Nigeria News
IMF’s Insistence On Subsidy Removal And Naira Devaluation
By Lajuwon Lasisi
The mentality of the IMF experts on Nigerian economy is always to deflate the already devaluated Nigerian currency and to increase the already hyper-inflationary pressure on capital goods, due to their insistent deficient, and foolish propositions, on how Nigerian economy should be run. This time around, IMF would like the government to remove the remaining oil subsidy to turn around the country’s economy.
This is unacceptable economic propaganda stunt, because there is nothing like fuel subsidy on the part of Nigerian people. It was the delusive way the oil business is being run by the Federal Government organ, NNPC, that led to the speculative removal of the so-called fuel subsidy, by increasing the fuel pump price. This was done in order for the Nigerian populace to pay for the lapses of the government business organ, NNPC, with the connivance of some people that mattered in Babangida’s government, which saw to it that the existing refineries were denied Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) necessary to keep them running. These were the people NNPC gave the contracts to import petroleum products for Nigerian domestic use, apart from some independent petroleum marketers.
So from the era of Babangida junta down to Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan regimes, Nigerians are being programmed to pay for the costly ineptitude of NNPC, nay, the governments, through what they call fuel subsidy. Only Yar’Adua’s government refused to increase pump price of fuel by a dime. Even when his predecessor, Obasanjo, forced him to increase pump price by N5, two months later, he reverted to the old price of N65 from Obasanjo’s imposition of N70.
But to our surprise, President Ebele Jonathan, came in January, 2012 to increase the pump price to N97 from N65 with a proviso to use the fuel subsidy to provide necessary infrastructure to improve our economy, only to come round in February of the same year to announce to the nation that his earlier promise of January could not be met, because, NNPC had paid a chunk of the fuel subsidy to some oil marketers by default, according to the Federal Minister of Finance , Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, even though the EFCC has swung into action to prosecute these oil subsidy looters. For your information, the amount of money paid out to these notorious and national economic saboteurs within a month of increase, was about N1.3 trillion or so. The Kano-born petrel of House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan, and another colleague of his, Boniface Emenalo, get themselves entangled in the $ 620,000 bribery scandal trap set for them by Femi Otedola, the son of the former governor of Lagos State. Lawan’s committee were asked to investigate the fraudulent oil marketers who used some NNPC officials to steal or pilfer oil subsidy fund, without supplying the products.
And this is what the IMF, by inference, is encouraging the Jonathan government to do, by removing the remaining fuel subsidy to increase the pump price, so that the fuel subsidy rogues could get a bigger opportunity to steal fuel subsidy funds, whereas there is no time that pump price increase would not have multiple side effects on inflationary aspects of our economy. Obasanjo increased pump price 12 times which brought confusion into the economic enterprises of Nigerians, in terms of inflation, which left most Nigerians more impoverished. The only thing Obasanjo could have gained from these increases is that his name ought to have entered the Guinness Book of Records, as the only head of state that increased the pump price of petrol 12 times in the 8 years he was in power as the civilian president.
Nevertheless, as far as Nigerian economy is concerned, IMF has never given a purposeful and good advice. Rather, it is always a subjective proposition which usually reduces the value of our currency before devaluation. For instance, in 1986, during the inception of Babangida’s regime, the IMF enforced the recommendation of its Breton Commission in some of the developing economies of the world, including Nigeria, to devalue their currencies for better development, without corresponding guidelines, or economic indices to follow, before devaluation of their currencies was carried out. In the economies of advanced countries certain economic indicators definitely show the reasons for devaluation of their currencies, and which would last for a short period of time, in the developing economies such may last several years; resulting in further impoverishment of the affected countries, through consistent devaluation which always reduce their currencies to ordinary paper. It is only few developing countries that refused to be cowed down that are doing fine today.
In the case of Nigeria, Babangida’s government acceded sheepishly and stupidly (hook, line and sinker), to devalue the strong Naira currency, which remained strong and highly acceptable throughout West African countries. And 27 years later, the Naira continues to lack necessary purchasing power of which it was known before devaluation in 1986. Ghana, one of the victims of IMF currency devaluation deceit rediscovered herself in 2007 and revalued the Cedi to about 10 Cedi to one dollar. And since 2007, Ghana’s economy has been transformed to a masterpiece of envy and adoration.
President Obama of USA visited Ghana which he described as bastion of a stable economy, with good democratic government, before flying to Kenya, his father’s country.
Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, also made a feeble, but defective pronouncement to revalue the Naira in August 2008, because, according to him, Nigerian economy was doing well, and N1.25 was to exchange for $ 1.0. However, this was not allowed to be, because he was asked to suspend his proposal, two weeks later by his principal.
But we thank God that the present CBN governor, Lamido Sanusi Lamido, also confirmed that Nigerian economy is doing well, what remains is for him to announce that N1.0 should exchange for $ 1.0 in order to bring our economy back to where it was in 1986. We started this revaluation campaign since 2002. The pronouncement of N1 to $ 1 will only act as a shocker to the treasury looters, who have stashed away Naira in foreign currency, in foreign banks, while the Nigerian economy will spring back buoyantly to take up its rightful place in the world economic development. As long as no known economic indicator was used (except the black market value of N3 to $ 1) to determine the Naira devaluation in 1986, CBN, as represented by Lamido Sanusi Lamido, has no other means, or better option than to announce the new value of N1 to $ 1, Anything short of this is continuation of economic strangulation of the already worthless Nigerian currency which will continue to deteriorate in value, if it were not pegged at about N165 per $ 1.
This is an indication that Nigerian currency is designed, or earmarked for internal, or domestic use only, unlike the advance economic currencies of the world, which are endowed with necessary economic indices or parameter, to devalue or revalue their currencies.
Sanusi should therefore be advised to note that “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures”. (Shakespeare)
Sanusi should be told that the words of the elders are words of wisdom, and to be conscious to do the right thing now, so that the unborn generation of Nigerians would regard him as the CBN governor that restored our currency to its enviable value before the 1986 destructive devaluation.
•Lasisi wrote from Lagos. Email: [email protected]
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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: PM News
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
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