Federal High Court Throws Out Buhari's Application In Certificate Case by Bigchief46(m).

The Honorable Justice Ademola Adeniyi sitting at the Federal High Court 7, Abuja, today, Thursday the 26th day of May 2016 dismissed the Preliminary Objections filed by President Muhammadu Buhari in the case instituted against him, INEC & APC in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/110/2015 by an Abuja based Legal Practitioner, Barr. Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe challenging his competence to stand election into the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria when he lacks the basic educational qualifications set out in the Constitution.

It will be recalled that in February 2015, Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe, Esq. filed an Originating Summons at the Federal High Court, Abuja praying the Court to among others declare that Buhari is unqualified to aspire to the position of President not having sat for the Secondary School Certificate and also deposing to a false affidavit about his educational qualifications contrary to the Electoral Act. Buhari & the APC instead of entering a defence on the merits and exhibiting any Educational certificates obtained by Buhari, tried to frustrate the hearing of the case by filing several frivolous objections to the competence of the action.

President Buhari retained over twenty SANs led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, Chief Akin Olujinmi, Femi Falana, etc., who for over one year now have failed to file any defence for Buhari or APC but instead used every trick in the book to delay the matter.

This morning, the Hon. Justice Ademola Adeniyi in Ruling on the said applications which have been fought for over a year now, dismissed ALL of them as totally lacking in merit. He held that the suit filed by Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe was competent and the service on Buhari and APC was also competent.

He thereafter adjourned the case to the 16th day of June 2016 for hearing of the substantive Originating Summons to determine whether Buhari's educational qualifications meets the minimum standards required by the Constitution. The Ruling today has caused lots of disquiet in the Presidency where many had forgotten that this albatross still hangs on Buhari's neck.

Obasanjo,Duke, Atiku,Others ‘Dump’ Buhari; Linked To New Political Party

Apparently dissatisfied with the performance of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) government led by President Muhammadu Buhari, former President Olusegun Obasanjo is said to be leading a pack of top politicians including former senate president Ken Nnamani and former Cross River State Governor Mr. Donald Duke to float a new political party ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Our correspondent gathered authoritatively that the new party in formation, which is billed for lunch in November 2016 also has Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal and his predecessor Senator Aliyu Wamako as coordinator of Sokoto state while Senator Musa Kwakwaso is to oversee Kano state....

Other coordinators of the yet to be named mega party our correspondent gathered are Senator Adamu Aliero who is to coordinate Kebbi state, Mrs Helen Esuene who is to coordinate Akwa Ibom, the current secretary to the Edo State government Professor Julius Ihonvbere is to coordinate Edo State while Mr. Jimi Agbaje is to coordinate Lagos state. The name of Ogun born politician Mr. Bode Mustapha also featured in the new political arrangement.

Some governors of the South-South and South-East, who are serving their second terms in office our correspondent gathered are also deeply involved in the political arrangement but with the promise of vice presidential slot while  present and former governors of the North have also been linked to the new party.

Though the name of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was linked to the new party, an insider told our correspondent that Obasanjo is strongly opposed to the inclusion of his former deputy in the party.

A source, who spoke to our correspondent, on condition of anonymity said ” Obasanjo is blocking the inclusion of Atiku Abubakar because of their old quarrel. We are beginning to see the former VP returning to the PDP before 2019 because the APC will certainly not give him the ticket in 2019″.

Top political leaders in both the ruling APC, the PDP and other political parties in the country have also been linked with the new party as consultation intensifies.

An inside source told our correspondent on Monday that key members of the National Assembly, some serving ministers, former governors and a host of other powerful individuals in the country swell the rank of the new political group.

The source stated that in the months ahead, “you are going to see alignment and realignment of political interests. As for the APC and the PDP, there survival will be dependent on their ability to manage their crisis”.

Our correspondent’s investigations revealed that APC strongman Senator Bola Tinubu is already mobilising his supporters to consolidate their hold on the South West bloc and possibly reawaken “his old political bloc”.

Tinubu’s key allies and diehard loyalists who the source said are very unhappy in APC and with the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government are already mobilising to recreate the old Alliance for Democracy (AD) platform ahead of the 2019 general elections, another top politician confirmed.

The source said this development is also applicable to the Atiku Abubakar and the Bukola Saraki’s blocs.

We had exclusively reported that a cross sector of top politicians in the six geo-political zones of the country have been consulting to fashion out a new mega political party ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The promoters of the yet to be named political party, the online medium said were undecided wether to create a completely new political platform or leverage on an already registered party and build it into a mega party to form a formidable opposition party to the APC and the PDP in the political landscape.

The difference between the poor and rich nations is not the age of the Nation.

The difference between the rich and the poor nations is not the age and this can be demonstrated by countries like India and Egypt, which are more than 2000 years old and are still poor countries. On the other hand, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which 150 years back were insignificant, today are developed and rich countries.

The difference between the poor and rich nation does not also depend on the available natural resources.

Japan has limited territory, 80% mountainous, unsuitable for agriculture or farming, but is the second in worlds economy. The country is like an immense floating factory, importing raw material from the whole world and exporting manufactured products.

Second example is Switzerland, it does not grow cocoa but produces the best chocolates in the world. In her small territory she rears animals and cultivates the land only for four month in a year, nevertheless manufactures the best milk products. A small country which is an image of security which has made it the strongest world bank.

Executives from rich countries who interact with their counterparts from poor countries show no significant intellectual differences.

The racial or colour factors also do not evince importance: migrants heavy in laziness in their country of origin are forcefully productive in rich European countries.

What then is the difference?

The difference is the attitude of the people, moulded for many years by education and culture.
When we analyse the conduct of the people from the rich and developed countries, it is observed that a majority abide by the following principles of life:

1. Ethics, as basic principles.
2. Integrity.
3. Responsibility.
4. The respect for Laws and Regulations.
5. The respect from majority of citizens by right.
6. The love for work.
7. The effort to save and invest.
8. The will to be productive.
9. Punctuality.

In the poor countries a small minority follow these basic principles in their daily life.

We are not poor because we lack natural resources or because nature was cruel towards us. We are poor because we lack attitude. We lack the will to follow and teach these principles of working of rich and developed societies.

WE ARE IN THIS STATE BECAUSE WE WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OVER EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE.

WE ARE IN THIS STATE BECAUSE WE SEE SOMETHING DONE WRONG AND SAY - “LET IT BE AND LEAVE IT TO GOD." WE SHOULD HAVE A SPIRITED MEMORY AND ATTITUDE OF CARING ONLY THEN WILL WE BE ABLE TO CHANGE OUR PRESENT STATE.

"FULANI HERDSMEN KILLINGS; MODUS OPERANDI, THOSE INVOLVED, AND THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

The most significant problem that African nations face is lack of leadership. Normally, Leadership should be an intentional conscious effort to attend to the people’s needs and aspirations. But in Africa, even though many of those that are thrust into the position of leadership mean well, they lack the capacity to lead and meet the people/s hopes and aspirations. Apart from lack of adequate preparation for leadership, one other notable factor that had inhibited good leadership among African leaders is the seemingly non-existent structures for research and information management in the society. Hence, many well-meaning leaders often do not have the requisite information needed for a thorough appraisal and resolution of problems as they arise.

A clear example is the recent terrorist attack in Enugu State of Nigeria and the obvious ignorance of the State Leadership on the modus operandi of the Fulani Herdsmen which led to poor leadership decisions. For a long time, the Nigerian state has been under siege by Fulani herdsmen terrorists operating under a predictable pattern of reconnaissance, attack and withdrawal, leading to many deaths and social dislocations. Since January 2016, there has been documented deaths of approximately 1000 Nigerians from across the middle belt, the South-south, and Southeastern parts of the country from these coordinated Fulani herdsmen attacks.  The Fulani herdsmen are credited with destabilizing the city of Jos, a once tourist destination; and their history of mayhem extend beyond the borders of the Nigerian state. They are also the major actors/catalyst to recent conflicts in the Central African Republic. Armed with adequate information about these murderous group, one would have expected the Governors in the Southeastern states, especially those whose citizens were murdered in cold blood by these terrorists to come out with a strong condemnation of the Fulani herdsmen carnage and unify towards a common cause solution. On the contrary, events in the past weeks only showed confused state executives, who do not even understand the magnitude of the problem at hand. 

In fairness to these Governors, some of them mostly followed the normal state security protocol in responding to this abnormality, Hence, the failure to protect the citizens was the liability of the Federal Government of Nigeria and its armed forces. Though we do not excuse the shabby response of these Governors to the Fulani Herdsmen tragedy, we are inclined to give them a slack because to solve a problem, one needs to first understand the problem. The Governors did not understand the problem. Most Nigerians and international bodies do not understand the Fulani herdsmen problem and we at CACLD did not initially. We therefore dispatched a fact finding team to the Southeastern part of the country to unravel the intricacies and complexities of the Fulani terrorist group; a group rated as the fourth most dangerous by respected international conflict organizations (According to the Global Terrorism Index 2015 report; "Fulani militants" killed 1,229 people in 2014 -- up from 63 in 2013, Making them the "fourth most deadly terrorist group").

Our fact finding team visited “Ama Hausa and Garki” camps in both Enugu and Abia States. They also interviewed neighbors from the local communities living within and around the Hausa communities in both states. Both the Northerners and the local community were very open and volunteered valuable information to our team. There seems to be a willingness and eagerness for the violence to end. Below, we will present our findings in numbered points.

1. The Fulani herdsmen terrorists are Fulanis but mostly non-Nigerians: This may come as a surprise to most of us. About ten percent of the terrorists are Nigerians and they live within the Hausa Fulani communities in Ama-Hausa and Garki’s in the South East and South-south regions.

2. The Fulani Herdsmen terrorists do not own cattle: This is another revelation that may come as a surprise to many. Fulani herdsmen killers’ major job description is just to kill. They do not own any cattle. Most of them are employed by the cattle owners as “security men” whose job is strictly to protect the cattle. They do not however follow the cattle around, but move in separate vehicles along a defined route within the states where cattle are being reared.

3. The Ama-Hausas and Garkis harbor 80% of the Fulani herdsmen killers. This is a very important revelation. The Garkis are mostly Hausas and other minorities from the north, but within them, they Fulani herdsmen killers reside. The northerners were able to show us these Fulani herdsmen “security personnel” and they were dressed differently from the normal Northern Nigerians within these settlements. They were young, less religious, most of them use drugs, and consume alcohol. A majority of these herdsmen terrorists are migrants from Chad, Niger, and other Fulani enclaves outside the Nigerian state. A small percentage of these Fulani youths are Nigerians born in the states where they reside. They are the ones vested with the responsibility of leading these Fulanis on their regular rampage; serving as compasses to the blood-hungry terrorists.

4. The Fulani herdsmen that accompany cattle from the North to the South per season do not own cattle. This is another surprise coming out from the investigation. The cattle are owned by more prominent Fulani leaders in the country. Most Nigerian Fulanis are no longer migratory herdsmen, but are either Emirs, Sultans, heads of parastatals, oil barons, Imams, Christian Pastors, Governors, Federal Reps, and Senators. However, they still maintain their cultural ownership of cattle. These wealthy Nigerians increase their wealth astronomically through cattle rearing by using their not well off brothers from outside Nigeria to rear these cattle. Instead of investing in ranches and buying of grasses from the South, they chose the cheaper alternative of having their kinsmen, imported from outside the country, take these cattle from the north to south seasonally; using the entire Nigerian space as their “grass kingdom”. These cattle, in turn, destroy farms in their path, rendering farmers economically bankrupt to further enrich the wealthy Fulani “remote herders”.

For clarity sake, let us present the breakdown of Fulani people in Nigeria as we deduced from our investigation.
There are about 5 million Fulani people in Nigeria making them one of the smallest ethnic group in the country.
Out of the 5 million Fulani people, only about 3 million of them are Nigerians. The remaining 2 million come from outside the country and are first generation immigrants.

About 60 percent of the Fulanis in Nigeria are governors, Pastors, Imams, Emirs, Sultan, House of Rep members, Importers, Exporters, Ministers, Oil well owners, lecturers, Vice Chancellors, Ministers, and Senators etc. In a nutshell, the Fulani control all sectors of the northern economy. These rich Fulani’s own all the cattle being reared in Nigeria.
The remaining 40 percent of Fulanis come from outside the country. These are the poor and peasant Fulanis. These immigrant Fulani’s are mostly in charge of the cattle owned by the Bourgeois Fulani. Because the Fulani’s have the highest income per capita in the Nigerian state (Fulani’s who are Nigerians), they constantly need to import their poor brothers and sisters from outside the country to increase their population (the Fulani’s always either marry into rich families or they would marry only Fulani to maintain their pure race) and to help with menial jobs.

In Garki and Ama-Hausa settlements all over the country, there exist a few Nigerian Fulanis (some are born in these states) who coordinate the cattle business. These Fulanis either help manage family cattle or are just contracted middlemen in charge of the business on behalf of various millionaire cattle owners. They themselves are also millionaires. Under these middlemen are about a group of 20 to 40 Fulani boys within the ages of 20 and 35. These are the unofficial Fulani herdsmen security team whose job is to protect the Fulani herdsmen cattle.
Lastly, there is a group of Fulani herdsmen who rear the cattle from the north to the south. These are at the bottom of the Fulani Herdsmen ladder. Some of them do not even know how to speak English and are so poor that they are paid just a little amount of money for their job. These herdsmen do not carry guns. They only carry arrows and machetes to help them navigate the bushes on their way down to the South.

6. Fulani Herdsmen Attack.
We learned from the surrounding communities and from some of the Hausa elders about what constitutes a Fulani herdsmen attack. According to information we received, when there is a disagreement between host communities, or between herdsmen and farmers, the Fulani herdsmen who accompany the cattle will locate the nearest Fulani settlement and if there is none, they will locate the nearest Garki or Ama Hausa. When they arrive, they will narrate their story. The Fulani (Nigerian middlemen) cattle managers will notify their top Fulani Herdsmen which in this case, include governors (like El Rufai) and other top Fulani Bourgeois who own the cattle.  A decision will be made about whether there should be an attack or not on the said village or host community. If an attack is sanctioned, then modalities will be mapped out and a date will be chosen for the attack. Most times, Fulani herdsmen in the military and police are notified and everyone sends a representative. Neighboring settlements sends out representatives and arms cache are opened and arms are distributed to the participants. The major participants are the 20 to 40 Fulani herdsmen who reside in the Garkis and Ama Hausas. These are the Fulani warriors whose job is to kill.

During an attack, every Fulani person in the area knows there will be an attack and all will contribute to make sure it goes on successfully. Fulanis in the higher levels of the military will ensure all commands under them stand down, and the top Fulani police officers will do the same. The road is then clear for the Fulani herdsmen to carry their attacks.

7. Solution
Many of those who interacted with us suggested solutions that are very interesting. Most of the northern Hausas and the local communities suggested a ban on grazing in the affected states. A total ban would be the only way to solve this problem. Some argued that with the Fulani’s nature of encroaching on other people’s land and territories, any attempt to give them land would aggravate the problem and not solve it.

Most villagers from Abia State suggested that these cattle be penned in the north while government releases money for people in the South to cut grasses, process the grass, and send to the north. This is the practice all over the world. They indicated that any attempt to take their lands and give to the Fulani would definitely result to a civil war.

We agree, the solution is very simple; ban grazing, establish ranches for the cattle in the north, pay the southerners to harvest grass and send to the north. With this, everyone would be pleased with the outcome. This solution is expected to generate 1 million jobs in the South and about 500,000 jobs in the North. Also Fulani herdsmen terror will be totally eliminated.

Conclusion
Next time when we talk about a herdsmen attack, we must understand that the attack was not carried out by the herdsmen you see escorting cattle on the roads and bushes. These attacks are well coordinated and sometimes involves the approval of senators and influential men in Abuja. Even our president Mohammed Buhari has a herd of cattle and hence is a Fulani herdsman, corroborating the information we received from respondents on ground. Fulani herdsmen attacks involves all Fulani ethnic members in Nigeria. Most times, these attacks happen only because “respectable men” sanction them.

Issued by the News Team of Chinua Achebe Center for Leadership and Development.

THE TRUTH SHALL SET PRESIDENT BUHARI FREE - By Reno omokri

Having worked twice at the Nigerian Presidential villa and once at the British Parliament, if there is anything I have learnt, it is that it is impossible to over inform a leader. You can under inform him, but no matter how much information you give a leader, you cannot give him too much information.

In today’s world, strength and weakness are gauged differently than they were, say in 1984. In the millennial age in which we live in, information is power and lack of information is weakness.

My concern is that there are a lot of weaknesses in Nigeria’s seat of power because not enough information is being given to President Muhammadu Buhari.

I, like other Nigerians, have heard or read reports of ministers in President Buhari’s cabinet being afraid to challenge him or disagree with him. Perhaps unawares, the minister of state for petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, corroborated these reports in a recorded YouTube video now circulating where he revealed that the President ignores his ministers when they bring up issues that he does not want to discuss.

Having such anodyne personalities around you just means that you are living in a bubble, seeing things as you want them to be and not as they are.

On Friday May 20th, 2016, Dr. Yemi Kale, the Statistician General of the Federation and head of the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics revealed that Nigeria’s economy had not grown in the first quarter of the year but had rather shrunk by 0.36%, the worst contraction in 25 years!

Since the announcement was made, there has been various reactions with pundits pointing at this or the other as being the cause of this setback.

But I am convinced beyond any reasonable doubts that this negative trend owes more to President Muhammadu Buhari’s utterances on our economy and polity than to any other single causative factor.

The bigger problem is that even though I suspect that his ministers know that what I have just said is true, they would rather pander to the President and like Dr. Chris Ngige, say that Nigerians are lucky to have President Buhari (obvious Ngige does not know the meaning of luck).

In the last eleven months, the President had traversed the globe and has spoken about Nigeria’s economy as if he was the chief undertaker of our polity rather than the chief marketer that he is meant to be.

Of what benefit is it to the President’s agenda or to Nigeria’s economic well being for him to go to foreign nations and instead of highlighting the positive things that are happening in Nigeria, he begins to regale his hosts with the most unsavory stories about Nigeria.

And some of the stories the President tells are just that-tales. They are not factual. At best they are arguable.

You go to India for a summit where other world leaders are competing with you for the attention of venture capitalists and foreign investors and while your counterparts are talking about how great their countries are, you tell the audience how everybody in your country is corrupt except you and oh, can they come and invest in your country?

Only a foolish investor would go and invest in a country whose President thinks his citizens are ‘criminals’ (as the President said to the Telegraph of UK in February) and whose officials are ‘fantastically corrupt’ (as the President said in agreement with British PM David Cameron when questioned by Sky News).

The President speaks on the Nigerian economy and polity without any filters and his comments are causing his chickens to roost with devastating consequences for all of us.

Never in the history of Nigeria has there been such a divestment of investment as we have seen in the past year.

Truworths has pulled out of Nigeria, Virgin Atlantic has closed up shop, Iberia is pulling out, RenCap is pulling funds from Nigeria, both Alquity Investment Management Ltd. and Duet Asset Management Ltd. are divesting their Nigeria holding.

Zenith Bank laid off 1,200 staff, FCMB let go 700 employees, Ecobank sacked 50% of its top management staff. The President of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Tony Ejinkeonye revealed that in just two months 50,000 staff were laid off in Abuja alone.

The results are telling. A little over a year ago, Nigeria was projected by CNNMoney to be the third fastest growing economy in the world behind China and Qatar yet just two weeks ago the International Monetary Fund released its World Economic Outlook and Nigeria is not even among the top 15 fastest growing economies in Africa let alone the world!

And when you try to raise the alarm, the refrain from the government and its horde of unofficial spokesmen is that the downturn is caused by the fall in crude prices.

Yet this logic is flawed. The government’s own economic monitoring agency, the National Bureau of Statistics itself reported that the exponential growth Nigeria enjoyed especially from 2012 to its 2014 climax (when our economy overtook South Africa to be Africa’s largest economy) was spurred not by the oil sector, but “this growth was largely driven by improved activities in the telecommunications, building and construction, hotel and restaurant and business services” to quote the NBS.

Yes, oil accounts for something like 90-95 percent of our foreign exchange revenues but it only accounts for a mere 15% of our GDP.

The service sector and the commercial and real sector are the engine or used to be the engine of our economic growth. But these sectors are heavily capital and technology intensive and require cooperation with foreign investors and when you consistently bad mouth your economy and its regulators investor confidence tanks and the result is what we are seeing today.

I support President Buhari’s anti corruption war but it should not be a substitute for sound economic ideas or policies.

And the way the President has carried out his anti corruption crusade is in itself self sabotaging and feeds the narrative of those who say that Nigeria is far too complex and dynamic a country to be run by someone who should be quietly collecting his pension.

And President Buhari’s behavior is flowing down the pyramid. There is a contagious effect in the utterances of major figures in his administration.

For instance, when Vice President Osinbajo tells the world that the Jonathan administration looted $15 Billion in security contracts, many people in the West who like to read such stories to justify their hidden opinion that the Black man cannot govern himself, will clap for him.

Coming from the nation’s own Vice President, the Western press will report the news as a fact. At that level, such a statement carries the weight of an admission.

But then ask yourself, what was the entire security budget for the five years that Jonathan was President of Nigeria?

In 2011, defense and security had a budget of ₦348 billion or just over $2 billion. In 2012 it skyrocketed to ₦921 billion or $5.7 billion. It grew to ₦1.055 trillion in 2013 or $6 billion. In 2014, ₦968 billion was budgeted for defence and security or $5.8 billion. The 2015 budget was passed in April and President Jonathan handed over to President Buhari a month later so I cannot see how the previous administration could have ‘chopped’ that money.

So of the $19 billion budgeted for defence and security while former President Jonathan was in office, how could $15 billion have been looted when more than half that amount went to paying salaries?

Did Vice President Osinbajo think this accusation through?

The President and his vice with their cabinet and their political appointees are not a court. They cannot convict anybody. As such when they speak this way, what it amounts to is propagandized activity.

In an anti corruption war one must separate activity from results. Results are convictions from a court after due and diligent prosecution. And when you look at it from that perspective, this administration has been delivering activity and not results.

For instance, then candidate Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressive Congress, had called the subsidy payments made by the Jonathan administration a fraud!

They claimed that the amount was too high at ₦1.1 trillion in 2014.

Well if fuel subsidy had been a fraud, the first thing that should have happened naturally when President Muhammadu Buhari took over was that the amount should have reduced, but it DID NOT reduce. As a matter of fact, Nigeria spent over $5 billion on fuel subsidy in 2015 and President Buhari was in power for most of that year!

The point I am making here is that the elections are over. President Buhari and his administration should stop tarnishing the image of Nigeria in the mistaken belief that they are rubbishing the person of former President Jonathan.

The President should take in the big picture and realize that you need to be below somebody in order to pull him down.

One year has come and gone and has seemingly been wasted pointing fingers in blame instead of at solutions. The time for blame games have gone.

Only last month, President Buhari complained that the Sahara desert was advancing southward. He should also realize that that is not the only thing going south. The Nigerian economy is going south at perhaps a faster rate and blaming others for it will never stem the tide.

The President should focus on marketing his plans and policies when he travels abroad instead of de marketing the plans and policies of former President Jonathan’s administration.

It has been said that if you want a conversation with a habitual complainer to end abruptly, just ask him how he intends to fix the problem. That is the question Nigerians want answered by President Buhari.

Under former President Jonathan, Nigeria’s economy exploded and became the largest economy in Africa and the 24th largest economy in the world. Let it not be said that under President Buhari that economy collapsed like a pack of clouds because the hand that should have steered the ship was too busy pointing an accusing finger.

Reno Omokri is the founder of the Mind of Christ Christian Center in California, author of Shunpiking: No Shortcuts to God and Why Jesus Wept and the host of Transformation with Reno Omokri.

Simple Nigeria History and the Current Fulani Jihad

I understand that History is no longer part of our school curriculum. Let us remind ourselves of some basics:

The story is told of how King Yunfa, the Hausa Sarkin in Gobir (now called Sokoto) hosted a Fulani immigrant called Usman Dan Fodiyo and his group in February 1804, as a result of this and since 1808 the whole of the northern region lost its kingdoms and were replaced by Fulani emirates.

King Yunfa is said to have been killed in 1808 and the Fulani warrior (Usman Dan Fodiyo) established Sokoto caliphate, making himself Sultan.

Gradually, other Hausa kingdoms were pillaged and taken over by the Fulani emirs. The ethnic groups in the core north were the first victims of Fulani imperialism, a venture that occurred because the people were given access to grazing land as a result of the hospitality of the hosts.

They however failed to overrun the Bornu kingdom, so the Shehu of Bornu remains paramount till  today!

The Afonja dynasty compromised by allowing a Fulani warrior known as Janta Alimi to settle in Ilorin, the Fulani guerrillas killed Afonja in 1824

And Ilorin, a Yoruba town under the Oyo empire, fell into Fulani hands, becoming an emirate under Sokoto caliphate till today! Even the attempts of the O'odua People's Congress (OPC) to revert to status quo ante and crown an Onilorin of Ilorin became an exercise in futility.

The Yoruba warriors got wise and defeated the Fulani jihadists in Osogbo in 1840, if this didn't happen there would most likely have been Fulani "emirs"  as rulers in Oyo Alaafin, Ibadan, Owo, Osogbo, Ede, Ado, and Igede Ekiti today!

If the Bini Kingdom did not fight and repel the jihadists, they would have penetrated the Edo/Delta region beyond the present day Edo North Senatorial District which gave in and allowed the jihadists to overrun & islamize them.

Along with some ignorant folk most of them are now angling for grazing areas and a corridor through the entire federation. These grazing areas will in future become Fulani settlements, later commmunities and finally local government areas with elected officials.
If you think I am being alarmist look towards the once beautiful and serene Middle Belt state of Plateau.

The exact same thing happened in Jos.

Therefore, it will not be farfetched to conclude that the Fulani herdsmen are pawns in an agenda to overrun all towns in Nigeria! So that we will have emirs in Owerri, Enugu, Benin, Agatu, Abeokuta and other towns where FG creates "grazing reserves" for Fulani herdsmen!

If Yunfa didn't accommodate Fodio and his warlike immigrants from Futatoro, Hausa sarkins would be ruling today in the north!

And if Afonja didn't conspire with Alimi, a Yoruba kingdom would not have been ruled by Alimi's offspring till today!

It is a subtle continuation of the 1804 Fulani jihad by the fully-armed and protected Fulani herdsmen with an age-old agenda to overrun and Islamize the whole of Nigeria very quickly.

I will end this with what someone rightly said- "The grazing bill is not an attempt to solve the problem, it's a subterfuge to progress the agenda"

It's an age-old political strategy really- ..create a problem, come up with a "solution" that advances the cause, and then give it a legal backing.
Make it look like a win-win situation.

BREAKINGNEWS: Federal Court Bars Sherrif From Parading As PDP Chairman, Recognises Markafi Committee

A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State has granted an interim injunction restraining/ the immediate past national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sherrif, and Professor Adewale Oladipo who were removed from office at the PDP National Convention held on Saturday May 21, 2016, from parading themselves as national officers of the party pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice brought before it by the Peoples Democratic Party.

The court on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 also granted a restraining order on any member of the National Working Committee of the PDP who was removed from office by the party’s national convention in Port Harcourt from receiving nominations and or submitting names to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as officers or candidates of the PDP in whatever capacity pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice brought by the party.

In addition, INEC was restrained by the court from according or continuing to accord any recognition to Sherrif and Oladipo or any or all members of the national working committee of the PDP removed from office at the party’s national convention in Port Harcourt, as officers or organs of the PDP pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.

The national caretaker committee of the PDP headed by Senator Ahmed Markarfi, former governor of Kaduna State, also got a boost with an order of the court mandating INEC to recognise it in all matters pertaining the conduct of primary elections for political offices and the submission of the PDP List of candidates for any elections to be conducted by INEC pending the hearing and determination of the Motion on notice.

With these orders, all appears set for the resolution of the alleged crises within the PDP in its bid to build cohesion and reclaim power in 2019.

From all indications the message to embattled Senator Sherrif, who was disqualified by the national convention sub-committee on screening headed by Emmanuel Aguma, SAN, as not being qualified to contest as substantive chairman of the Party, is clearly that his aspiration is not more important than the party’s unity and rescue mission to save Nigeria from collapse.

'There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In A Nation’

Nigeria’s GDP figures were released yesterday. For people who like to watch horror movies, the numbers were like a dream come true. There was blood everywhere.

You can see that those moving backward are stronger than those moving forward. The overall effect is that the Nigerian economy shrank, compared to a year ago.

Some parts of the economy like entertainment and recreation (smh) are growing. Other parts like manufacturing and construction are shrinking. You might wonder why this means the whole economy is shrinking if the story is mixed. The answer is that different parts of the economy carry different weights. Take Transportation & Storage — the sector grew by 30.2% compared to a year ago. This is a good thing. Alas, that whole sector is just 1% of the economy. So even if it grows really well as it is doing, it cannot rescue the whole economy on its own.

But consider manufacturing. This sector has 13 categories ranging from oil and gas to cement to plastic and rubber to motor vehicles. It’s a fairly big part of the economy and makes up 10% of GDP. In the first quarter of 2016, this sector shrank by 3% compared to a year ago. If 1% of your body grows by 30% and 10% of your body shrinks by 3%, you will not notice much of a difference if you stand on a scale.

And that is what happened to Nigeria in Q1 of 2016. By the time you take into account all the sectors that managed to grow in the quarter and weigh them against the sectors that shrank, the total effect is that the shrinkers won the tug of war. Overall, the economy shrank by0.36% in the quarter.

Heckuva Job

In 1782, a young lawyer named John Sinclair was worried about Britain losing ground in the war with America. He wrote to Adam Smith expressing his fear that, given the way the war was going, Britain was surely going to be ruined. Adam Smith replied thus

Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation

Smith’s point was that it takes a lot of hard work to completely ruin a nation. Hard work in this case meaning, bad policy after bad policy, mistake after mistake, stupidity after stupidity and nonsense after nonsense. You need all of these things to happen consistently, sans interregnum, for a nation to be ruined.

Nigeria is a poor country. There is so much that still needs to be done to improve the place. There are still low hanging fruits everywhere that can be plucked just by improving things slightly. There are tens of millions of poor people across the country that even N1,000 will make a difference to. There are places that can be economically transformed simply by fixing a road. Just boosting agriculture with better seeds will do wonders for the country.

What all of this means is that even if you shut down the Nigerian government and close Abuja, the economy should still grow. It’s not the same in advanced economies where all the low-hanging fruit have been plucked. A developing country should grow almost automatically. The difference that can be made in terms of policy is how quick that growth should be. So Cote d’Ivoire might grow faster than Kenya because the government there has better policies, but both of them will continue to grow.

Bearing all of this in mind, what the Buhari government has managed to achieve with this negative growth is quite something. It has pursued policies which have shrunk the economy. Nothing shows this more than in manufacturing. Since last year, the government has pursued policies that it says were meant to favour manufacturing and other ‘essential’ services. This is the reason for the N199 to $1 rate — to help manufacturers and those importing ‘raw materials’ get cheaper dollars and prevent inflation and other bad things from happening. Things that do not fit with this vision have been banned from getting forex at official rates while those who want to import ‘glamorous dresses’ can go and jump in the nearest river.

And yet look at what has happened to manufacturing. It is shrinking. After a year of directing subsidised forex to manufacturing, it is now 3% smaller than it was a year ago. Even worse, compared to Q4 2015, it has shrunk by 12%. It is declining and declining fast. How about the golden child of Nigerian manufacturing — Alhaji Putin and his Dangote Cement?

That’s right — that one too is shrinking. As I have been saying, if you monitor the forex reports in the newspapers every week (when they bother to publish the full details), you will see that Alhaji has been getting roughly $15m per week at the subsidised rate of N199. Yet this cement sector is one of the ones now pulling down the Nigerian economy. One cynical person even said this might explain why Alhaji ‘offered’ to build a road using cement. If he can’t sell the overpriced stuff to Nigerians, there is always the government — a reliable maga — to sell it to.

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation. But it takes hard work and deliberate effort to come up with a policy that drags the whole economy down. Heckuva job, as the Americans say.

Monetary Policy Hurdles

We have now seen the result of the government’s stated policy and it is exactly as any reasonable person expected. None of this is a surprise. No doubt about it, there are many many things currently wrong with the Nigerian economy, but the job of any government should be to first, do no harm. The effect of what the Buhari government has been doing in the past year is to choke the economy. Yes, people have complained about ‘jobless growth’ in the past but here you have something even worse — negative growth.

The above is what negative growth looks like. More than half a million people lost their jobs in Q1 2016. The result of all the sex Nigerians have been having over the years also continues to manifest itself — another 1.5 million Nigerians entered the labour force i.e reached the age where they are now eligible for work.

A common narrative is that Buhari is intransigent and stubborn and strong headed and is stuck in his ways. They are convenient narratives but hardly stand up to scrutiny. Unless you want to be completely uncharitable to the man, we have seen him change from a soldier who executed people with backdated laws to someone able to work within the strictures of a democratic system. He also continues to say how he has to work within a democratic constitution to wage an anti-corruption war, a matter close to his heart. What then is it about monetary policy that makes it so hard for him to change? Did monetary policy steal his ice cream as a child? There are many things he clearly wants that he cannot get. So why monetary policy?

In a democratic system, anyone can hold any view they like, including the President. But there are hurdles preventing anyone from imposing their views on the rest of the country. He might think that everyone who stole money should be thrown in jail (or shot) and the key thrown away. But the judiciary acts a hurdle where you must prove your case at a trial, supported by evidence.

It is true that the president holds economic views that went out of fashion before the Berlin Wall came down. But the hurdle to imposing those views on the country has now collapsed. Where Ibe Kachikwu has openly acted as a hurdle against the president’s anti-deregulation instincts, the biddable Godwin Emefiele has collapsed and indulged him.

In November 2014, the Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met to discuss the issues Nigeria was facing as they do every month. Note that at the time, oil prices were above $70/barrel. Things were nowhere near as bad as they are now. Here was what they said(PDF, page 20)

In the Committee’s opinion, a more flexible naira in the face of non- existent fiscal buffers was the most viable policy option at a time of heightened demand pressure for foreign exchange and falling oil prices. The Committee was, therefore, of the view that if it failed in taking the right policy actions now, the market would force the Bank to take more drastic actions in the future with far less foreign exchange reserves

They took the view that a flexible exchange rate was the solution to declining reserves and the mess that the government’s finances were in. Based on this, all the members voted to devalue the naira from N155 to N168 per dollar.

Emefiele, in particular, said the following as one of the justifications for devaluing the naira (page 89)

A lower value of the naira would also make Nigerian exports cheaper, which should encourage other countries to buy more Nigerian goods with a potential for increased job creation in the domestic economy.Also this(page 86)

With the CBN’s ability to defend the naira and sustain the stability of the naira exchange rate being constrained by the depleting reserves, a widening arbitrage premium opened up at the foreign exchange market between the rDAS exchange rate and the rates in the other segments

Again, this was back in November 2014 when reserves were around $40bn. He recognised that people were playing games due to the widening of the gap between official rates and the black market.

Things did not improve and in February 2015, the CBN again devalued the naira to N199 ‘overnight’. This happened outside of the normal MPC (the MPC is rigged in favour of the CBN anyway) meetings so there was no communique to that effect. The following month, March 2015, Emefiele again said this(page 8)

The Committee also took note of the administrative measures implemented by the Bank since the last meeting of the MPC to achieve stability in the foreign exchange market. The Bank had on 18th February 2015 taken the bold supply management measures to close the official window of the foreign exchange market in order to create transparency and minimize arbitrage opportunities in the foreign exchange market

Again, things were nowhere near as bad as they are now. We know what happened next. Buhari took office and brought with him the economic ideas he picked up during the Dark Ages. Anyone knew what to expect from Buhari — he’s no economic genius; his ideas are his ideas. Thus, if you believe in your own ideas, you should be able to defend your position at least to a reasonable extent.

Instead, the moment Buhari took office, Emefiele immediately began to sing a new song. When he was not standing at attention near the president, he was telling blatant lies about how reserves had increased from $29bn to $32bn due to the ‘blocking of leakages’ by the new government (page 5). In reality, the reserves went up because NLNG paid dividends to the government.

Now when you check his comments in the MPC, he simply says that the exchange rate is stable at N199 and no longer makes any mention of the arbitrage opportunities that are dislocating the economy and increasing demand for scarce forex. Yet, we know that the arbitrage opportunities have increased from November 2014 when he was concerned about them. The man who once believed in devaluation as a way to boost exports and reduce arbitrage no longer believes in those things. All that has changed is that there is a new president in office.

You can say that this is all down to Buhari and he is the one making Emefiele do this stuff. You are right. But I ask you a simple question — if you were in charge of the CBN, what would you do? Will you do as Emefiele has done? Buhari is economically illiterate and ignorant on such matters — he thinks he is doing the right thing. If he tells you to jump into a river will you do so?

Within a few months of Buhari taking office, he had completely changed his position and surrendered his powers to the President

The President has been very clear on this; the Vice President has been very clear on this and let me further reiterate our position at the CBN, that we are not considering any further depreciation of the currency

I ask again, is this an appropriate way to behave? Will you do the same?

Devaluation or Float?

The fundamental problem facing the Nigerian economy is that it is being starved of foreign currency due to a collapse in the government’s forex earnings from oil. We can all agree that the solution to this is to have more forex available.

One way to make that happen is for the naira to be correctly priced. If you go to the market and things are more expensive than you bargained for, you won’t buy it even if you have the money in your hand. Nigeria’s oil earnings have dropped dramatically. Those oil earnings were the main thing supporting the value of the naira as such, it cannot be possible for the value of the naira to remain the same. But the naira has a value and there are ways to find out what that value is.

You can try devaluing. You test one price, if it sticks, that’s the correct price. If it doesn’t and the currency comes under the pressure again, you devalue again. You keep going till you find the price i.e the price that sticks. The problem with this is that the person doing the devaluing is likely to think that the naira is worth more than the people on the other end of the deal think it is. This is just normal negotiation that happens daily when people want to exchange something. Further, prices are unlikely to stay in one place given that other factors affecting that price are always changing. If militants blow a pipeline, you might need to devalue. If oil prices go up, you might even need to revalue. To effectively do this will probably take up all the capacity at the CBN and they won't have time to do anything else. But you can do it.

You can also float. In this case, you find out the price once instead of testing multiple times. Also, you leave the price to be determined by those who want to buy naira and sell dollars. Prices are supposed to reflect all the information that is publicly available so if militants blow a pipeline, the market will immediately adjust for that. If a new gusher well is discovered offshore Nigeria, the market will also adjust the naira based on the expectation that Nigeria will earn more money from crude in the future. A practical example of this was when the newly elected Argentine president, Mauricio Macri, floated the peso a few weeks after taking office in December 2015.

Here’s what happened
The peso immediately dropped by 30% and all the 3 rates converged into one. One strike to find the price. A few months after, Argentina went to the international markets looking for $15bn —instead investors offered it $65bn. You might not like foreign debt and all that, but that is how markets work. When the price is right, people buy. It’s worth noting that Nigeria has been looking forEurobonds, Panda bonds and Samurai bonds too and has not yet got any luck from the markets.

I know which one I prefer.

The Future

Now that we have seen the results of Buhari’s foolish policies and Emefiele’s kowtowing to him, what to do? Nigeria clearly cannot continue like this waiting for oil prices to go back up. Knowing how things have been going in Nigeria, it is hard for anyone to say Q2 figures will be better than Q1’s. So the possibility of another negative growth quarter is clear and present. The more the economy shrinks, the more jobs are lost.

Consider this scenario. Nigeria floats the currency and it lands at N400 to $1. Since it is floating, no point in keeping any list of who can buy and who cannot. This immediately creates mass unemployment among the black market currency dealers. That is a small price to pay. Nigeria now has one rate so anyone can walk into their bank and buy dollars for any reason they like. If the demand for dollars is too much, the rate goes up to N420. If no one is buying, it can drop to N380.

If you take your naira to buy dollars at N400 to $1, then go and buy champagne from France, put it on a ship to Nigeria, pay custom duties, get it into a shop and then sell it to consumers at a profit, more power to you. We must accept that that is a correct usage of dollars. If it is not possible to do all of that and sell at a price that people will pay, you have to find something else to do and leave champagne business for another time. The economy has to adjust to its new reality and pricing is the only way to do that.

This job would be much easier if we had a Central Bank governor who had the slightest idea what he was doing. Instead he is going along with policies he clearly didn't believe in very recently. And for what? Buhari will bite his head off if he disagrees with him?

The people who put Emefiele in charge of Nigeria’s monetary policy had their reasons for doing so. Whatever those reasons were, they have now expired. The challenges facing Nigeria today are different and serious. The consequences are that people are losing their jobs and a needless contraction in the economy is now gathering pace.

Ultimately it is President Buhari who will face voters again in 2019 and they will hand him their verdict. In the meantime, there is no reason to cripple the economy as if we are all on a journey to discover the result of an experiment we already know.

Now we have two problems. An economically illiterate president who thinks he’s doing the right thing. In his own case, we can at least assume he doesn't want to be stoned out of office. But this problem is further compounded by a Central Bank governor who will do and say anything he is told and has not once shown any intellectual capacity that suggests he has any solutions to the immediate crisis facing Nigeria.

One of them is bad enough. Both of them are a disaster. One has to go

'There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In A Nation’

Nigeria’s GDP figures were released yesterday. For people who like to watch horror movies, the numbers were like a dream come true. There was blood everywhere.

You can see that those moving backward are stronger than those moving forward. The overall effect is that the Nigerian economy shrank, compared to a year ago.

Some parts of the economy like entertainment and recreation (smh) are growing. Other parts like manufacturing and construction are shrinking. You might wonder why this means the whole economy is shrinking if the story is mixed. The answer is that different parts of the economy carry different weights. Take Transportation & Storage — the sector grew by 30.2% compared to a year ago. This is a good thing. Alas, that whole sector is just 1% of the economy. So even if it grows really well as it is doing, it cannot rescue the whole economy on its own.

But consider manufacturing. This sector has 13 categories ranging from oil and gas to cement to plastic and rubber to motor vehicles. It’s a fairly big part of the economy and makes up 10% of GDP. In the first quarter of 2016, this sector shrank by 3% compared to a year ago. If 1% of your body grows by 30% and 10% of your body shrinks by 3%, you will not notice much of a difference if you stand on a scale.

And that is what happened to Nigeria in Q1 of 2016. By the time you take into account all the sectors that managed to grow in the quarter and weigh them against the sectors that shrank, the total effect is that the shrinkers won the tug of war. Overall, the economy shrank by0.36% in the quarter.

Heckuva Job

In 1782, a young lawyer named John Sinclair was worried about Britain losing ground in the war with America. He wrote to Adam Smith expressing his fear that, given the way the war was going, Britain was surely going to be ruined. Adam Smith replied thus

Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation

Smith’s point was that it takes a lot of hard work to completely ruin a nation. Hard work in this case meaning, bad policy after bad policy, mistake after mistake, stupidity after stupidity and nonsense after nonsense. You need all of these things to happen consistently, sans interregnum, for a nation to be ruined.

Nigeria is a poor country. There is so much that still needs to be done to improve the place. There are still low hanging fruits everywhere that can be plucked just by improving things slightly. There are tens of millions of poor people across the country that even N1,000 will make a difference to. There are places that can be economically transformed simply by fixing a road. Just boosting agriculture with better seeds will do wonders for the country.

What all of this means is that even if you shut down the Nigerian government and close Abuja, the economy should still grow. It’s not the same in advanced economies where all the low-hanging fruit have been plucked. A developing country should grow almost automatically. The difference that can be made in terms of policy is how quick that growth should be. So Cote d’Ivoire might grow faster than Kenya because the government there has better policies, but both of them will continue to grow.

Bearing all of this in mind, what the Buhari government has managed to achieve with this negative growth is quite something. It has pursued policies which have shrunk the economy. Nothing shows this more than in manufacturing. Since last year, the government has pursued policies that it says were meant to favour manufacturing and other ‘essential’ services. This is the reason for the N199 to $1 rate — to help manufacturers and those importing ‘raw materials’ get cheaper dollars and prevent inflation and other bad things from happening. Things that do not fit with this vision have been banned from getting forex at official rates while those who want to import ‘glamorous dresses’ can go and jump in the nearest river.

And yet look at what has happened to manufacturing. It is shrinking. After a year of directing subsidised forex to manufacturing, it is now 3% smaller than it was a year ago. Even worse, compared to Q4 2015, it has shrunk by 12%. It is declining and declining fast. How about the golden child of Nigerian manufacturing — Alhaji Putin and his Dangote Cement?

That’s right — that one too is shrinking. As I have been saying, if you monitor the forex reports in the newspapers every week (when they bother to publish the full details), you will see that Alhaji has been getting roughly $15m per week at the subsidised rate of N199. Yet this cement sector is one of the ones now pulling down the Nigerian economy. One cynical person even said this might explain why Alhaji ‘offered’ to build a road using cement. If he can’t sell the overpriced stuff to Nigerians, there is always the government — a reliable maga — to sell it to.

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation. But it takes hard work and deliberate effort to come up with a policy that drags the whole economy down. Heckuva job, as the Americans say.

Monetary Policy Hurdles

We have now seen the result of the government’s stated policy and it is exactly as any reasonable person expected. None of this is a surprise. No doubt about it, there are many many things currently wrong with the Nigerian economy, but the job of any government should be to first, do no harm. The effect of what the Buhari government has been doing in the past year is to choke the economy. Yes, people have complained about ‘jobless growth’ in the past but here you have something even worse — negative growth.

The above is what negative growth looks like. More than half a million people lost their jobs in Q1 2016. The result of all the sex Nigerians have been having over the years also continues to manifest itself — another 1.5 million Nigerians entered the labour force i.e reached the age where they are now eligible for work.

A common narrative is that Buhari is intransigent and stubborn and strong headed and is stuck in his ways. They are convenient narratives but hardly stand up to scrutiny. Unless you want to be completely uncharitable to the man, we have seen him change from a soldier who executed people with backdated laws to someone able to work within the strictures of a democratic system. He also continues to say how he has to work within a democratic constitution to wage an anti-corruption war, a matter close to his heart. What then is it about monetary policy that makes it so hard for him to change? Did monetary policy steal his ice cream as a child? There are many things he clearly wants that he cannot get. So why monetary policy?

In a democratic system, anyone can hold any view they like, including the President. But there are hurdles preventing anyone from imposing their views on the rest of the country. He might think that everyone who stole money should be thrown in jail (or shot) and the key thrown away. But the judiciary acts a hurdle where you must prove your case at a trial, supported by evidence.

It is true that the president holds economic views that went out of fashion before the Berlin Wall came down. But the hurdle to imposing those views on the country has now collapsed. Where Ibe Kachikwu has openly acted as a hurdle against the president’s anti-deregulation instincts, the biddable Godwin Emefiele has collapsed and indulged him.

In November 2014, the Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met to discuss the issues Nigeria was facing as they do every month. Note that at the time, oil prices were above $70/barrel. Things were nowhere near as bad as they are now. Here was what they said(PDF, page 20)

In the Committee’s opinion, a more flexible naira in the face of non- existent fiscal buffers was the most viable policy option at a time of heightened demand pressure for foreign exchange and falling oil prices. The Committee was, therefore, of the view that if it failed in taking the right policy actions now, the market would force the Bank to take more drastic actions in the future with far less foreign exchange reserves

They took the view that a flexible exchange rate was the solution to declining reserves and the mess that the government’s finances were in. Based on this, all the members voted to devalue the naira from N155 to N168 per dollar.

Emefiele, in particular, said the following as one of the justifications for devaluing the naira (page 89)

A lower value of the naira would also make Nigerian exports cheaper, which should encourage other countries to buy more Nigerian goods with a potential for increased job creation in the domestic economy.Also this(page 86)

With the CBN’s ability to defend the naira and sustain the stability of the naira exchange rate being constrained by the depleting reserves, a widening arbitrage premium opened up at the foreign exchange market between the rDAS exchange rate and the rates in the other segments

Again, this was back in November 2014 when reserves were around $40bn. He recognised that people were playing games due to the widening of the gap between official rates and the black market.

Things did not improve and in February 2015, the CBN again devalued the naira to N199 ‘overnight’. This happened outside of the normal MPC (the MPC is rigged in favour of the CBN anyway) meetings so there was no communique to that effect. The following month, March 2015, Emefiele again said this(page 8)

The Committee also took note of the administrative measures implemented by the Bank since the last meeting of the MPC to achieve stability in the foreign exchange market. The Bank had on 18th February 2015 taken the bold supply management measures to close the official window of the foreign exchange market in order to create transparency and minimize arbitrage opportunities in the foreign exchange market

Again, things were nowhere near as bad as they are now. We know what happened next. Buhari took office and brought with him the economic ideas he picked up during the Dark Ages. Anyone knew what to expect from Buhari — he’s no economic genius; his ideas are his ideas. Thus, if you believe in your own ideas, you should be able to defend your position at least to a reasonable extent.

Instead, the moment Buhari took office, Emefiele immediately began to sing a new song. When he was not standing at attention near the president, he was telling blatant lies about how reserves had increased from $29bn to $32bn due to the ‘blocking of leakages’ by the new government (page 5). In reality, the reserves went up because NLNG paid dividends to the government.

Now when you check his comments in the MPC, he simply says that the exchange rate is stable at N199 and no longer makes any mention of the arbitrage opportunities that are dislocating the economy and increasing demand for scarce forex. Yet, we know that the arbitrage opportunities have increased from November 2014 when he was concerned about them. The man who once believed in devaluation as a way to boost exports and reduce arbitrage no longer believes in those things. All that has changed is that there is a new president in office.

You can say that this is all down to Buhari and he is the one making Emefiele do this stuff. You are right. But I ask you a simple question — if you were in charge of the CBN, what would you do? Will you do as Emefiele has done? Buhari is economically illiterate and ignorant on such matters — he thinks he is doing the right thing. If he tells you to jump into a river will you do so?

Within a few months of Buhari taking office, he had completely changed his position and surrendered his powers to the President

The President has been very clear on this; the Vice President has been very clear on this and let me further reiterate our position at the CBN, that we are not considering any further depreciation of the currency

I ask again, is this an appropriate way to behave? Will you do the same?

Devaluation or Float?

The fundamental problem facing the Nigerian economy is that it is being starved of foreign currency due to a collapse in the government’s forex earnings from oil. We can all agree that the solution to this is to have more forex available.

One way to make that happen is for the naira to be correctly priced. If you go to the market and things are more expensive than you bargained for, you won’t buy it even if you have the money in your hand. Nigeria’s oil earnings have dropped dramatically. Those oil earnings were the main thing supporting the value of the naira as such, it cannot be possible for the value of the naira to remain the same. But the naira has a value and there are ways to find out what that value is.

You can try devaluing. You test one price, if it sticks, that’s the correct price. If it doesn’t and the currency comes under the pressure again, you devalue again. You keep going till you find the price i.e the price that sticks. The problem with this is that the person doing the devaluing is likely to think that the naira is worth more than the people on the other end of the deal think it is. This is just normal negotiation that happens daily when people want to exchange something. Further, prices are unlikely to stay in one place given that other factors affecting that price are always changing. If militants blow a pipeline, you might need to devalue. If oil prices go up, you might even need to revalue. To effectively do this will probably take up all the capacity at the CBN and they won't have time to do anything else. But you can do it.

You can also float. In this case, you find out the price once instead of testing multiple times. Also, you leave the price to be determined by those who want to buy naira and sell dollars. Prices are supposed to reflect all the information that is publicly available so if militants blow a pipeline, the market will immediately adjust for that. If a new gusher well is discovered offshore Nigeria, the market will also adjust the naira based on the expectation that Nigeria will earn more money from crude in the future. A practical example of this was when the newly elected Argentine president, Mauricio Macri, floated the peso a few weeks after taking office in December 2015.

Here’s what happened
The peso immediately dropped by 30% and all the 3 rates converged into one. One strike to find the price. A few months after, Argentina went to the international markets looking for $15bn —instead investors offered it $65bn. You might not like foreign debt and all that, but that is how markets work. When the price is right, people buy. It’s worth noting that Nigeria has been looking forEurobonds, Panda bonds and Samurai bonds too and has not yet got any luck from the markets.

I know which one I prefer.

The Future

Now that we have seen the results of Buhari’s foolish policies and Emefiele’s kowtowing to him, what to do? Nigeria clearly cannot continue like this waiting for oil prices to go back up. Knowing how things have been going in Nigeria, it is hard for anyone to say Q2 figures will be better than Q1’s. So the possibility of another negative growth quarter is clear and present. The more the economy shrinks, the more jobs are lost.

Consider this scenario. Nigeria floats the currency and it lands at N400 to $1. Since it is floating, no point in keeping any list of who can buy and who cannot. This immediately creates mass unemployment among the black market currency dealers. That is a small price to pay. Nigeria now has one rate so anyone can walk into their bank and buy dollars for any reason they like. If the demand for dollars is too much, the rate goes up to N420. If no one is buying, it can drop to N380.

If you take your naira to buy dollars at N400 to $1, then go and buy champagne from France, put it on a ship to Nigeria, pay custom duties, get it into a shop and then sell it to consumers at a profit, more power to you. We must accept that that is a correct usage of dollars. If it is not possible to do all of that and sell at a price that people will pay, you have to find something else to do and leave champagne business for another time. The economy has to adjust to its new reality and pricing is the only way to do that.

This job would be much easier if we had a Central Bank governor who had the slightest idea what he was doing. Instead he is going along with policies he clearly didn't believe in very recently. And for what? Buhari will bite his head off if he disagrees with him?

The people who put Emefiele in charge of Nigeria’s monetary policy had their reasons for doing so. Whatever those reasons were, they have now expired. The challenges facing Nigeria today are different and serious. The consequences are that people are losing their jobs and a needless contraction in the economy is now gathering pace.

Ultimately it is President Buhari who will face voters again in 2019 and they will hand him their verdict. In the meantime, there is no reason to cripple the economy as if we are all on a journey to discover the result of an experiment we already know.

Now we have two problems. An economically illiterate president who thinks he’s doing the right thing. In his own case, we can at least assume he doesn't want to be stoned out of office. But this problem is further compounded by a Central Bank governor who will do and say anything he is told and has not once shown any intellectual capacity that suggests he has any solutions to the immediate crisis facing Nigeria.

One of them is bad enough. Both of them are a disaster. One has to go

'There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In A Nation’

Nigeria’s GDP figures were released yesterday. For people who like to watch horror movies, the numbers were like a dream come true. There was blood everywhere.

You can see that those moving backward are stronger than those moving forward. The overall effect is that the Nigerian economy shrank, compared to a year ago.

Some parts of the economy like entertainment and recreation (smh) are growing. Other parts like manufacturing and construction are shrinking. You might wonder why this means the whole economy is shrinking if the story is mixed. The answer is that different parts of the economy carry different weights. Take Transportation & Storage — the sector grew by 30.2% compared to a year ago. This is a good thing. Alas, that whole sector is just 1% of the economy. So even if it grows really well as it is doing, it cannot rescue the whole economy on its own.

But consider manufacturing. This sector has 13 categories ranging from oil and gas to cement to plastic and rubber to motor vehicles. It’s a fairly big part of the economy and makes up 10% of GDP. In the first quarter of 2016, this sector shrank by 3% compared to a year ago. If 1% of your body grows by 30% and 10% of your body shrinks by 3%, you will not notice much of a difference if you stand on a scale.

And that is what happened to Nigeria in Q1 of 2016. By the time you take into account all the sectors that managed to grow in the quarter and weigh them against the sectors that shrank, the total effect is that the shrinkers won the tug of war. Overall, the economy shrank by0.36% in the quarter.

Heckuva Job

In 1782, a young lawyer named John Sinclair was worried about Britain losing ground in the war with America. He wrote to Adam Smith expressing his fear that, given the way the war was going, Britain was surely going to be ruined. Adam Smith replied thus

Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation

Smith’s point was that it takes a lot of hard work to completely ruin a nation. Hard work in this case meaning, bad policy after bad policy, mistake after mistake, stupidity after stupidity and nonsense after nonsense. You need all of these things to happen consistently, sans interregnum, for a nation to be ruined.

Nigeria is a poor country. There is so much that still needs to be done to improve the place. There are still low hanging fruits everywhere that can be plucked just by improving things slightly. There are tens of millions of poor people across the country that even N1,000 will make a difference to. There are places that can be economically transformed simply by fixing a road. Just boosting agriculture with better seeds will do wonders for the country.

What all of this means is that even if you shut down the Nigerian government and close Abuja, the economy should still grow. It’s not the same in advanced economies where all the low-hanging fruit have been plucked. A developing country should grow almost automatically. The difference that can be made in terms of policy is how quick that growth should be. So Cote d’Ivoire might grow faster than Kenya because the government there has better policies, but both of them will continue to grow.

Bearing all of this in mind, what the Buhari government has managed to achieve with this negative growth is quite something. It has pursued policies which have shrunk the economy. Nothing shows this more than in manufacturing. Since last year, the government has pursued policies that it says were meant to favour manufacturing and other ‘essential’ services. This is the reason for the N199 to $1 rate — to help manufacturers and those importing ‘raw materials’ get cheaper dollars and prevent inflation and other bad things from happening. Things that do not fit with this vision have been banned from getting forex at official rates while those who want to import ‘glamorous dresses’ can go and jump in the nearest river.

And yet look at what has happened to manufacturing. It is shrinking. After a year of directing subsidised forex to manufacturing, it is now 3% smaller than it was a year ago. Even worse, compared to Q4 2015, it has shrunk by 12%. It is declining and declining fast. How about the golden child of Nigerian manufacturing — Alhaji Putin and his Dangote Cement?

That’s right — that one too is shrinking. As I have been saying, if you monitor the forex reports in the newspapers every week (when they bother to publish the full details), you will see that Alhaji has been getting roughly $15m per week at the subsidised rate of N199. Yet this cement sector is one of the ones now pulling down the Nigerian economy. One cynical person even said this might explain why Alhaji ‘offered’ to build a road using cement. If he can’t sell the overpriced stuff to Nigerians, there is always the government — a reliable maga — to sell it to.

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation. But it takes hard work and deliberate effort to come up with a policy that drags the whole economy down. Heckuva job, as the Americans say.

Monetary Policy Hurdles

We have now seen the result of the government’s stated policy and it is exactly as any reasonable person expected. None of this is a surprise. No doubt about it, there are many many things currently wrong with the Nigerian economy, but the job of any government should be to first, do no harm. The effect of what the Buhari government has been doing in the past year is to choke the economy. Yes, people have complained about ‘jobless growth’ in the past but here you have something even worse — negative growth.

The above is what negative growth looks like. More than half a million people lost their jobs in Q1 2016. The result of all the sex Nigerians have been having over the years also continues to manifest itself — another 1.5 million Nigerians entered the labour force i.e reached the age where they are now eligible for work.

A common narrative is that Buhari is intransigent and stubborn and strong headed and is stuck in his ways. They are convenient narratives but hardly stand up to scrutiny. Unless you want to be completely uncharitable to the man, we have seen him change from a soldier who executed people with backdated laws to someone able to work within the strictures of a democratic system. He also continues to say how he has to work within a democratic constitution to wage an anti-corruption war, a matter close to his heart. What then is it about monetary policy that makes it so hard for him to change? Did monetary policy steal his ice cream as a child? There are many things he clearly wants that he cannot get. So why monetary policy?

In a democratic system, anyone can hold any view they like, including the President. But there are hurdles preventing anyone from imposing their views on the rest of the country. He might think that everyone who stole money should be thrown in jail (or shot) and the key thrown away. But the judiciary acts a hurdle where you must prove your case at a trial, supported by evidence.

It is true that the president holds economic views that went out of fashion before the Berlin Wall came down. But the hurdle to imposing those views on the country has now collapsed. Where Ibe Kachikwu has openly acted as a hurdle against the president’s anti-deregulation instincts, the biddable Godwin Emefiele has collapsed and indulged him.

In November 2014, the Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met to discuss the issues Nigeria was facing as they do every month. Note that at the time, oil prices were above $70/barrel. Things were nowhere near as bad as they are now. Here was what they said(PDF, page 20)

In the Committee’s opinion, a more flexible naira in the face of non- existent fiscal buffers was the most viable policy option at a time of heightened demand pressure for foreign exchange and falling oil prices. The Committee was, therefore, of the view that if it failed in taking the right policy actions now, the market would force the Bank to take more drastic actions in the future with far less foreign exchange reserves

They took the view that a flexible exchange rate was the solution to declining reserves and the mess that the government’s finances were in. Based on this, all the members voted to devalue the naira from N155 to N168 per dollar.

Emefiele, in particular, said the following as one of the justifications for devaluing the naira (page 89)

A lower value of the naira would also make Nigerian exports cheaper, which should encourage other countries to buy more Nigerian goods with a potential for increased job creation in the domestic economy.Also this(page 86)

With the CBN’s ability to defend the naira and sustain the stability of the naira exchange rate being constrained by the depleting reserves, a widening arbitrage premium opened up at the foreign exchange market between the rDAS exchange rate and the rates in the other segments

Again, this was back in November 2014 when reserves were around $40bn. He recognised that people were playing games due to the widening of the gap between official rates and the black market.

Things did not improve and in February 2015, the CBN again devalued the naira to N199 ‘overnight’. This happened outside of the normal MPC (the MPC is rigged in favour of the CBN anyway) meetings so there was no communique to that effect. The following month, March 2015, Emefiele again said this(page 8)

The Committee also took note of the administrative measures implemented by the Bank since the last meeting of the MPC to achieve stability in the foreign exchange market. The Bank had on 18th February 2015 taken the bold supply management measures to close the official window of the foreign exchange market in order to create transparency and minimize arbitrage opportunities in the foreign exchange market

Again, things were nowhere near as bad as they are now. We know what happened next. Buhari took office and brought with him the economic ideas he picked up during the Dark Ages. Anyone knew what to expect from Buhari — he’s no economic genius; his ideas are his ideas. Thus, if you believe in your own ideas, you should be able to defend your position at least to a reasonable extent.

Instead, the moment Buhari took office, Emefiele immediately began to sing a new song. When he was not standing at attention near the president, he was telling blatant lies about how reserves had increased from $29bn to $32bn due to the ‘blocking of leakages’ by the new government (page 5). In reality, the reserves went up because NLNG paid dividends to the government.

Now when you check his comments in the MPC, he simply says that the exchange rate is stable at N199 and no longer makes any mention of the arbitrage opportunities that are dislocating the economy and increasing demand for scarce forex. Yet, we know that the arbitrage opportunities have increased from November 2014 when he was concerned about them. The man who once believed in devaluation as a way to boost exports and reduce arbitrage no longer believes in those things. All that has changed is that there is a new president in office.

You can say that this is all down to Buhari and he is the one making Emefiele do this stuff. You are right. But I ask you a simple question — if you were in charge of the CBN, what would you do? Will you do as Emefiele has done? Buhari is economically illiterate and ignorant on such matters — he thinks he is doing the right thing. If he tells you to jump into a river will you do so?

Within a few months of Buhari taking office, he had completely changed his position and surrendered his powers to the President

The President has been very clear on this; the Vice President has been very clear on this and let me further reiterate our position at the CBN, that we are not considering any further depreciation of the currency

I ask again, is this an appropriate way to behave? Will you do the same?

Devaluation or Float?

The fundamental problem facing the Nigerian economy is that it is being starved of foreign currency due to a collapse in the government’s forex earnings from oil. We can all agree that the solution to this is to have more forex available.

One way to make that happen is for the naira to be correctly priced. If you go to the market and things are more expensive than you bargained for, you won’t buy it even if you have the money in your hand. Nigeria’s oil earnings have dropped dramatically. Those oil earnings were the main thing supporting the value of the naira as such, it cannot be possible for the value of the naira to remain the same. But the naira has a value and there are ways to find out what that value is.

You can try devaluing. You test one price, if it sticks, that’s the correct price. If it doesn’t and the currency comes under the pressure again, you devalue again. You keep going till you find the price i.e the price that sticks. The problem with this is that the person doing the devaluing is likely to think that the naira is worth more than the people on the other end of the deal think it is. This is just normal negotiation that happens daily when people want to exchange something. Further, prices are unlikely to stay in one place given that other factors affecting that price are always changing. If militants blow a pipeline, you might need to devalue. If oil prices go up, you might even need to revalue. To effectively do this will probably take up all the capacity at the CBN and they won't have time to do anything else. But you can do it.

You can also float. In this case, you find out the price once instead of testing multiple times. Also, you leave the price to be determined by those who want to buy naira and sell dollars. Prices are supposed to reflect all the information that is publicly available so if militants blow a pipeline, the market will immediately adjust for that. If a new gusher well is discovered offshore Nigeria, the market will also adjust the naira based on the expectation that Nigeria will earn more money from crude in the future. A practical example of this was when the newly elected Argentine president, Mauricio Macri, floated the peso a few weeks after taking office in December 2015.

Here’s what happened
The peso immediately dropped by 30% and all the 3 rates converged into one. One strike to find the price. A few months after, Argentina went to the international markets looking for $15bn —instead investors offered it $65bn. You might not like foreign debt and all that, but that is how markets work. When the price is right, people buy. It’s worth noting that Nigeria has been looking forEurobonds, Panda bonds and Samurai bonds too and has not yet got any luck from the markets.

I know which one I prefer.

The Future

Now that we have seen the results of Buhari’s foolish policies and Emefiele’s kowtowing to him, what to do? Nigeria clearly cannot continue like this waiting for oil prices to go back up. Knowing how things have been going in Nigeria, it is hard for anyone to say Q2 figures will be better than Q1’s. So the possibility of another negative growth quarter is clear and present. The more the economy shrinks, the more jobs are lost.

Consider this scenario. Nigeria floats the currency and it lands at N400 to $1. Since it is floating, no point in keeping any list of who can buy and who cannot. This immediately creates mass unemployment among the black market currency dealers. That is a small price to pay. Nigeria now has one rate so anyone can walk into their bank and buy dollars for any reason they like. If the demand for dollars is too much, the rate goes up to N420. If no one is buying, it can drop to N380.

If you take your naira to buy dollars at N400 to $1, then go and buy champagne from France, put it on a ship to Nigeria, pay custom duties, get it into a shop and then sell it to consumers at a profit, more power to you. We must accept that that is a correct usage of dollars. If it is not possible to do all of that and sell at a price that people will pay, you have to find something else to do and leave champagne business for another time. The economy has to adjust to its new reality and pricing is the only way to do that.

This job would be much easier if we had a Central Bank governor who had the slightest idea what he was doing. Instead he is going along with policies he clearly didn't believe in very recently. And for what? Buhari will bite his head off if he disagrees with him?

The people who put Emefiele in charge of Nigeria’s monetary policy had their reasons for doing so. Whatever those reasons were, they have now expired. The challenges facing Nigeria today are different and serious. The consequences are that people are losing their jobs and a needless contraction in the economy is now gathering pace.

Ultimately it is President Buhari who will face voters again in 2019 and they will hand him their verdict. In the meantime, there is no reason to cripple the economy as if we are all on a journey to discover the result of an experiment we already know.

Now we have two problems. An economically illiterate president who thinks he’s doing the right thing. In his own case, we can at least assume he doesn't want to be stoned out of office. But this problem is further compounded by a Central Bank governor who will do and say anything he is told and has not once shown any intellectual capacity that suggests he has any solutions to the immediate crisis facing Nigeria.

One of them is bad enough. Both of them are a disaster. One has to go

THE PROGRAMMES AND LAUNCHING CEREMONY SCHEDULE FOR VP VISITATION TO LAGOS STATE

The programmes and schedules of event that is planned for the visitation of the vice president of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Oshibajo, to Lagos are as follows.

So Lagosians should please plan their route properly, although it was the president of Nigeria that was meant to come for the visitation to Lagos before but the president could not make it to Lagos again due to an ear infection but the Vice President OShibajo will be representing him and he is at cappa bus stop right now because oshodi has been blocked already.

Lagos State Government will formally welcome Vise President Yemi Oshibajo on Monday, May 23, 2016 on a two-day working visit to the State.

DAY ONE - Monday:
1. VP will formally commission the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) Rescue Unit in "Cappa Oshodi" built by the State Government to ensure prompt and swift response to emergency situations in the State.

2.  Thereafter, VP, will commission the newly constructed AGO PALACE WAY  in OKOTA, ISOLO.

3.  After which VP will pay homage to the Oba of Lagos, His Royal Majesty, Oba Babatunde Rilwanu Aremu Akiolu at the IGA IDUGANRAN, LAGOS ISLAND

4.   Later in the day VP will be hosted to a RECEPTION RALLY by the State Government at the TAFAWA BALEWA SQUARE, (TBS) LAGOS.

5.  State Banquet in VP's honour at the EKO HOTELS & SUITES, Victoria Island.  

DAY TWO - Tuesday

1.  Special Guest of Honour at a BREAKFAST SESSION with Corporate Lagos at the LAGOS STATE HOUSE, MARINA,

2.  Thereafter VP will have a SHORT SESSION with the PUBLIC SERVICE at the STATE HOUSE, ALAUSA, IKEJA

The Commissioner urged residents to bear with law enforcement agents and traffic control authorities who will effect road diversions in some of the routes that the President's motorcade will pass.

SIGNED
STEVE AYORINDE
COMMISSIONER FOR INFORMATION AND STRATEGY LAGOS STATE
MAY 21, 2016.

Facts about the jailed Ex DG of Nimasa

Raymond Omatseye was appointed by Yar'Adua in July 2009 as the Nimasa director.

Eighteen (18) months later, Goodluck Jonathan sacked him on suspicions of corruption and was subsequently charged to court by EFCC.

Raymond Omatseye went to court with a suit of no case against the EFCC, which he lost.

On January 21, 2013, he was arraigned by the EFCC during Goodluck Jonathan's tenure on an amended 27 count charge before Justice Ofili Ajumogobia, where he pleaded not guilty and his trial eventually began.

Mr. Omatseye was eventually jailed on those counts.

The fight against corruption in EFCC vs Raymond Omatseye was not started by APC, neither was any new charges proffered by them.
This one was done by Dr Goodluck E. Jonathan.

When they come like holocaust, seeking to reap where they did not sow, deflate their balloons with the truth.- Eze-Basil Chinwendu Oluo D'Oracle.

EMIR OF KANO SPEECH AT THE BOOK LAUNCHING OF SIR AJAYI

The former Central Bank Governor, & Emir of kano His royal highness muhammadu Sanusi the second , surprised guests present at the Muson Centre for the launching of the book of Sir Olaniwun Ajayi.

Below is his unedited speech.

“Let me start by saying that I am Fulani (laughter). My grandfather was an Emir also fulani my uncle and guardian was also the immediate late Emir of kano Alhaji Ado Bayero and therefore I represent all that has been talked about this afternoon. Sir Ajayi has written a book. And like all Nigerians of his generation, he has written in the language of his generation.

“My grandfather was a Northerner, I am a Nigerian. The problem with this country is that in 2009, we speak in the language of 1953. Sir Olaniwun can be forgiven for the way he spoke, but I cannot forgive people of my generation speaking in that language.

“Let us go into this issue because there are so many myths that are being bandied around. Before colonialism, there was nothing like Northern Nigeria, Before the Sokoto Jihad, there was nothing like the Sokoto caliphate. The man from Kano regard himself as bakane. The man from Zaria was bazazzage. The man from Katsina was bakatsine. The kingdoms were at war with each other. They were Hausas, they were Muslims, they were killing each other.

“The Yoruba were Ijebu, Owo, Ijesha, Akoko, Egba. When did they become one? When did the North become one? You have the Sokoto Caliphate that brought every person from Adamawa to Sokoto and said it is one kingdom. They now
said it was a Muslim North.

“The Colonialists came, put that together and said it is now called the Northern Nigeria. Do you know what happened? Our grand fathers were able to transform to being Northerners. We have not been able to transform to being Nigerians. The fault is ours.

Tell me, how many governors has South West produced after Awolowo that are role models of leadership? How many governors has the East produced like Nnamdi Azikiwe that can be role models of leadership? How Many governors in the Niger Delta are role models of leadership? Tell me. There is no evidence statistically that any part of this country has produced good leaders.

You talk about Babangida and the  problems of our economy. Who were the people in charge of the economy during Babangida era? Olu Falae, Kalu Idika Kalu. What state are they from in the North?

“We started the banking reform; the first thing I heard was that in Urobo land,  there will be a curse of the ancestors. I said they (ancestors) would not answer. They said why? I said how many factories did Ibru build in Urobo land? So, why will the ancestors of the Urobo people support her?

“We talk ethnicity when it pleases us. It is hypocrisy. You said elections were rigged in 1959, Obasanjo and Maurice Iwu rigged election in 2007. Was it a Southern thing? It was not. “The problem is: everywhere in this country, there is one Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba and Itshekiri man whose concern is how to get his hands on the pile and how much he can steal.

Whether it is in the military or in the civilian government, they sit down, they eat together. In fact, the constitution says there must be a minister from every state.

“So, anybody that is still preaching that the problem of Nigeria is Yoruba or Hausa or Fulani, he does not love Nigeria . The problem with Nigeria is that a group of people from each and every ethnic tribe is very selfish. The poverty that is found in Maiduguri is even worse than any poverty that you find in any part of the South.

The British came for 60 years and Sir Ajayi talked about few numbers of graduates in the North (two as at independence) . What he did not say was that there was a documented policy of the British when they came that the Northerner should not be educated. It was documented. It was British colonial policy. I have the document. I have published articles on it. That if you educate the Northerner you will produce progressive Muslim intellectuals of the type we have in Egypt and India. So, do not educate them. It was documented. And you say they love us (North) more than the south.

“I have spent the better part of my life to fight and Dr. (Reuben) Abati knows it. Yes, my grandfather was an Emir. Why was I in the pro-democracy movement fighting for June 12? Is (Moshood) Abiola from Kano ? Why am I a founding director of the Kudirat Initiative for Nigerian Development (KIND)?

“There are good Yoruba people, good Igbo people, good Fulani people, good Nigerians and there are bad people everywhere. That is the truth. “Stop talking about dividing Nigeria because we are not the most populous country
in the world. We have all the resources that make it easy to make one united great Nigeria . It is better if we are united than to divide it.

“Every time you talk about division, when you restructure, do you know what will happen? In Delta Area, the people in Warri will say Agbor, you don’t have oil. When was the Niger Delta constructed as a political entity? Ten years ago, the Itshekiris were fighting the Urobos. Isn’t that what was happening? Now they have become Niger Delta because they have found oil. After, it will be, if you do not have oil in your village then you cannot share our resources.

“There is no country in the world where resources are found in everybody’s hamlet. But people have leaders and they said if you have this geography and if we are one state, then we have a responsibility for making sure that the people who belong to this country have a good nature.

“So, why don’t you talk about; we don’t have infrastructure, we don’t have education, we don’t have health. We are still talking about Fulani. Is it the Fulani cattle rearer or is anybody saying there is no poverty among the Fulani?”, he said.