bad, services are sub-standard, people are mean, criminality is rife, and electricity is available once in a blue moon.
What they know is a country where the pastors and malams are better known for lying, swearing, cheating, calling the name of God in vain. In their Nigeria, public and private officials are lazy, and unproductive, they just want to reap, and they have sucked the country so dry, her glands are wasted, flat, going South and no more presentable, the balloon has suffered a blow out, even the blind can see that this is so. These angry children are no longer proud of the green passport; because the Constitution allows dual citizenship, they’d rather grab the citizenship of another country, and remain linked to Nigeria only by blood, and that is the case because they have parents who would not want them to de-link completely, but if they don’t, their own children and their own children after them, are already being lost to countries where things work, where the basic necessities of life are taken for granted and where the future is not a distant, unknown, and impossible destination.
The anger and the nonchalance of this generation of Nigerians is the pain and the agony of an older generation that knew a different country before all things went kaput and Nigeria became a byword for the unhinged, the dark, the ugly and the regrettable. Our generation and the generation before us knew a different country. And because that is so, memory is an affliction, a source of torment, nostalgia and regret, more so as that distant past now seems so unattainable not because distance often makes the past look better, but because in Nigeria, the past is sorrily idyllic. Those who lived in that other country and are still alive could not have forgotten so soon, because to forget something that important is to self-deny, it is to pretend, it is to abuse, it is in all, an act of pitiable abnegation.
How could we have forgotten? How can anyone possibly forget? That this was once a country where Nigerians felt at home in virtually any part of the country. Igbos lived peacefully in the North, and Fulani herdsmen were at peace with other Nigerians, and there was no issue with the planting of yams or the grazing of cattle. In this same country, Southerners lived for decades in the North, acquired property and spoke the language of their hosts. We grew up knowing Baba Kaduna, Daddy Kano, Mama Kafanchan, Uncle Porta, just as persons from the East and the South South contested for elective positions in the West and won. There was a civil war yes, and things began to change but even after the war, it was never this bad. Nigerians from the South still went on national assignment in the North, Christians and Muslims tried to live together in peace, but today, things have fallen apart.
There is no open civil war, but this country is at war on all fronts, the worst fronts being the ethnic, the religious and the political, and these post-civil war children just can’t understand why the generations of their fathers and grandmothers can’t run an efficient country. They have been taught in school that every nation has problems, but leadership is about managing those problems and building a happy nation. They hear about the big names of Nigerian history, the statesmen who fought for independence, the Amazons who defended the place of women in national decision making processes, the accomplished scientists, the literati and cultural workers, but the historical figures who have made the biggest impression on them are the ones who ruined the nation with their acts of omission and commission.
In this same country, the Naira used to be at par with the pound and was for many years stronger than the dollar. So strong was the Naira that many Nigerians, including the lower middle class could afford to travel to London on Friday evening, attend a party in London on Saturday, attend church service on Sunday, check out one or two mistresses in paid-for flats in different parts of London, and return to Nigeria early enough on Monday morning to be able to go to work. All that was no big deal. Everyone in London knew the Nigerians. They were the biggest spenders and they threw the best parties. There was Nigeria Airways; owned and operated by the Nigerian government and it was one of the best airlines in Africa. Its pilots were rated among the best in the world. Its safety record was superb. And it was affordable. It was the pride of the nation. Within the country, Nigeria Airways was also efficient. A trip from Lagos to Calabar in those days was just N44! Students enjoyed rebates too.
In this same country, once upon a time, public transportation was impressive. In Lagos for example, the public transportation system was almost exactly a version of what they have in London. This may sound like something being made up to the younger generation, but it is nothing but the truth. The railway system worked too, and one of the most prestigious jobs was to be a railway staff. That same Nigerian Railway Corporation that is now a parody of its former self, used to link up the entire country and it helped to build cities and villages, as the various major train stations became commercial centres. Today, railway transportation looks like something we are trying to reinvent.
Once upon a time in this same country, those who sent their children abroad did so majorly out of choice, not necessity, because Nigerian schools were among the best in the continent and the world. Teachers from different parts of the world, the best and the brightest, sought employment in Nigerian schools. The Naira was strong, investors -both commercial and intellectual – trooped to this country in droves and they enriched us in many ways. The schools were well-equipped; they attracted students and teachers based on their reputation.
Parents sent their own children to their alma mater out of loyalty, and regard for tradition. That pattern of grandfather, father and son attending the same secondary school seems to have ended; the public schools in Nigeria have failed, the missionary schools of old have been destroyed by hostile government take-over, back in the hands of the missions, the destruction is yet to be fully corrected. The younger generation reflects on all this: mostly products of private schools, they can’t understand why a country that still prides itself as the giant of Africa cannot run a decent education system or provide jobs for the products of its school system.
In this same county, we used to have industrial estates. In Lagos, Apapa, Ikeja and Isolo were industrial estates. In Kaduna, Jos, and Enugu, manufacturing companies created jobs and wealth. We had uncles and aunties who used to do shifts in many factories and this country produced things: from refrigerators to bulbs to vehicles to metals to books, to textiles to shoes. Sad: many of those factories have become churches! In those days, if you went into a bookshop, you could not miss the mint-fresh smell of the books on display. I miss that smell. There are fewer bookstores today and the books no longer smell the same, because by the time they are imported and passed through dirty containers and the hands of thieving handlers, the books lose their soul.
Once upon a time in this same country, there was so much hope about tomorrow. Salaries were paid as and when due. State governments offered students bursaries and scholarships. School was attractive because the teachers were dedicated and they were smart. At the university level, the government provided subsidized tuition and feeding; the rooms were kept clean by staff, the libraries were well-stocked; there was light and water and town-gown relationship was just fine. In the larger society, the present regime of no water, no fuel, no electricity was unheard of. You may have heard of the British standard, there was in fact at a time, the Nigerian standard, and this was the standard that other Africans looked up to. This same country dominated the continent, morally, intellectually and culturally. Financially too: so rich was Nigeria that a former Head of State reportedly boasted that our problem was not money but how to spend it!
But, sorry, we lost it all. And the rains began to beat us. The victims are the younger ones who have not known any other country but this new one. The danger is: they may never know how to make a difference when they inherit this poisoned chalice called Nigeria. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has said that Chief Felix Ibru, the the first civilian governor of Delta State, who died yesterday loved a fulfilled life, even as he takes off to Malabo tomorrow to talk on security matters along the Gulf of Guinea. A separate statements by special adviser to the President on media and publicity, Femi Adesina quoted the President as expressing shock and sadness over the death of Chief Felix Ibru. “President Buhari urges all who mourn Chief Ibru to take solace in the awareness of his very fulfilled life of great accomplishments and give thanks to God Almighty for the indelible legacies which the late governor has left behind for his heirs and successors to build on.” He remembered late Ibru as a leader of many communities, including the Urhobo Progressive Union as its President-General for many years. The President said that he joined Ibru family, the people of Delta State and Chief Ibru’s friends and associates across Nigeria to mourn “the late governor and distinguished senator who made remarkable contributions to the progress and development of Nigeria during his long career as an illustrious architect, businessman, politician, community leader and philanthropist.” He prayed tto God to receive Chief Ibru’s soul and grant him eternal rest. This is even as President Buhari is scheduled to engage in talks with President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea on further measures to protect the people and resources of the Niger Delta and Gulf of Guinea. The visit to Malabo, by President Buhari is essentially the continuation of the efforts of the Nigerian government to achieve greater security of lives, resources and investments in all parts of Nigeria and its sub-region. The conclusion and signing of an agreement by Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea for the establishment of a combined maritime policing and security patrol committee on Tuesday is expected to be the major outcome of President Buhari’s talks with his host. President Buhari and President Mbasogo are also expected to discuss and agree on other collaborative measures to combat crimes such as piracy, crude oil theft, attacks on oil rigs, arms smuggling and human trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea. Both leaders will also confer on the rescheduling of the joint summit of the Economic Community of West African States and the Economic Community of Central African States on additional cooperative measures to curb terrorism and violent extremism in West and Central Africa. The summit was to have been hosted by Equatorial Guinea last year but was postponed because of Nigeria’s general elections. In accordance with the main focus and agenda of the trip, President Buhari will be accompanied by the Minister of Defence, retired Brigadier General Mansur Dan-Ali, the National Security Adviser, retired Major General Babagana Monguno and other senior security officials. He is scheduled to return to Abuja on Tuesday. Meanwhile, President Buhari has sent a congratulatory message to the National President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and General Superintendent of the Gospel Light International Ministries, Rev. Dr. Felix Omobude, on the occasion of his 70th birthday anniversary coming up tomorrow, March 14. Buhari acknowledged the vision, charisma and strength of character which have seen Dr. Omobude dutifully fulfilling his pastoral calling over the years, as demonstrated in his love for a united and prosperous Nigeria. The President also commended his invaluable contribution to nation building and development through his teachings and exemplary leadership, which continue to inspire many of his followers and admirers to work hard and improve their communities. Buhari used the opportunity of the celebration of this important milestone in Dr. Omobude’s extraordinary achievements to remind religious leaders and all those in positions of public trust of their shared responsibility in the fight against corruption and other ills confronting the society. The President prayed that Omobude will enjoy more years of health and fulfillment in his service to God and humanity. [myad]
Former governor of Rivers State and current minister of Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi opened fire on his predecessor, Governor Nyeson Wike, saying that he is so desperate that he could sell his mother for money.
Speaking in an interview on a radio station in Rivers, which was tweeted live via Rivers State watch, Amaechi said that he is ready for Wike in the rerun national and state assembly election on March 19.
“Nyesom Wike is here to steal money; he was my chief of staff. We will chase Wike’s boys out of the water, now we have Dakuku Peterside as DG NIMASA. People still want me back as governor. I will be here till the March 19 re-run election; let’s see what Wike can do. Let’s face it man to man.
“If you see the money stolen by Nyesom Wike in the ministry of education, you will be shocked. Every day you wake up to find out that Wike has killed somebody. Wike has collected N50 billion; what has it done with the money?”
“By this time when I was sworn in, I was already commissioning projects. Wike is so desperate that he can sell his mother. On the day of the re-run, I am ready for Wike, they should come out with their guns, we are ready for them.” [myad]
The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki has argued that the charges against him by the Code of Conduct Bureau at the Code of Conduct Tribunal are not in the interest of justice, but politically motivated. He said, in a fresh move to halt the trial, that the charges were filed in violation of due process as well as his right to fair hearing. He said that the charges could not be valid since they were filed in the name of the Attorney-General of the Federation even as he complained that he was denied fair hearing as neither the CCB nor the Attorney-General of the Federation confronted him with any infraction in the four assets declaration forms. He argued that he declared his assets first on assuming office as Governor of Kwara State in 2003 and on completing his term in 2011 and that he subsequently made another asset declaration and submitted the form to the CCB upon his reelection in 2007 and on ending his second term in 2011. He said that had he been informed of any inconsistencies in his asset declaration forms, he would have corrected them. “I am not aware of any petitions challenging my declarations, and the bureau (CCB) has never drawn my attention to any. I would promptly have corrected or explained (the reason for) any alleged discrepancies or inconsistencies in my asset declaration had my attention been drawn to them.” Senator Saraki prays in the application for an “order quashing and/or striking out the charges contained in Charge No: CCT/ABJ/01/2015 by the complainant/respondent against the applicant. “An order pursuant to Paragraph 1 above, discharging the defendant/applicant herein.” In an affidavit, which he personally deposed to in support of his fresh application seeking the quashing of the charges against him at the CCT and discharging him of the alleged offences, the Senate President said: “the facts relating to these matters are no longer fresh in my memory quite apart from the fact that I have lost many of my records pertaining to them.” Saraki’s fresh application, which was dated and filed on March 4, 2016, seeks to halt his trial that had been validated by the Supreme Court through its judgement delivered on February 5, 2016. He was arraigned on 13 counts of false asset declaration before the CCT on September 22, 2015. A seven-man panel of the Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, had in its judgement, dismissed Saraki’s objection to his trial. The apex court, in the said judgement, affirmed the competence of the 13 counts filed against him and the jurisdiction of the tribunal to hear the case. In the charges instituted by the Federal Government, Saraki was accused of making false asset declaration in his forms submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau on assuming office and leaving during his two terms as Governor of Kwara State between 2003 and 2011. The Senate President, who was said to have submitted four asset declaration forms, allegedly “corruptly acquired many properties while in office as Governor of Kwara State, but failed to declare some of them in the said forms earlier filled and submitted.” He also allegedly made an anticipatory declaration of assets upon his assumption of office as governor, which he later acquired. Saraki was also accused of sending money abroad for the purchase of property in London and maintaining an account outside Nigeria while serving as governor. Meanwhile, his new lead counsel, Kanu Agabi (SAN), who led five other Senior Advocates of Nigeria and about 60 other lawyers, is also challenging the jurisdiction of the tribunal to entertain the case against his client. The lead prosecuting counsel, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) has however described the motion as “a deliberate attempt to stop the trial from going on. “The defendant (Saraki) keeps saying that there is no case against him and that he is being persecuted; why doesn’t he let the trial start so that the whole world can see the persecution?” [myad]
Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is worried that out of 50 nations of the world experiencing fragile economy, 24 members of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) are worse hit. The President of IDB, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali who expressed this worry said: “our member countries are in a real danger of being left behind. Currently, 24 of the 50 most fragile countries are OIC member countries.” The IDB President spoke today at a high level meeting at the headquarters of IDB in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the umbrella of IDB President’s Advisory Panel (PAP). President’s Advisory Panel is an advisory body of global experts that work with the IDB President to provide independent advice on the overall strategy of the IDB, as well as give input into the policy direction of the Bank for the benefit of member countries. The theme for the panel this year is: “Digital Development for Resilience.” Opening the PAP meeting, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali feared that fragility is threatening the world economy now. “Fragility threatens human development. We therefore have to find innovative means to address fragility by increasing levels of resilience in our communities.” He said that IDB is interested in creating awareness on the potential role of Islamic finance for fragile communities which leading global experts also said would provide a key solution to fragile economies in Islamic Development Bank’s (IDB) member countries and beyond. In his remarks, former President of Turkey, Dr. Abdullah Gul commended IDB in its effort to use Islamic Finance to address the challenges outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which includes fragility. He suggested to IDB to help member countries to achieve digital development by sharing experiences and providing financing, citing the example of a good practice from the Republic of Turkey where the use of e-government (i.e. e-visa services) served 30 million visitors in the last three years. Dr. Abdullah Gul said: “we have not fully exploited the industrial revolution, but we can still take advantage of the digital wave.” In his intervention during the panel discussion, Nobel Laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus said that the leading technology firms in the world are using technology for profit making and asked IDB to work with member countries to use digital technology and Islamic micro-finance as a social driver, so that people will create jobs by themselves. Professor Abbas Mirakhor, former Executive Director and Dean of the Executive Board of International Monetary Fund (IMF), encouraged IDB to work with member countries to address fragility through a policy framework that will integrate Islamic finance in national budgets. On his part, Dr. Jobarah Al-Suraisry, former KSA Minister of Transportation called for the establishment of a “Digital Fund” in order to address the imbalance between the developed and developing countries. In her contribution, Madam Bintou Sanogoh, former Minister of Finance of Burkina Faso said that digital development can help low income countries to become middle income “if we can improve connectivity. Members of the President’s Advisory Panel who attended the event today are Dr. Abdullah Gul who id the immediate past President of Turkey, former Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and one time Foreign Minister of the Turkish Republic; Dr Jobarah Al-Suraisry who is former Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Transportation, former Vice Minister of Finance & Economy; Madam Aïcha Bah Diallo who was former Minister of education in Guinea-Conakry, and was a Chair of the Network Education for All in Africa. She is an advisor to the Director General of UNESCO, and a member of IDB women Advisory Panel. There were also Madam Bintou Sanogoh who was former Minister of Finance in Burkina Faso, and the country’s Governor at the IMF/World Bank, and was formally a Vice Governor of the African Development Bank; Dr. Jacques Diouf who was former Director General, Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO), and former Secretary-General of the Central Bank of West Africa as well as Mr. Abdul Aziz Al-Zaabi who is a member of UAE Federal National Council, former CEO & GM of Real Estate Bank, and an Ex-Director of Arab Insurance Bank. Dr. Ishrat Husain, a former Governor, State Bank of Pakistan, Dean and Director of the Institute of Adminsitration, and Chairman National Commission of Government Reform and Professor Abbas Mirakhor, first holder of INCIEF Chair of Islamic Finance, former Executive Director and Dean of the Executive Board of International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Laureate and founder Grameen Bank, a pioneer in microcredit scheme, and Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University and Abdellatif Jouahri, Governor of the Central Bank of Morocco, former Chairman of Bank Al-Magrib, and Director Arab British Commercial Bank are also members. [myad]
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International scammers were believed to have duped the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of the sum of $441,000 out of which $251,000 was blocked and recovered. The incidence has resulted in the suspension of a CBN’s Deputy Governor of the Financial System Surveillance, Joseph Nnanna.
In This Same Country…By Reuben Abati
There is today in Nigeria an entire generation of Nigerian-passport wielding men and women who do not actually know, to borrow Achebe’s words that indeed “there was once a country”. These children born in a season of austerity, and raised during the years that the locusts ate, have become angry citizens. They are angry because they live in a country that makes them feel less worthy than the human standard. The only Nigeria that they know is a country that makes them feel ashamed of their own origins. Many of them have enjoyed the privilege of foreign education and exposure to some of the best traditions in other parts of the world, but when they return to their own country, right from the airport, the snow of failure and inefficiency strikes them in the face, leaving them with no option but to wonder quo vadis Nigeria? It is the same question that their parents asked and the tragedy is that their own children except something else happens, are likely to ask exactly this same old and vexed question.
The angst of this young generation is made worse when they are told that Nigeria was not always like this. In their late 20s to thirties, these children have only known that Nigeria where fuel scarcity is a fact of daily life, and part of the mechanism of survival is to know how to draw fuel with your mouth, or negotiate black market purchase of fuel, while lugging jerry cans, either at the fuel station or a roadside corner where you cannot be sure of the quality of fuel- all of that in a country that is the world’s sixth largest producer of crude oil. These children have only known a country where the roads are bad, services are sub-standard, people are mean, criminality is rife, and electricity is available once in a blue moon.
What they know is a country where the pastors and malams are better known for lying, swearing, cheating, calling the name of God in vain. In their Nigeria, public and private officials are lazy, and unproductive, they just want to reap, and they have sucked the country so dry, her glands are wasted, flat, going South and no more presentable, the balloon has suffered a blow out, even the blind can see that this is so. These angry children are no longer proud of the green passport; because the Constitution allows dual citizenship, they’d rather grab the citizenship of another country, and remain linked to Nigeria only by blood, and that is the case because they have parents who would not want them to de-link completely, but if they don’t, their own children and their own children after them, are already being lost to countries where things work, where the basic necessities of life are taken for granted and where the future is not a distant, unknown, and impossible destination.
The anger and the nonchalance of this generation of Nigerians is the pain and the agony of an older generation that knew a different country before all things went kaput and Nigeria became a byword for the unhinged, the dark, the ugly and the regrettable. Our generation and the generation before us knew a different country. And because that is so, memory is an affliction, a source of torment, nostalgia and regret, more so as that distant past now seems so unattainable not because distance often makes the past look better, but because in Nigeria, the past is sorrily idyllic. Those who lived in that other country and are still alive could not have forgotten so soon, because to forget something that important is to self-deny, it is to pretend, it is to abuse, it is in all, an act of pitiable abnegation.
How could we have forgotten? How can anyone possibly forget? That this was once a country where Nigerians felt at home in virtually any part of the country. Igbos lived peacefully in the North, and Fulani herdsmen were at peace with other Nigerians, and there was no issue with the planting of yams or the grazing of cattle. In this same country, Southerners lived for decades in the North, acquired property and spoke the language of their hosts. We grew up knowing Baba Kaduna, Daddy Kano, Mama Kafanchan, Uncle Porta, just as persons from the East and the South South contested for elective positions in the West and won. There was a civil war yes, and things began to change but even after the war, it was never this bad. Nigerians from the South still went on national assignment in the North, Christians and Muslims tried to live together in peace, but today, things have fallen apart.
There is no open civil war, but this country is at war on all fronts, the worst fronts being the ethnic, the religious and the political, and these post-civil war children just can’t understand why the generations of their fathers and grandmothers can’t run an efficient country. They have been taught in school that every nation has problems, but leadership is about managing those problems and building a happy nation. They hear about the big names of Nigerian history, the statesmen who fought for independence, the Amazons who defended the place of women in national decision making processes, the accomplished scientists, the literati and cultural workers, but the historical figures who have made the biggest impression on them are the ones who ruined the nation with their acts of omission and commission.
In this same country, the Naira used to be at par with the pound and was for many years stronger than the dollar. So strong was the Naira that many Nigerians, including the lower middle class could afford to travel to London on Friday evening, attend a party in London on Saturday, attend church service on Sunday, check out one or two mistresses in paid-for flats in different parts of London, and return to Nigeria early enough on Monday morning to be able to go to work. All that was no big deal. Everyone in London knew the Nigerians. They were the biggest spenders and they threw the best parties. There was Nigeria Airways; owned and operated by the Nigerian government and it was one of the best airlines in Africa. Its pilots were rated among the best in the world. Its safety record was superb. And it was affordable. It was the pride of the nation. Within the country, Nigeria Airways was also efficient. A trip from Lagos to Calabar in those days was just N44! Students enjoyed rebates too.
In this same country, once upon a time, public transportation was impressive. In Lagos for example, the public transportation system was almost exactly a version of what they have in London. This may sound like something being made up to the younger generation, but it is nothing but the truth. The railway system worked too, and one of the most prestigious jobs was to be a railway staff. That same Nigerian Railway Corporation that is now a parody of its former self, used to link up the entire country and it helped to build cities and villages, as the various major train stations became commercial centres. Today, railway transportation looks like something we are trying to reinvent.
Once upon a time in this same country, those who sent their children abroad did so majorly out of choice, not necessity, because Nigerian schools were among the best in the continent and the world. Teachers from different parts of the world, the best and the brightest, sought employment in Nigerian schools. The Naira was strong, investors -both commercial and intellectual – trooped to this country in droves and they enriched us in many ways. The schools were well-equipped; they attracted students and teachers based on their reputation.
Parents sent their own children to their alma mater out of loyalty, and regard for tradition. That pattern of grandfather, father and son attending the same secondary school seems to have ended; the public schools in Nigeria have failed, the missionary schools of old have been destroyed by hostile government take-over, back in the hands of the missions, the destruction is yet to be fully corrected. The younger generation reflects on all this: mostly products of private schools, they can’t understand why a country that still prides itself as the giant of Africa cannot run a decent education system or provide jobs for the products of its school system.
In this same county, we used to have industrial estates. In Lagos, Apapa, Ikeja and Isolo were industrial estates. In Kaduna, Jos, and Enugu, manufacturing companies created jobs and wealth. We had uncles and aunties who used to do shifts in many factories and this country produced things: from refrigerators to bulbs to vehicles to metals to books, to textiles to shoes. Sad: many of those factories have become churches! In those days, if you went into a bookshop, you could not miss the mint-fresh smell of the books on display. I miss that smell. There are fewer bookstores today and the books no longer smell the same, because by the time they are imported and passed through dirty containers and the hands of thieving handlers, the books lose their soul.
Once upon a time in this same country, there was so much hope about tomorrow. Salaries were paid as and when due. State governments offered students bursaries and scholarships. School was attractive because the teachers were dedicated and they were smart. At the university level, the government provided subsidized tuition and feeding; the rooms were kept clean by staff, the libraries were well-stocked; there was light and water and town-gown relationship was just fine. In the larger society, the present regime of no water, no fuel, no electricity was unheard of. You may have heard of the British standard, there was in fact at a time, the Nigerian standard, and this was the standard that other Africans looked up to. This same country dominated the continent, morally, intellectually and culturally. Financially too: so rich was Nigeria that a former Head of State reportedly boasted that our problem was not money but how to spend it!
But, sorry, we lost it all. And the rains began to beat us. The victims are the younger ones who have not known any other country but this new one. The danger is: they may never know how to make a difference when they inherit this poisoned chalice called Nigeria. [myad]