The Saudi Arabian Tourism authorities have shut down a total of 330 hotels and furnished apartments over violations in the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina, two major destinations for Muslim worshippers. The closures, according to information, followed inspection tours made by the kingdom’s Ministry of Tourism of hospitality facilities in both cities. Inspections in Mecca resulted in detecting more than 2,000 infringements and the shutdown of 280 facilities for having pursued the business before obtaining the licences required for operation. Meanwhile, 1,200 violations were detected in Medina and 50 hospitality facilities were shut down pending obtaining licences. The ministry advised all tourism service providers to comply with related regulations and quality standards. Launched under the motto: “our guests are a priority,” the ministry is pursuing inspection campaigns aimed at regulating the sector and upgrading the quality of the services. Saudi Arabia aims to attract 100 million tourists by the year 2030 as part of an ambitious scheme to diversify its oil-reliant economy. Millions of Muslims from inside and outside Saudi Arabia yearly flock to the Grand Mosque, Islam’s most sacred site, in Mecca to perform Umrah or minor pilgrimage and offer prayers. After Umrah, many pilgrims would head to the Prophet’s Mosque, Islam’s second holiest place, in Medina. The Prophet’s Mosque houses Al Rawda Al Sharifa where the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) is located. Saudi Arabia expects about 10 million Muslims from abroad during the current Umrah season amid facilities for overseas pilgrims. Source: Gulf News.
A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), The Legends Mandate (TLM) has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) not to be carried away by the salacious and sensational reports around the alleged diversion of funds by the former minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, and her ministry. The President of the group, Dr. Isaiah Adamu, in a statement today, January 5, said that the big billions being bandied around is not enough to assume that funds had been misappropriated, “especially if we consider the predominance of poverty in the land, which the ministry was set up to resolve.” According to him: “We are easily overwhelmed by big budget ministries, but if we look closely, we will discover that the monies were not even enough in the first instance. Just imagine you give five thousand naira to ten million people, or ten thousand naira to twenty million people. Calculate it and see what you will get. He said that the ministry had been doing in a nation dubbed as the poverty capital of the world, adding: “the people have low trust in their leaders, and the media is taking advantage of this, instead of correcting wrong impressions. “I am assured that Hajiya Sadiya Umar-Farouq did her best despite all the abuses, the name-calling, and the antics of naysayers. “We should stop tarring leaders with the same brush, especially when the records are there for all to see. Hajiya Umar-Farouq did her best and should not be unnecessarily vilified for projects that were executed with a chain of people and officers being responsible. “I agree with earlier comments that we should avoid mischief-makers who take delight in defamation. She is proud to have served her country as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with every sense of responsibility and would defend her actions anytime.” He quoted previous reports to buttress his points, saying: “Nigerians should be wary of misinformation media when unconfirmed materials have easy passages. The audience needs to be wary of what they believe, given the tendency of merchants of falsehood to feed them with not just untruth but sensational reports. “Suffice it to say that the agencies, whose financial activities attracted the attention of the anti-graft agency had their budgets independently and exclusively administered by them as long as expenditures did not exceed the threshold envisioned in the Public Procurement Act, of 2007, as amended. “If proposed expenditures go above the threshold, the agencies would revert to the higher authorities for ministerial, or other approvals. “However, the agencies, in their judgment, ensured that expenditures for contracts were below ministerial or other approvals. “The minister would simply have to explain this if she has to visit the EFCC to enable the agency to proceed with its investigations. “We believe that offering clarifications should be the simplest of all tasks for Hajiya Sadiya to do. “The Commission should rest assured of Hajiya Sadiya’s cooperation in her forthcoming interview with operatives. “We take this opportunity to advise against media trial which aims to swing public opinion against the former Honourable Minister. We believe that truth will prevail anyhow.”
There is Time for everything. Figuratively speaking, a person or country can be asked, “What Time is it?” with an intention to trigger a deep rumination from those who should know or care. The start of the New Year after a bloodied end of 2023 with yet another mass brutal killings of over 150 children, youth, women, and men during the Christmas week, in several villages of Plateau State did provide the context for one to ask. So, I ask first, those among my fellow citizens who have only always hoped against hope that our country will ultimately Become, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” I next ask all those who have held and the ones currently holding political and public leadership positions in the country, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” The blood of Fidelis Solomon and over one hundred and fifty other victims gruesomely massacred in the latest Plateau State carnage, and the blood of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Nigerians cumulatively killed in the North Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southsouth and Southwest regions of our country are crying, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” What is your answer, fellow citizens? This really is the hardest question that all the people of goodwill in Nigeria must ask and answer candidly. Anyone who attempts to evade asking and confronting the inevitable tough answer to this question merely lives in delusion. For me, it is the critical time to confront the hard conversations on how to create a viable Nigeria that transits from mere country to a nation of people who though diverse have collectively negotiated to unite themselves around a shared sense of nationalism to build a just, equitable, peaceful, orderly, prosperous, stable, resilient, and ethical society based on shared values, national vision and common identity. It is the most feasible way to avoid Nigeria becoming a truly bankrupt country with all her people. Bankruptcy, an extremely scary word was recently used by Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to describe the financial situation of the country. In his words: “We are facing very serious budgetary constraints. It is okay for me to tell you. It is fine for you to know. We have a very serious situation… We have inherited a very difficult country, a bankrupt country to the extent that we are paying back what was taken. It is serious”. Bankruptcy in corporate use, means the death of an entity because it stops all operations and goes completely out of business. Death is the loss of soul. Like humans, a country also has a soul, and it contains the values and boundaries of what is acceptable or abhorrent behavior. For example, in Nigeria, there was a time when a certain modicum of values served as filters of what behaviors were rewarded and punished. The soul of our country began to die when public leaders became bad examples, disdaining values and rewarding vices. As the people either helplessly watched on or simply did not care and many chose to join the leaders in sliding the scale of values, the soul of Nigeria started to erode. The soul of the country has eroded to a degree where today, the value and respect for human life is closer to zero than to one. The bankruptcy of a country and people which relegates the dignity of life is much more damaging than empty public coffers. Public leaders who do not value the life of their fellow human being bankrupt the soul of their country. The cyclical pattern of empty coffers in a country vastly endowed with the natural, human, and other resources to have emerged as a globally productive and competitive economy is a factor of Nigeria’s values bankruptcy. The Nigerian-State run by governments which are inured to the debasement of human lives is bankrupt of soul. We shockingly arrived a time in our country when regardless of the number of mass abductions, maiming and killings of fellow humans being in our country, the Nigerian-State moves on without an iota of accountability and consequence for especially murderous criminals. We are in a time when Nigerians have normalized and accepted that their governments and leaders can conduct, enable, or ignore acts of impunity. A time in which the lines between reward and punishment are so blurred that the country exists without any form of deterring consequence for the most atrocious behaviors. So, even though evidence abound in our public finance data to support Ribadu’s assessment of the current state of the country’s finance, Nigeria’s reality is worse than mere financial bankruptcy. An empty treasury is the least of insolvencies that stymie Nigeria and Nigerians. The substantial and existential danger is that Nigeria as a country is totally bankrupt of values, void of soul and headed into a cataclysmic collapse of the kind that more money cannot change. What can more money do to reverse the callous acceptance of a brutish, short, and nasty existence into which majority Nigerians have now acculturated their minds? What will more money do for a people who no longer expect their leaders to take responsibility for basic duties including accountability for failure to produce results? What can more money do for a country that kidnapping of citizens grew into an industry nationwide? The Nigeria we all lament today is a sad example of what failure to agree and uphold a national integrity and values system can do to any people. Nigerians chose to be lethargic to how our country is governed, so our public leaders willfully distorted incentives and sanctions in our society. Yes, the public coffers are empty, but the time now is to tackle the cause and not one of the symptoms of our national bankruptcy as a country and people. Nigeria must first overcome the existential sustainability question as our top priority agenda at this time. Is it not staggeringly alarming that Nigeria’s contemporary peer-countries are contending to lead the 21st Century by shifting global economic dominance while we in contrast are steadily regressing farther away from being a country? Nigeria’s multiple existential threats to retaining the status of country are fiercer than ever before. We now barely tick the boxes for the full status of a country, properly so called. A Nigeria that is fast losing most of the basic criteria that qualified us to be included in the United Nations list of recognized countries should alarm all patriots into action to save and avoid the tendentious pattern of our political class tunnelling our focus to addressing symptoms instead of their underlying causes. Our evident state of affairs is that Nigeria now more than ever before ticks closest to the box of a failed state on the criteria of renowned Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine. The index annually uses Economic, Political and Social factors to evaluate fragility and resilience of countries. Nigeria has every year over the last ten years remained within the group of 15 countries out of 170 that rank closest to fragile-failed country status. For example, on the economic front, Nigeria is entangled with endemic issues of systemic and widespread grand as well as petty corruption, “high economic inequality, economic development along group line, low growth, severe economic decline and rising extreme poverty”. In the context of the Fragility Index on the political front, Nigeria experiences “breakdown of capacity of government to function usually characterized by delegitimization of the state, deterioration of public services, suspension, or arbitrary application of law; widespread human rights abuses, security forces operating as a “state within a state” often with impunity, rise of factionalized elites, and rise of external political agents and foreign states”. On the social metrics, the index evaluates Nigeria’s “depleting social capital, loss of social cohesion, a squandering and poor management of its diversity, demographic pressures and tribal, ethnic and/or religious conflicts, massive internal and external displacement of refugees, creating severe humanitarian emergencies, widespread vengeance-seeking group grievances and sustained human flight” and such like. It will amount to a historical missed opportunity if Nigerians do not in 2024 collectively resist the syndrome of tunneling our focus to the lowest common denominator of our problems. The Federal Government in its current narrative about public financial distress is leading everyone down that path because even though it is true that Nigeria and Nigerians are faced with the severest fiscal distress ever experienced in recent history, our single-minded focus must be the battle for the Soul of Nigeria. No amount of money from higher oil prices, tax collections and more domestic and external debts can win this battle for us. More money cannot save a country and people that have lost their soul. Even then, the fact is that from all evidence available in the public domain, additional money earned by Nigeria now merely and mostly feed the avarice and voracious greed of Nigeria’s politicians anyway as the budget process has often revealed. The question that should therefore seize the minds of citizens of Nigeria and move all in the direction of the right actions is found in the timeless words of scripture; “Behold, what does it profit a man, nay, a woman and people of a country, to gain the whole world but lose their soul?” There is a raging battle for the Soul of Nigeria, a country which has turned into a massive killing field and mass graves overrunning with the blood of innocent children, youth, women, and men brutally murdered, battered or abducted without any consequence to the criminals. Every Nigerian of goodwill – regardless of ethnicity, religion, economic status, and political persuasion – knows that the Nigeria we once knew is gone. The collective momentum must now swiftly gather to the tipping point for Nigerians to compel a legally mandated National Conversation that will fundamentally negotiate and determine the value we place on our lives and the values that will uphold, preserve, and dignify a New Nigeria and Nigerians. Throughout history, dead countries commenced their dying when human life ceased to have worth. This is the kind of time Nigeria find itself, but we can by a collective will confront the demons that have dwarfed the realization of our country’s giant potentials and change the course of our checkered history. Could this be the ironic time a lethally flawed government of President Bola Tinubu which continues struggling with crisis of legitimacy, makes the urgent and historic choice to facilitate and enable a New Constitutional Process credibly co-led by citizens? Will the Tinubu administration surprise us and choose the good of Nigeria and Nigerians this Time? Will he take up the gauntlet at this Time and ask himself the question, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” Can Tinubu’s candid answer be that it is “The Time for me to do right by the Citizens of Nigeria?”. There is indeed Time for everything, and Nigerians are anxiously waiting. It is Time.
Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education and Solid Minerals, is Founder and Chairperson of the Board of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG)
The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has made it clear that the former Minister of Humanitarian Services, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar-Farouq, did not shun its invitation to her to appear before it concerning the investigation on her office handling of some financial transactions. The EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, who clarified the issue around the invitation of the Minister, today, January 4 in an interview said that the former minister had sent a letter that she would not be able to honour the invitation because she had some health challenges. “It is true that she didn’t show up, but she sent a letter pleading for more time explaining that she had some health challenges. “She didn’t shun EFCC invitation; she actually gave reasons why she couldn’t meet up “Her lawyer was also at the commission to brief the anti-graft agency of why she couldn’t come or honour the invitation.” Oyewale said that the EFCC had considered her plea and expected that she would honour the invitation without further delay. The EFCC spokesperson said that there might not be any reason for her arrest as she had done the needful through her lawyer. “The position of the commission is that she should turn herself in without further delay.” Oyewale said that the N37.1 billion being quoted by some media organisations might not be a correct figure of the money misappropriated under the ministry. “On the figure that is being branded, I cannot categorically confirm the figure because it is an ongoing thing. We are still tracing all the transactions here and there; it may be more than that. “We can’t publish a figure now until we finish the tracking, and it may be more than what is being brandished now.” This is even as Sir Oladipo Okpeseyi (SAN), Counsel to Hajiya Sadiya also confirmed that his client did not shun the invitation by the EFCC. Okpeseyi said that she was eager to make herself available to offer clarifications to operatives of the anti-graft agency who were looking into the books of two financially independent agencies under the ministry, including the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA). “I was at the headquarters of the Commission on Tuesday to submit a letter to that effect and to seek extension of time (a shift in date) to enable my client, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, to make herself available at another opportune time to offer clarifications about activities of some agencies under the ministry she superintended in the immediate past administration. “Although, the EFCC has yet to send me a formal reply, the leadership availed us of its understanding, which resulted in parties amicably agreeing to have the interview originally scheduled for Wednesday (January 3, 2024) postponed to a time that the Commission would subsequently fix after looking through its schedules.” Sir Okpeseyi, in a chat with the media said that once the coast is clear and a new date is fixed by the Commission, his client would be available to answer questions and offer clarifications on the areas of her stewardship that are not clear to the Commission. The Senior Advocate of Nigeria took the opportunity of the chat to comment on the impression being created in a section of the media that his client is being invited for alleged misappropriation of funds. “That is not the case in this circumstance. She has been invited to offer clarifications into certain expenditures by some agencies under her ministry.” EFCC had earlier said that it would not arrest Sadiya over the alleged N37.1 billion fraud in agencies under the ministry. Meanwhile, the EFCC spokesperson has announced that the National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), Halima Shehu, has been released. Halima Shehu, who was arrested on Tuesday, January 2, was, however, directed to be coming to the EFCC office for interrogation until the end of the investigation. She was arrested in connection with the ongoing probe of the humanitarian affairs ministry. “She was the National Coordinator in charge of the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme under the ministry during Buhari’s tenure, and she has been queried over some of the money that left the ministry’s coffers through her.” It would also be recalled that the former minister had, through her media aide, Alexander Udeh, issued an initial response to the media report that insinuated her into business relationship with a contractor. Read her: “My attention has been drawn to publications in some online media outlets trying to link my name with the activities of one Mr. James Okwete who is reportedly being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over alleged financial improprieties. “Ordinarily I would have ignored such publications, which at best could be seen and regarded as speculative but doing so will give energy to the adventure of those who take delight in mudslinging, especially against those who are, or have been privileged to hold public offices. “In this age of digital media when unverified materials are easily dumped and recalled from the cyber space, it would be inappropriate to ignore such a malicious linkage. “I wish to state categorically that I neither know the said Mr. Okwete nor has ever had him represent me in any way whatsoever. Therefore, linking me with him in whatever guise is bogus and ill-intentioned. “I remain proud to have served my country as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with every sense of responsibility and would defend my actions, stewardship and programmes during my tenure whenever I am called upon to do so. “While I resist the urge to engage in any media banter whatsoever on this issue since my name was never expressly mentioned by the agency reportedly investigating Mr. Okwete, I am nonetheless prepared to seek redress legally and clear my name if there is any such defamatory reference to my person from any source.” Sundry reports have indicated that the agencies, which financial activities caught the interest of and scrutiny by the anti-graft agency had their budgets independently and exclusively administered by them as long as spending did not go above a certain threshold. It was learnt that if proposed expenditures went above the threshold, the agencies would have to revert upstairs for ministerial approval. But the agencies, as learnt, ensured that expenditures for contracts were below ministerial approval. These, as gathered, are some of the areas the former minister would be expected to clarify or shed light on in her rescheduled interview with operatives of the EFCC to enable it [the Commission] track the “expended” funds being investigated.
“I’m happy to announce to you that the Minister of Finance has been able to release 50 percent of the National Supplementary budget, and that in a way, has given us hope that the contractors would be paid anytime from now.” This was the assurance given today, January 4, by the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during his inspection of the ongoing capital projects in the capital city. Wike said that his administration has already received 50 percent of its N100 billion 2023 supplementary budget, following the directive of the President to the Minister of Finance to make the payment. According to him, availability of funds has given the hope that the contractors would be paid soon. He made it clear that no project would be left uncompleted in the FCT as promised. “We have also gotten the assent of the statutory supplementary budget which Mr. President assented to. That again has given us hope that no project will be left uncompleted as promised.” The projects which the minister inspected include the expansion of the Outer Northern Expressway from Villa Roundabout to OSEX/Ring Road I (RRI) Junction, including four numbers of interchanges, being handled by the C.G.C Nig. Ltd; the Full scope Development of Arterial Road N20 from Northern Parkway to ONEX with spurs being undertaken by Gilmor and the official residence of the Vice President being undertaken by Julius Berger (Nig.PLC) According to Wike, the inspection tour was informed by the directive of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), to give account of their activities and achievements on a monthly basis. “The holidays are over and Mr. President has given a marching order when he assented to the 2024 budget that all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) must give account of what they are doing and what they are able to achieve and I believe just as I’m here, so also other Ministers in their various offices are also carrying out their jobs.” The Minister noted with satisfaction the quality of work at the various sites visited and commended the contractors for their efforts and commitment. He expressed confidence that the projects would be completed within the agreed time scheduled, adding that all promises made in the FCT will be fulfilled. “As you can see, these are quality projects and we are very satisfied with what we have seen and we believe with the arrangements the contractors have made and put in place, these are things that would be commissioned during the President’s first year in office. “I’m sure residents of Abuja have seen a different thing. No promise made that will not be fulfilled. All promises made will be fulfilled and we also want to commend the residents of Abuja for the support they have given to us.”
Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State has threatened to sack any commissioner or appointtee that cannot perform to his satisfaction. The Governor, who apparently read riot act to members of the State Executive Council, at the Council’s weekly meeting today, December 3, said that he has set up what he called “secret monitoring and evaluating unit” for quarterly performance review of cabinet members. The Governor insisted on his appointtees redoubling their efforts in service delivery to the people. “We should note particularly that 2024 is a critical year for this administration. “By December, we will be reaching the mid-term. We must move fast in the implementation of our sectoral plans. You all must work hard in your various ministries to achieve set goals. “Kindly be informed that I have set up a discreet Monitoring and Evaluation Team to prepare quarterly reports on Ministries and assess performance of members of the cabinet. Even though you did not sign a performance bond on assumption of office, you will henceforth be evaluated on your service delivery. “We will not hesitate to remove from office any appointee that fails to deliver based on Monitoring and Evaluation reports. “As we commence the 2024 governance activities, I call on cabinet members to maintain a united front. The Cabinet is one united family with equal rights and privileges for members. That is a settled matter in line with best practices. There must be an immediate end to rivalry and segregation within the Cabinet. “I also want to urge cabinet members to focus on serious state matters rather than lobbying around issues of personal benefits. I have told you all, times without numbers, before and after your appointment, that we need to make sacrifices. We must offer what we can do for our state, not asking what our state can do for us. That is the path of patriots.”
Newly appointed Directors of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) have assumed their official duties. They are, from left to right: Director of Special Duties, Horatius Egua; Director General (DG), Captain Chris Najomo and Director of Consumer Protection and Public Affairs, Michael Achimugu, putting heads together after their meeting in Abuja today, December 3.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has arrested and detained the suspended National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), Halima Shehu. Her arrest came a few hours after President Bola Tinubu approved her suspension over the suspicious movement of N17 billion from NSIPA account to other accounts within one week. The embattled CEO was accused of approving payment of billions of naira by the agency without presidential approval. It was gathered that operatives of the EFCC, who were drafted to the National Coordinator’s private office and home, got her arrested at about 8 pm today, January 3. According to The Nation, after searching her home and office, Halima was taken into custody for interrogation. It was also gathered that the EFCC was closing in on a director of the agency, who was allegedly complicit in the huge payments into the suspicious accounts. According to reports, about 27 billion have been recovered so far.
The Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC), has blacklisted 18 identified questionable foreign and local universities operating in the country. The names of such universities, according to data from the website of the NUC are as follows: 1. University of Applied Sciences and Management, Port Novo, Republic of Benin or any of its other campuses in Nigeria. 2. Volta University College, Ho, Volta Region, Ghana or any of its other campuses in Nigeria. 3. The International University, Missouri, USA, Kano and Lagos Study Centres, or any of its campuses in Nigeria. 4. Collumbus University, UK operating anywhere in Nigeria. 5. Tiu International University, UK operating anywhere in Nigeria. 6. Pebbles University, UK operating anywhere in Nigeria. 7. London External Studies UK operating anywhere in Nigeria. 8. Pilgrims University operating anywhere in Nigeria. 9. West African Christian University operating anywhere in Nigeria. 10. EC-Council University, USA, Ikeja Lagos Study Centre. 11. Concept College/Universities (London) Ilorin or any of its campuses in Nigeria. 12. Houdegbe North American University campuses in Nigeria. 13. Irish University Business School London, operating anywhere in Nigeria. 14. University of Education, Winneba Ghana, operating anywhere in Nigeria. 15. Cape Coast University, Ghana, operating anywhere in Nigeria. 16. African University Cooperative Development, Cotonou, Benin Republic, operating anywhere in Nigeria. 17. Pacific Western University, Denver, Colorado, Owerri Study Centre. 18. Evangel University of America and Chudick Management Academic, Lagos. This is coming even as the Independent Corrupt Practice and other related offences Commission (ICPC), commenced investigation into the Togo, Benin university degree certificate drama. A statement from the spokesperson of the Commission, Mrs. Azuka Ogugua said that the Commission’s Chairman had already interacted with the undercover reporter on Cotonou University’s alleged six-week degree scheme. “To verify details and move beyond speculation, ICPC Chairman Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, convened a critical meeting today at the ICPC headquarters in Abuja with a reporter from a news outlet. They discussed the outlet’s December 30th report on alleged corrupt practices in rapid degree issuance at a Cotonou university, aiming to deepen the investigation and initiate relevant actions. “The investigation into Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Technologies (ESGT) in Cotonou reveals a concerning situation where degrees are allegedly awarded in as little as six weeks, bypassing standard academic procedures like application, registration, coursework, and examinations. “In response to these critical allegations, the ICPC is embarking on a thorough investigation. This probe will rigorously examine the networks and individuals engaged in these malpractices, with the objective of restoring and preserving the integrity of our educational system.” The statement said that thhe Commission would engage in a synergistic collaboration with relevant domestic and international bodies to jointly evaluate the legitimacy of academic qualifications procured from overseas institutions, especially those highlighted in the investigative report. “The ICPC calls upon all stakeholders in the educational and governmental sectors to join hands in this critical endeavor. Together, we can work towards a future where the credibility of our educational qualifications is unimpeachable, and where corruption finds no refuge.”
The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has announced the extension of the closure of registration for intending Muslim Pilgrims for the 2024 pilgrimage to January 31. A statement, today, from the Commission said that the extension, which was approved by the Federal Government, came in the wake of pressure mounted by stakeholders, including State Governors, religious clerics, State Pilgrims’ Welfare Boards, Agencies and Commissions The statement, signed by the NAHCON spokesperson, Fatima Sanda Usara, said that the extension would give an additional opportunity for individual Muslim to participate in the pilgrimage. “Consequently, NAHCON is confident that before expiration of the new deadline, with the support of its sister agencies, the Commission would have determined the total cost of 2024 Hajj. “The extension therefore provides a window for new registrants to do so and by the end of January, those who need to balance up payment would be able to do so as well. “NAHCON seizes this chance to remind intending pilgrims and other stakeholders that the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has slated 25th February as end date for signing all contracts, signaling the end of payments into IBAN accounts. “With this extension, NAHCON has barely a month to finalize payment of all Hajj deposits into its IBAN account for the 2024 Hajj. “This extension, even though overstretches NAHCON’s preparatory timeline, reflects the Commission’s Chairman, Malam Jalal Ahmad Arabi’s commitment to accommodating the concerns of stakeholders. “He expressed gratitude to religious leaders, state boards, and governors for their advocacy on behalf of the pilgrims. Malam Arabi described this collaborative effort as a testament to the shared commitment to facilitating a meaningful and inclusive Hajj experience for all. “He prayed all Hajj handlers would utilize this opportunity well for success of 2024 Hajj operations.”
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What Time Is It For Nigeria? By Obiageli Ezekwesili
There is Time for everything. Figuratively speaking, a person or country can be asked, “What Time is it?” with an intention to trigger a deep rumination from those who should know or care. The start of the New Year after a bloodied end of 2023 with yet another mass brutal killings of over 150 children, youth, women, and men during the Christmas week, in several villages of Plateau State did provide the context for one to ask. So, I ask first, those among my fellow citizens who have only always hoped against hope that our country will ultimately Become, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” I next ask all those who have held and the ones currently holding political and public leadership positions in the country, “What Time is it for Nigeria?”
The blood of Fidelis Solomon and over one hundred and fifty other victims gruesomely massacred in the latest Plateau State carnage, and the blood of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Nigerians cumulatively killed in the North Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southsouth and Southwest regions of our country are crying, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” What is your answer, fellow citizens?
This really is the hardest question that all the people of goodwill in Nigeria must ask and answer candidly. Anyone who attempts to evade asking and confronting the inevitable tough answer to this question merely lives in delusion.
For me, it is the critical time to confront the hard conversations on how to create a viable Nigeria that transits from mere country to a nation of people who though diverse have collectively negotiated to unite themselves around a shared sense of nationalism to build a just, equitable, peaceful, orderly, prosperous, stable, resilient, and ethical society based on shared values, national vision and common identity. It is the most feasible way to avoid Nigeria becoming a truly bankrupt country with all her people.
Bankruptcy, an extremely scary word was recently used by Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to describe the financial situation of the country. In his words: “We are facing very serious budgetary constraints. It is okay for me to tell you. It is fine for you to know. We have a very serious situation… We have inherited a very difficult country, a bankrupt country to the extent that we are paying back what was taken. It is serious”.
Bankruptcy in corporate use, means the death of an entity because it stops all operations and goes completely out of business. Death is the loss of soul. Like humans, a country also has a soul, and it contains the values and boundaries of what is acceptable or abhorrent behavior. For example, in Nigeria, there was a time when a certain modicum of values served as filters of what behaviors were rewarded and punished. The soul of our country began to die when public leaders became bad examples, disdaining values and rewarding vices. As the people either helplessly watched on or simply did not care and many chose to join the leaders in sliding the scale of values, the soul of Nigeria started to erode. The soul of the country has eroded to a degree where today, the value and respect for human life is closer to zero than to one.
The bankruptcy of a country and people which relegates the dignity of life is much more damaging than empty public coffers. Public leaders who do not value the life of their fellow human being bankrupt the soul of their country. The cyclical pattern of empty coffers in a country vastly endowed with the natural, human, and other resources to have emerged as a globally productive and competitive economy is a factor of Nigeria’s values bankruptcy. The Nigerian-State run by governments which are inured to the debasement of human lives is bankrupt of soul.
We shockingly arrived a time in our country when regardless of the number of mass abductions, maiming and killings of fellow humans being in our country, the Nigerian-State moves on without an iota of accountability and consequence for especially murderous criminals. We are in a time when Nigerians have normalized and accepted that their governments and leaders can conduct, enable, or ignore acts of impunity. A time in which the lines between reward and punishment are so blurred that the country exists without any form of deterring consequence for the most atrocious behaviors.
So, even though evidence abound in our public finance data to support Ribadu’s assessment of the current state of the country’s finance, Nigeria’s reality is worse than mere financial bankruptcy. An empty treasury is the least of insolvencies that stymie Nigeria and Nigerians. The substantial and existential danger is that Nigeria as a country is totally bankrupt of values, void of soul and headed into a cataclysmic collapse of the kind that more money cannot change. What can more money do to reverse the callous acceptance of a brutish, short, and nasty existence into which majority Nigerians have now acculturated their minds?
What will more money do for a people who no longer expect their leaders to take responsibility for basic duties including accountability for failure to produce results? What can more money do for a country that kidnapping of citizens grew into an industry nationwide? The Nigeria we all lament today is a sad example of what failure to agree and uphold a national integrity and values system can do to any people. Nigerians chose to be lethargic to how our country is governed, so our public leaders willfully distorted incentives and sanctions in our society.
Yes, the public coffers are empty, but the time now is to tackle the cause and not one of the symptoms of our national bankruptcy as a country and people. Nigeria must first overcome the existential sustainability question as our top priority agenda at this time. Is it not staggeringly alarming that Nigeria’s contemporary peer-countries are contending to lead the 21st Century by shifting global economic dominance while we in contrast are steadily regressing farther away from being a country? Nigeria’s multiple existential threats to retaining the status of country are fiercer than ever before. We now barely tick the boxes for the full status of a country, properly so called.
A Nigeria that is fast losing most of the basic criteria that qualified us to be included in the United Nations list of recognized countries should alarm all patriots into action to save and avoid the tendentious pattern of our political class tunnelling our focus to addressing symptoms instead of their underlying causes.
Our evident state of affairs is that Nigeria now more than ever before ticks closest to the box of a failed state on the criteria of renowned Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine. The index annually uses Economic, Political and Social factors to evaluate fragility and resilience of countries. Nigeria has every year over the last ten years remained within the group of 15 countries out of 170 that rank closest to fragile-failed country status. For example, on the economic front, Nigeria is entangled with endemic issues of systemic and widespread grand as well as petty corruption, “high economic inequality, economic development along group line, low growth, severe economic decline and rising extreme poverty”.
In the context of the Fragility Index on the political front, Nigeria experiences “breakdown of capacity of government to function usually characterized by delegitimization of the state, deterioration of public services, suspension, or arbitrary application of law; widespread human rights abuses, security forces operating as a “state within a state” often with impunity, rise of factionalized elites, and rise of external political agents and foreign states”.
On the social metrics, the index evaluates Nigeria’s “depleting social capital, loss of social cohesion, a squandering and poor management of its diversity, demographic pressures and tribal, ethnic and/or religious conflicts, massive internal and external displacement of refugees, creating severe humanitarian emergencies, widespread vengeance-seeking group grievances and sustained human flight” and such like.
It will amount to a historical missed opportunity if Nigerians do not in 2024 collectively resist the syndrome of tunneling our focus to the lowest common denominator of our problems. The Federal Government in its current narrative about public financial distress is leading everyone down that path because even though it is true that Nigeria and Nigerians are faced with the severest fiscal distress ever experienced in recent history, our single-minded focus must be the battle for the Soul of Nigeria. No amount of money from higher oil prices, tax collections and more domestic and external debts can win this battle for us.
More money cannot save a country and people that have lost their soul. Even then, the fact is that from all evidence available in the public domain, additional money earned by Nigeria now merely and mostly feed the avarice and voracious greed of Nigeria’s politicians anyway as the budget process has often revealed. The question that should therefore seize the minds of citizens of Nigeria and move all in the direction of the right actions is found in the timeless words of scripture; “Behold, what does it profit a man, nay, a woman and people of a country, to gain the whole world but lose their soul?”
There is a raging battle for the Soul of Nigeria, a country which has turned into a massive killing field and mass graves overrunning with the blood of innocent children, youth, women, and men brutally murdered, battered or abducted without any consequence to the criminals.
Every Nigerian of goodwill – regardless of ethnicity, religion, economic status, and political persuasion – knows that the Nigeria we once knew is gone. The collective momentum must now swiftly gather to the tipping point for Nigerians to compel a legally mandated National Conversation that will fundamentally negotiate and determine the value we place on our lives and the values that will uphold, preserve, and dignify a New Nigeria and Nigerians. Throughout history, dead countries commenced their dying when human life ceased to have worth. This is the kind of time Nigeria find itself, but we can by a collective will confront the demons that have dwarfed the realization of our country’s giant potentials and change the course of our checkered history.
Could this be the ironic time a lethally flawed government of President Bola Tinubu which continues struggling with crisis of legitimacy, makes the urgent and historic choice to facilitate and enable a New Constitutional Process credibly co-led by citizens? Will the Tinubu administration surprise us and choose the good of Nigeria and Nigerians this Time?
Will he take up the gauntlet at this Time and ask himself the question, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” Can Tinubu’s candid answer be that it is “The Time for me to do right by the Citizens of Nigeria?”.
There is indeed Time for everything, and Nigerians are anxiously waiting. It is Time.
Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education and Solid Minerals, is Founder and Chairperson of the Board of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG)