A 70-year-old man, Mr. Tajudeen Giwa, has sought for the dissolution of his over 40-year-old marriage at an Ikorodu Customary Court sitting in Lagos State, claiming that his wife ignores and starves him of sex.
According to the complainant who resides at 1, Idiorogbo Village, Itokin Road, Ikorodu area of the state, his marriage is blessed with seven children: four males and three women, with the oldest male child being 39 years of age; the oldest female, 36 and the youngest, 16-year-old.
Giwa told the court: “Karimut does not care for me again; she denies me my matrimonial right to sleep with her. I am fed up with the marriage and I no longer love her.
“She gangs up with our children against me, to the extent that they threaten my life on her behalf,” Giwa added.
In her response, 63-year-old Karimut said the allegations by her husband were false, adding that although her husband did not care well enough for her and their children, she did not want to divorce him.
”My husband is not a reasonable man and is a very inconsiderate person. He sleeps around with other women and always threatens to chase me and the children away for no just cause.”
The President of the court, Mrs. Omolara Abiola, in her ruling, said that the court would do everything within its power to save the marriage which is more than 40 years old.
“This court is more focused on saving marriages and it befits it to try to secure this union rather than to dissolve a marriage of such age, with seven children, most of whom are above 30,” she said.
The president urged the petitioner and the respondent to maintain peace and harmony, pending the determination of the case.
The Court President added that Karimut should not ignore her husband as such action usually infuriates men, adding that some of the children should be present at the next hearing.
It is no longer news that the naira has gone the way of the Somalia Shillings, exchanging at over N400 to $1 USD in the parallel market at some point last week.
Fortunately, our insurgency problem isn’t as severe as theirs neither have we experienced any of those devastating droughts that has helped impoverish one of the world’s failed state.
The scarcity and shortages in Somalia is nothings like the situation in Nigeria. Here, it’s like heaven when compared. But we can draw parallels from the currencies and that makes the situation of the naira pitiable. It portends a bleak economic outlook for the average Nigerian. It is indicative of all that has gone wrong in the nine months since the start of the change administration. As a street economist, I wouldn’t want to dabble into the issues bothering on the devaluation of the naira or not but would want to delve into the pinching effects of the current situation we find ourselves as regards the government’s monetary policy.
Despite the fact that naira’s official rate has long been pegged at between N197 and N199 by the government, it has continued on a downward slide because of the market forces at play. While the President has resisted pressure not to devalue the currency, I know the naira has long been devalued, with the banks eating very fat from the loose ends which is made available by the current circumstances. There seems to be a lot of confusion at the Central Bank of Nigeria. For me, it is either there is disconnect between the CBN and commercial banks or it’s a grand conspiracy between the two, on which top officials have latched to impoverish the people that they are meant to serve. This foreign exchange plague was further even exacerbated by the restrictions on students schooling abroad. Every Nigerian with a bank account received the instructions from their bankers in June, citing a guideline from CBN. There were other announcements informing Nigerians on several other revisions that included the point of sales transactions not exceeding $300 daily and a monthly withdrawal not over $10,000 or its equivalents. There was these other announcement on procurement of Basic Travelling Allowance (BTA) from banking halls that was also not attended. Customers who besieged banks to buy BTA were advised to use their debit cards abroad. The naïve customers accepted all the dogmas read to them only to leak their wounds after a great dip into their pockets were experienced on transactions they made abroad. Outrageous debits were made without their permission and they dare not relate their individual experiences to anyone because they didn’t know whether it was part of the mop up plan by the new sheriff to pull the naira into a steady line. But that seems to have changed as the naira reached a record high last week. Social media has been awash with stories on how banks have been debiting, deducting and duping their customers without due explanations. CBN asked banks to refund over N6 billion in dubious charges. I don’t know if that is a part of it. The banks also have not come out to claim or deny their newly assigned duties from the CBN as operators in the parallel market after the administration booted out Bureau de Change operators. It is also no longer news that when you use the POS while shopping or make withdrawals with the naira debit cards online and abroad, you are charged amounts contrary to the officially exchange rates. Those transactions attract similar, and sometimes higher, rates as those from the parallel market for dollars, pounds or the euro in the popular Wuse Zone 4 black market in Abuja and at the Bookshop House, Lagos. Even our whistle-blower in chief and now Emir of Kano Lamido Sanusi commented about it in an interview penultimate week with the BBC. The Government may not know it but it is the reality on ground. Pure water sachet is now selling for N20 as against N10 and this is not because there are water shortages in the country. But it is due to the cost of importing polyethylene, a raw material for making the sachet, which has shot up. An oil producing country is unable to meet up with its local demands on the derivatives from the crude oil that it produces yet the government is not perturbed. It has promised and severally given deadlines at revamping and rejuvenating the obsolete refineries until the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation finally announced that they have packed up because of under production. But all the government is interested in is stiffening foreign exchange that is profiting a few instead of opening up the productive sector for its young people who need jobs. The government can’t understand why people will source for foreign exchange for the importation of toothpicks yet it is not ready to encourage small businessmen who have genuine funding needs for the import of machinery for small and medium scale production. But expects to grow the economy. While the government is stiffening foreign exchange supply, it is enriching banks and officials positioned to work at foreign exchange desks. I recently learnt that Money Gram staffs are the new brides in town. You pay them almost double the amount of money you want them to transfer abroad for you. According to an insider, a recipient abroad can receive unlimited amount of money in dollars but an individual can only send a specific amount in equivalent foreign currencies to that recipient once in a quarter. So what bank officials do is to detail their relatives to send as much times as possible to those relatives who repatriate the same funds into the parallel market without the fear of the new sheriff in town. It was further explained that there is a time limit for those transfer transactions in the morning on a daily basis so an outsider could check at the banks money gram desks throughout the year, even sleeping overnights at each time without benefitting from the regime. The desk officer is always having a customer before you call in to make your transactions. It is that bad. Prices of goods including spare parts have skyrocketed with no hope of coming down again, heightening inflation pressure. But for how long will this tarry, even a forlorn hope seems a mirage because there is no vibrant economic team to tackle these economic challenges and provide clarity and direction of economic policies. All we have is widening team of media crème de la crème that specializes in sustaining the sermons of melancholy inherited by the regime and on great poos that will take ages to clean forgetting that the new poos are hot and oozing out great economic stenches that could disfigure the face of change in the coming months. We don’t need all that right now. Twitter:@MOkpogode. [myad]
For the first time in his life, 17-year-old Muhammed Sani can identify the letters of the English alphabet, read simple sentences in English, such as: “I want to eat” and “I want to go home.”
He can also work out simple mathematical sums.
All these he has learnt over the past six months of attending the “Feed and Read” programme of the American University of Nigeria (AUN), in the Northeastern Nigerian city of Yola.
“They also teach us how to be clean and neat,” he said.
Before joining the programme, launched last year, Muhammed divided his time between attending Koranic school and begging for alms on the streets of Yola.
He is one of northern Nigeria’s “almajiri” young boys who are seen as vulnerable to recruitment by Boko Haram militants, whose six-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has killed thousands and displaced more than two million people.
Almajiri is the Arabic term for someone who leaves home in search of knowledge in Islam. The ancient tradition sees families send their sons thousands of miles from home to boarding schools across northern Nigeria, where they are left in the care of an Islamic scholar or “Malam”.
Over time, the system became overwhelmed and neglected. Unable to cope, many Malams began sending their wards onto the streets to beg for their upkeep, leaving them vulnerable to destitution, trafficking and other abuse.
They are also ideal recruits for the Islamist armed group Boko Haram. According to Nigerian government estimates, there are at least 10 million almajiri children in the northern region.
A few years ago, when AUN President Margee Ensign decided to do more than give money and food to the many young boys who thronged around her at the university’s gates, she faced opposition.
“The rumour went round that I was trying to convert the boys to Christianity,” she said, leading her to abandon plans for the university to offer the almajiri some form of free education.
But with the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency and the university’s involvement in caring for those displaced by the conflict, Ensign once again felt a strong need to help the boys. This time, she decided to do things differently.
“We invited the Imams and Malams to campus and explained what we wanted to do,” she said.
“FEED AND READ”
The “Feed and Read” programme is careful not to interfere in any way with the children’s religion or study of the Koran.
The boys attend koranic classes in the daytime, then meet under canopies at the university’s car park in the evenings, for their lessons in basic English and mathematics.
They are also taught vocational and trade skills. Whenever it is time for prayers, everything stops and the children pray. They are also fed nutritious meals after each day’s lessons.
The Malams, meanwhile, are given a regular stipend, so they do not suffer any loss of income from the boys not begging on the streets.
“At the beginning, the Malams actually came with their boys to ensure they knew exactly what we were doing,” Ensign said.
The 200 boys in the scheme are grouped according to age and time of enrolment, with the curriculum expanding as the boys advance. AUN students teach the classes, as part of their own assessment.
“The reason why we have been successful in this programme is because we work directly with the Malams,” said Joseph Oladimeji, the programme’s coordinator.
One of the aims of the programme is to encourage people to stop referring to the boys as almajiri, a word that tends to have negative connotations.
“We want them to be known as just boys,” he said.
The boys themselves are encouraged to stop seeing themselves as misfits.
Instead of the typical plastic alms bowl given to them by their Malams, which, says Oladimeji, is a symbol of their itinerant beggar lifestyle, they are given shiny new bowls and cutlery which they leave behind after eating their free meals.
The boys are also taught the basics of personal hygiene. They are regularly issued bars of soap, and any child who arrives unwashed or with dirty clothes is denied his food ration for the day.
“We want to remove that beggar mentality from them,” he said.
At first Ensign provided funds for “Feed and Read” from her own pocket, but as the programme has expanded, the university has begun appealing to international donors through the AUN Foundation, a non-profit based in the United States.
Recently, the university received funding from the Irish government, with which it launched a “Feed and Read” programme for girls in February 2016.
This will target girls who are increasingly taking to the streets, having been orphaned or displaced from their homes by Boko Haram violence. (Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. [myad]
A 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin break out in dance and singing when she met with President Barak Obama and his wife in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, saying that she had fulfilled her dream of visiting the White House.
Virginia McLaurin stepped into the Oval Office and with sheer and utter joy, danced, sand and shook her hips like a 16-year-old and flashing a smile as bright as the camera flashes going off all around her.
“She’s 106?” the president asked incredulously.
“No, you are not,” said the first lady, before adding: “I want to be like you when I grow up.”
The uplifting moment was also heavy with history, though. After her super-senior shuffle, McLaurin suddenly got serious.
“I thought I would never live to get in the White House,” said McLaurin, who was born in 1909 in South Carolina, worked as a seamstress for most of her life and has been a widow for more than 70 years.
But her amazement went beyond merely making it inside the hallowed building. She was particularly bowled over to be meeting America’s first African American president.
“I tell you, I am so happy,” she said, looking up at Obama before turning to the first lady. “A black president, yay, and his black wife.”
McLaurin said she was there to celebrate Black History Month.
The Oval Office dance party was the culmination of more than a year of social media campaigns.
In December 2014, McLaurin submitted a petition to the White House asking to meet with the president.
“I’ve never met a President,” she wrote. “I didn’t think I would live to see a Colored President because I was born in the South and didn’t think it would happen. I am so happy and I would love to meet you and your family if I could.
“I remember the times before President Hoover. I remember when we didn’t have any electricity. I had a kerosene lamp. I remember the first car model Ford,” she said. “My husband was in the Army. I lost my husband in 1941. I’ve been in DC ever since. I was living here when Martin Luther King was killed.
“I know you are a busy man, but I wish I could meet you,” she concluded, offering to “come to your house to make things easier.”
And that’s just what she did one day last week after the Obamas apparently responded to her letter.
McLaurin cackled with glee as soon as she caught sight of the president.
“Hi,” she said. “It’s an honor. It’s an honor.”
“Slow down now, don’t go too quick,” Obama joked as McLaurin shuffled across the room to meet Michelle Obama.
“She’s dancing,” the president said with a laugh. “So what’s the secret to still dancing at 106?”
Instead of answering, McLaurin simply showed off her moves, earning laughter and squeals of delight from the Obamas.
The memorable moment was not out of character for McLaurin.
“One of my secrets for longevity is reading the Bible and praying daily, loving Jesus Christ, and my fellow man,” McLaurin said in 2014. “There’s no one that I don’t like; I love everybody.”
But the last time McLaurin was in the news, it was a less joyous occasion. She was featured in a December 2014 report on bedbugs in her apartment building.
“They was in my couch, they was in my bedroom, so, that’s why I don’t have no furniture,” she told BBC7.
Last week, though, McLaurin strolled across the Oval Office’s plush carpet and posed in front of priceless presidential portraits.
Then she danced as if she had been waiting a century to do it.
“You have just made our day, you know that?” Michelle Obama said. “That energy, man.”
The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, has attributed the rampant corruption in Nigeria to attractiveness attached to political offices.
“Political offices in Nigeria are too attractive. This encourages a rat race of sorts.”
In his first detailed interview since his appointment in November, Magu told The Interview in its February edition: “also, the judiciary, which is the last resort, has allegedly been complicit, making civil servants who have been found guilty of corruption feel confident to poke the law in the face and go scot-free.” The anti graft boss said that Nigerians should be outraged at the amount of money originally set aside for the war on Boko Haram, but “which was diverted for personal use.” He said this was just one of the many cases of looted funds being investigated by the EFCC, adding: “there should be a national outrage by now. There is something wrong with our values. Corruption has been celebrated over the years.” The EFCC Chairman said allegations against the commission that its anti-corruption war was politically motivated was proof that corruption was already fighting back. Magu also spoke on his first meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, his efforts to clean up the commission and whether or not he might break the one-term jinx that has plagued the chairmen of the commission since its founding in 2003. A statement by the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview, Azu Ishiekwene, described the edition as: “Our gift to our growing community of readers beyond Valentine.” [myad]
Pope Francis has called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty for criminals, saying that the Biblical injunction applies to both the innocents and criminals in the society. The Pope asked Catholic leaders not to allow executions, especially during the Church’s Holy Year. Speaking to thousands of tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope asked Catholic politicians around the world to make a courageous and exemplary gesture and ensure that no convicted inmate is put to death in the year of mercy – which runs through to November. “I appeal to the consciences of those who govern to reach an international consensus to abolish the death penalty. The commandment “You shall not kill,” has absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty.” The pontiff said that there is now a growing opposition to the death penalty even for the legitimate defence of society because modern means existed to efficiently repress crime without definitively denying the person who committed it the possibility of rehabilitating himself. Pope Francis reinforced the earlier church teaching, especially by St. John Paul II, that there’s no justification in modern society for capital punishment. The Pope said: “even criminals hold the inviolable right to life” given by God even as he also called for improved prison conditions. “All Christians and men of goodwill are called on to work not only for the abolition of the death penalty, but also to improve prison conditions so that they respect the human dignity of people who have been deprived of their freedom,” he said. According to Amnesty International, which had campaigned to end executions since 1977, about 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. It said that 55 countries in 2014 are known to have sentenced at least 2,466 people to death – a 28 per cent increase on the previous year. [myad]
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that he and President Muhammadu Buhari are recruiting new group of Nigerians, which he said is a new tribe, for the avowed war against corruption. The Vice President emphasized that he and the President have been working together to get the right people for the tasks. He said that the new tribe would consist of professionals, businessmen, politicians, religious leaders and all others who believe that a new Nigeria is possible. “I have had several long discussions with President Buhari. The key issue always is finding the right persons for any task. A tough task indeed in a corrupted system.” The Vice President spoke in Lagos on the theme “Change Agents in Nation-Building” at the annual dinner of the Apostles In The Market Place, AiMP, of which he is a member and where he was the keynote speaker. The event was attended by eminent Nigerians, including Dr. Christopher Kolade, Nigerian professionals and religious leaders. Professor Osinbajo stressed the need for what he describes as “a new tribe” of Nigerians to fight and dismantle the corrupted systems in the nation’s private and public sectors. “We need a new tribe of men and women of all faiths, tribes and ethnicities. Committed to a country run on high values of integrity, hard-work, justice and love for the country.” Professor Osinbajo said that these will be a tribe of men and women who are prepared to make the sacrifices and self-constraints that are crucial to building a strong society; who are prepared to stick together, fight corruption side by side, and insist on justice even when our friends are at the receiving end. The Vice President noted: “when you look at any list of alleged perpetrators of a heinous case of corruption, all tribes, ethnicities and religions are well represented. In other words, high level corruption knows no religion or ethnicity.” Such perpetrators and conspirators he added: “are in governments, the legislature, the judiciary and the press. “They are united, they protect each other, they fight for each other and they are prepared to go down together. They are one tribe, indivisible regardless of diversity. It is this tribe that confuse the arguments for change in society.” He said that the corrupted system is one where the norm is corrupt behaviour across all arms of formal systems of governance, adding that in such a system, the private sector is a strong collaborator. “The fight against corruption is then a fight against the system.” Professor Osinbajo said that such a corrupt system can hardly deliver public goods and asked “how many new roads has the Federal Government of Nigeria managed to build in 10 years? Where has the billions of dollars in the days of $100 oil gone?” The Vice President said that the shocking thefts of funds meant to procure arms to defend the nation demonstrates the moral ambivalence that pervades our system, the system which he said, needed to be dismantled if the nation is to progress. “Nigeria’s greatest battle is the one to bring integrity and accountability to public service and the private sector. This requires a new way of thinking, a new leadership corp, a new tribe. The challenge today for us all, friends and colleagues is to populate that new tribe.” This was even as Dr. Kolade said that the change that Nigeria needs is that which starts “in us as individuals.” He said that the new tribe the Vice President called for must be made up of Nigerians who accept and believe in a society where good things are the norm, and that such acceptance and belief is what qualifies people to belong to the new tribe. Dr. Kolade said that the new tribe of Nigerians are those who want to tell the truth and who want the truth. “I sometimes ask the lawyers in our country: do we have a court of law or a court of justice? If we could all say we are working for a court of justice and not a court of law, we will all be in the new tribe.” He thanked the Vice President “for stimulating our thinking tonight with this idea. We should put ourselves in the humble position of those who want to learn. I have known for a long time that I cannot listen to the Vice President and not learn a new thing.” [myad]
Embattled Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Rickey Tarfa, has filed a fresh fundamental rights enforcement suit against telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, for the alleged violation of his right to privacy. Tarfa is seeking a court declaration that his right to privacy was violated when the call records/log on his phone with mobile number 08034600000 was allegedly accessed without his authority and made available to media without any reasonable cause or a lawful court order. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had on February 5, arrested Tarfa and confiscated his two mobile phones and his Mercedez Benz SUV with Registration No. KJA 700 CG on the allegation that he hid two alleged suspects of economic and financial crimes in his car to prevent their arrest. Joined as respondents in Tarfa’s second fundamental rights enforcement suit are the EFCC; its Chairman, Ibrahim Magu; Rashidatou Abdou; and Femi Falana (SAN). He is asking the court to order the respondents to pay him N5 billion for the alleged violation of his rights. Punch. [myad]
Divisional Police Officer (DPO) for Omoku Divisional Police Headquarters of Rivers State Police Command, Mr. Casimir Ihiezu, has been arrested for alleged complicity in the kidnapping of an Ivorian national, Mr. Beinvenu Assemian, during which a police corporal, Mr. Imeh Edet, was killed. Ihiezu is also being detained for alleged unlawful possession of firearms and murder of the police constable. The DPO, who was arrested since last year on the order of Rivers State Police Commissioner, Mr. Chris Ezike, had been moved to Abuja on the order of the Deputy Inspector General of Police at the Force Headquarters Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department (FCIID) Area 10 in Abuja, preparatory to his arraignment in court. He is being detained at the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department (FCIID) Area 3 Abuja since he was moved to the Capital City. [myad]
The authority of the anti-graft agency in the country, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has invited a human rights activist and Executive Chairman, Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice (CHRSJ), Comrade Adeniyi, Alimi Sulaiman over an alleged N400 Million forgery which involved the immediate past Ooni of Ife, Late Oba Okunade Sijuade Olubuse’s 11 Business Empire.
The anti graft agency which might have begun an investigation of the new Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi and his Company named Metropole Interproject Limited on the matter, asked the human rights activist to appear at its Lagos State office to substantiate the allegation raised in the petition Letter to the Commission against the then Prince, now new Ooni of Ife this week. Speaking on the development through a signed statement, which made available to newsmen in Lagos, Comrade Sulaiman revealed that he received a phone call with no-“080385………” from an official of the anti-graft body (EFCC), call her name “Ronke,” saying that the group’s petition Letter to the Commission was ripped for investigation to authenticate the veracity of the allegations in the Petition letter. Sulaiman said that the EFCC official informed the group through him to report at the Economic and Governance Crime (EGC 1) department of the Commission whenever they came to the Commission’s office for the interaction on the matter. It would be recalled that the Petition Letter dated Monday 2nd November, 2015 entitled: “Request for Prosecution of Prince Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi and his Company named Metropole Inter project Limited for the Offence of forgery, Fraudulent Conversion and Obtaining the sum of N400million by false Pretence”, and forwarded to the Chairman of the EFCC and a copy was also sent to the President Muhammadu Buhari. Also, the anti-graft body received the CHRSJ’s Petition letter on the subject matter on Friday 6th of November, 2015.
Copies of the petition were also forwarded to the Transparency International (TI) office and Embassy of the United Kingdom (UK), United State of America (USA) and Republic of Canada for their notification of the development.
The petition, supported with the series of evidences, including the petition letter dated 7th September, 2015, authored by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr. Rotimi Jacobs of the Rotimi Jacobs & Co Chambers. [myad]
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A 70-year-old man, Mr. Tajudeen Giwa, has sought for the dissolution of his over 40-year-old marriage at an Ikorodu Customary Court sitting in Lagos State, claiming that his wife ignores and starves him of sex.
Pegged Exchange Rate Is Calculated Fraud, By Moses Okpogode
Fortunately, our insurgency problem isn’t as severe as theirs neither have we experienced any of those devastating droughts that has helped impoverish one of the world’s failed state.
The scarcity and shortages in Somalia is nothings like the situation in Nigeria. Here, it’s like heaven when compared. But we can draw parallels from the currencies and that makes the situation of the naira pitiable. It portends a bleak economic outlook for the average Nigerian. It is indicative of all that has gone wrong in the nine months since the start of the change administration.
As a street economist, I wouldn’t want to dabble into the issues bothering on the devaluation of the naira or not but would want to delve into the pinching effects of the current situation we find ourselves as regards the government’s monetary policy.
Despite the fact that naira’s official rate has long been pegged at between N197 and N199 by the government, it has continued on a downward slide because of the market forces at play. While the President has resisted pressure not to devalue the currency, I know the naira has long been devalued, with the banks eating very fat from the loose ends which is made available by the current circumstances. There seems to be a lot of confusion at the Central Bank of Nigeria. For me, it is either there is disconnect between the CBN and commercial banks or it’s a grand conspiracy between the two, on which top officials have latched to impoverish the people that they are meant to serve.
This foreign exchange plague was further even exacerbated by the restrictions on students schooling abroad. Every Nigerian with a bank account received the instructions from their bankers in June, citing a guideline from CBN. There were other announcements informing Nigerians on several other revisions that included the point of sales transactions not exceeding $300 daily and a monthly withdrawal not over $10,000 or its equivalents. There was these other announcement on procurement of Basic Travelling Allowance (BTA) from banking halls that was also not attended. Customers who besieged banks to buy BTA were advised to use their debit cards abroad. The naïve customers accepted all the dogmas read to them only to leak their wounds after a great dip into their pockets were experienced on transactions they made abroad. Outrageous debits were made without their permission and they dare not relate their individual experiences to anyone because they didn’t know whether it was part of the mop up plan by the new sheriff to pull the naira into a steady line.
But that seems to have changed as the naira reached a record high last week. Social media has been awash with stories on how banks have been debiting, deducting and duping their customers without due explanations. CBN asked banks to refund over N6 billion in dubious charges. I don’t know if that is a part of it. The banks also have not come out to claim or deny their newly assigned duties from the CBN as operators in the parallel market after the administration booted out Bureau de Change operators. It is also no longer news that when you use the POS while shopping or make withdrawals with the naira debit cards online and abroad, you are charged amounts contrary to the officially exchange rates. Those transactions attract similar, and sometimes higher, rates as those from the parallel market for dollars, pounds or the euro in the popular Wuse Zone 4 black market in Abuja and at the Bookshop House, Lagos. Even our whistle-blower in chief and now Emir of Kano Lamido Sanusi commented about it in an interview penultimate week with the BBC.
The Government may not know it but it is the reality on ground. Pure water sachet is now selling for N20 as against N10 and this is not because there are water shortages in the country. But it is due to the cost of importing polyethylene, a raw material for making the sachet, which has shot up. An oil producing country is unable to meet up with its local demands on the derivatives from the crude oil that it produces yet the government is not perturbed. It has promised and severally given deadlines at revamping and rejuvenating the obsolete refineries until the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation finally announced that they have packed up because of under production. But all the government is interested in is stiffening foreign exchange that is profiting a few instead of opening up the productive sector for its young people who need jobs. The government can’t understand why people will source for foreign exchange for the importation of toothpicks yet it is not ready to encourage small businessmen who have genuine funding needs for the import of machinery for small and medium scale production. But expects to grow the economy.
While the government is stiffening foreign exchange supply, it is enriching banks and officials positioned to work at foreign exchange desks. I recently learnt that Money Gram staffs are the new brides in town. You pay them almost double the amount of money you want them to transfer abroad for you. According to an insider, a recipient abroad can receive unlimited amount of money in dollars but an individual can only send a specific amount in equivalent foreign currencies to that recipient once in a quarter. So what bank officials do is to detail their relatives to send as much times as possible to those relatives who repatriate the same funds into the parallel market without the fear of the new sheriff in town. It was further explained that there is a time limit for those transfer transactions in the morning on a daily basis so an outsider could check at the banks money gram desks throughout the year, even sleeping overnights at each time without benefitting from the regime.
The desk officer is always having a customer before you call in to make your transactions. It is that bad. Prices of goods including spare parts have skyrocketed with no hope of coming down again, heightening inflation pressure. But for how long will this tarry, even a forlorn hope seems a mirage because there is no vibrant economic team to tackle these economic challenges and provide clarity and direction of economic policies. All we have is widening team of media crème de la crème that specializes in sustaining the sermons of melancholy inherited by the regime and on great poos that will take ages to clean forgetting that the new poos are hot and oozing out great economic stenches that could disfigure the face of change in the coming months.
We don’t need all that right now.
Twitter:@MOkpogode. [myad]