SAM OHUABUNWA'S PARADIGM

  Late last year I made a call asking that we should declare a state of emergency on our economy. As I watched the oil prices plummet without restrain, as I watched our income drop with with such rapidity, as I watched our Naira depreciate against the dollar and other foreign currencies at rates never seen before and as I watched President Muhammadu Buhari( PMB) take unusually long time in assembling his economic team, I went into panic.    I was troubled, that right in our faces, our economy was unravelling and the response by the only government institution that was working at the time- the CBN, though apparently sensible, only seemed to complicate the situation. The ban on 41 products from accessing Forex from Government funded Forex market made sense. If you did not have enough money to pay for all your needs, you would naturally prioritize and decide to go without some. If that caused you to have gastric ulcer or made you sweat profusely in the heat, that wil...

In the last six months or so, I have been under some intense pressure from two angles. Those looking for Jobs and those asking for financial help-outright dash or soft loans to pay Children's school fees or to pay for Accomodation . It is not as if any of this is new. In my days as CEO of Pfizer/ Neimeth, I was practically a one-man employment bureau. The biggest file in my office with several volumes bore the title: JOB SEEKERS. And if I went to church or travelled home with any amount of cash, I mean any amount, I never came back with any. And that was why I was one of the early supporters of CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi's 'Cashless Lagos' campaign which later metamorphosed into ' Cashless Nigeria'.  But as I have found out, that did not help matters for long. The arrival of Mobile banks in mobile phones has worsened the situation. The excuse that I have run out of cash( which most solicitors never believed), or that the banks have closed or that ...

 A couple of weeks ago following the worrisome sack of many PDP governors and Legislators by the Court of Appeal, I wrote an article " The Judicial decimation of PDP & Its Implications". Among other things, I drew the attention of Nigerians to the dangers of a one- party state. With the way things were going, it looked like most of the subdued electoral victories of the PDP in the States and in the legislature were being reversed. The matter disturbed all fair minded Nigerians. Even the Chief Justice of Nigeria noted the glaring inconsistency in the judicial declarations of the Justices of the Appeal Court. But in the last week or so, the tide seemed to have changed and the Supreme Court weighed in strongly on the side of PDP. This piece is therefore to bring a balance to the earlier one that spoke of Judicial decimation, because what has happened in the last couple of days is judicial resuscitation.   The Supreme Court confirmed the elections of Governors Ayade o...

... Business Survival in a harsh economic terrain.. You need some wise strategies and ideas to overcome... Be at this BUSINESS SURVIVAL SEMINAR 2016,  Don't be left out...

 I have been in Singapore in the last week attending the Global Leadership Prayer Summit organized by the Full Gospel Global Forum and hosted by the FGB Gatekeepers Singapore, where among other things we have been praying for our Nations. In between our sessions, I have found time to move around Singapore and I have been awe stricken by the simple sophistication and splendor of a Country that got its Independence in 1965( 5years after Nigeria) and that was a third world country like Nigeria in the 70s, now a thoroughly advanced Nation in the First World, in the same league as The USA, Uk, Germany and France. The transformation is mind boggling.   Singapore is one of the four Asian Tigers- Hong Kong, South Korea , Taiwan and Singapore that transformed within three decades of purposeful leadership anchored on sound economic policies and a Spartan work ethic to achieve consistent high growth rates, high income levels and high quality of life. Today Singapore is a global i...

  There was a time in the biblical Israel when money was said to have failed . At that time, I believe there was famine for about three years because there was no rain. People had money but there was nothing to buy. It got so bad that women were eating their Children in turns and it was actually when the King reigning at that time was called to settle a quarrel between two women, because one of them reneged on the agreement of surrendering her own Child for cooking, after she had participated in eating the other woman's son that he really became acutely aware of how things were. Thereafter he went in search of the prophet who had shut down Heaven, prohibiting it from sending rain .   Since after the Nigeria-Biafra which was fought partly because of oil, Nigeria has lived on Crude oil and it's associated gas. In the 70s following the Middle East crisis, prices of oil jumped and Nigeria got high on Petrodollar. That was when as alleged Gowon made the famous declaration...

  Last week, I was surprised that many Nigerians were shocked that the US dollar exchanged for over 300 Naira. Our Senators seemed to be in greater shock than many, no wonder they have summoned the CBN Governor to appear in their chamber this week to explain why the Naira is being pummeled in the parallel market which as I said last week is the true foreign exchange market.    O-level Economics taught me that the price of every product or commodity is fixed at the point where supply intersects with demand. If supply remains constant while demand increases, price goes up and when supply dips in the presence of high demand, the price goes further up. And that's why I am surprised that any body is asking why the Naira is losing value rapidly, competing to join the league of Italian Lira, the Greek Drachma, the old Ghanaian Cedi, the  Gambian Dalasi or the old Panya money. For a while now, I believe it started when Prof Chukwuma Soludo was CBN governor and intens...

In this column in the last two weeks, I have looked at the Economy and concluded that 2016 will be a tough year. I will not deserve any awards for saying so because many other commentators and analysts have come to  similar conclusions. But if an award must be given, then President Muhammadu Buhari( PMB) is the undisputed winner. First, since he assumed office , he has been consistent in telling Nigerians that our economy was in bad shape and that difficulties lay ahead. This call has intensified by the day rather than abate. In his recent media chat he again harped on the subject of the difficult economy that lies ahead.   The only award that has no obvious winner is that which will go to whoever tells us exactly what must be done to heal the economy and restore it to sanity as quickly as possible. All kinds of ideas are floating in the air and some tentative and experimental measures are being taken, but so far nothing has changed. Or rather nothing has changed for the...

 We are thankful to God, that we survived 2015. It was indeed a monumental year for our Country. It was largely a year of mixed blessings. As I opined last week, we had a positive political outcome with the unexpectedly peaceful transfer of power from PDP to APC at the Federal level but we ended the year with miserable economic outcomes, fueled by the precipitous decline in oil prices and the restrictive measures taken by the government to contain the fall out. Every body that I met and every Industry that I reviewed closed the year hoping for a better 2016. I therefore wish to join all these people to express my wish for Nigeria in 2016. ECONOMY  First, I wish that the 2016 Federal budget is approved speedily. Though the 2015 budget has been extended to the 31st of March, 2016, it is clear that 2015 budget has no answer to the prevailing economic challenges. Perhaps the only thing left in the 2015 budget is the supplementary budget aimed at ensuring payment of Salaries a...

  In many  of my commentaries and books, I had criticized the Security vote provisions for the executive arm of government at all levels in our Country. I had done so for a number of reasons. The first is that I felt that the amounts that are drawn monthly by the chief executives for 'security' purposes was too much and dis proportionate to the other needs of the governments. In some States, the security vote appropriation was higher than allocation to Health care for the entire State. And we know that in addition to this vote, specific budgetary provisions for most of the security agencies like the Military, Police, Civil Defence, etc are usually made. Worse is that these so called security votes were also given priority place in cash disbursement. Thus even when we do not have cash to pay workers salaries in many States of the Federation, we conjured cash to draw down security votes.   The second reason I have been uncomfortable with the Security vote issue is t...

  In many  of my commentaries and books, I had criticized the Security vote provisions for the executive arm of government at all levels in our Country. I had done so for a number of reasons. The first is that I felt that the amounts that are drawn monthly by the chief executives for 'security' purposes was too much and dis proportionate to the other needs of the governments. In some States, the security vote appropriation was higher than allocation to Health care for the entire State. And we know that in addition to this vote, specific budgetary provisions for most of the security agencies like the Military, Police, Civil Defence, etc are usually made. Worse is that these so called security votes were also given priority place in cash disbursement. Thus even when we do not have cash to pay workers salaries in many States of the Federation, we conjured cash to draw down security votes.   The second reason I have been uncomfortable with the Security vote issue is t...

   In the history of elections in Nigeria I had never seen the type of reversals of electoral results by the courts as we have seen in recent times. Last week was particularly spectacular as the appeal courts in Abuja, Lafia, Owerri and Enugu went on a kind of stampede and by the time the week ran out, a significant number of seats won by the PDP in the legislature, especially the senate had been annulled. In Rivers state, it was more like a tsunami that completely wiped out all the electoral victories of the PDP in the last General elections. And except for one case in Nassarawa that affected the APC, almost all the judgements were against the PDP. Very Puzzling!    By the last count PDP had lost Taraba and Rivers State, through judicial declarations and I have heard comments about the puzzle of the Taraba case. The tribunal that was seating in Abuja because of security conditions annulled the Taraba gubernatorial elections and handed victory to APC beca...