SAM OHUABUNWA'S PARADIGM

Often, many people have wondered what is the cause of the trouble with Nigeria. And many have come up with several reasons why we are where we are. Why we seem to move one step forward and two steps backwards. Why a country with so much wealth and talent will house one of the greatest numbers of poor people in Nigeria. Why a country born with so much hope in 1960 is unable to achieve adulthood in 2016. Last week on this page I had indicated that about 50% of Nigerians are classified as miserable by the World and 68% are regarded as operating below the poverty line. The distinguished Chinua  Achebe wrote a book with the title: "The trouble with Nigeria " where he also identified many of the issues but concluded that the central problem with Nigeria is poor leadership. Professor Chinua Achebe was right that Nigeria's critical challenge is leadership. So also are the other Nigerians who have proffered other reasons why things are not working the way they should in Nigeria....

Last week the National Bureau of Statistics( NBS) released the bad news that headline inflation has hit 18.3% and has thus doubled in under one year, since we closed 2015 at about 9.5%. In some climes a 100% growth in inflation could cause riots. At the same time, the Naira exchange rate has depreciated by nearly 60% in the official market while it has more than doubled in the parallel market. Interest rates which came down, close to single digit at the end of 2015 has remained high and growing. Since July the Monetary Policy rate ( MPR )has been at 14%, though actual bank interest rate is about 25%. Similarly, unemployment has continued to rise from quarter to quarter. Gross unemployment which came low to about 6.4% in Q1 of 2015 has exceeded 15% by Q3 this year. When added to Underemployment it reaches 31%. In the youth population this comes to over 42%. This Trilemma of rising inflation, rising exchange rate and rising interest rate has created a dilemma for the government. Super...

Last Tuesday, Donald Trump defied most political pundits, most pollsters and stunned the World with a largely unpredicted landslide victory over Hilary Clinton and the Democratic Party . Many reasons are being adduced for this phenomenon, none of which can successfully explain why a man who came from outside, never gone through an election before, never held a public or political office of any kind and who broke all the rules of political competition and engagement, became the President of the World's largest democracy and economy at the first shot. I believe that the best we can make from this historic outcome at this time is to make some common-sense deductions and learn a few lessons.  1. BYE TO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS  Mr Trump seemed to have rewritten the rules for political competition. Standard wisdom all these years suggested that there were several things one must not say, several positions one must not take openly if one wanted to win elections. Mr Trump said ...

Chido Onumah recently published a new book titled: " We are all Biafrans". In the book, he seemed to be talking of the Biafran spirit- the Igbo spirit of enterprise, creativity, hardwork and excellence that yearns for Justice, Equity and fair play for all. In essence he believes that many People in Nigeria and may be elsewhere share similar sentiments, which is why many objective commentators classify the current Biafran agitation as a cry for Justice for Ndigbo.It is therefore reasonable to suggest that a way to deal with this agitation is to give Justice to Ndigbo, just as other people all over the World who feel discriminated against, marginalized or oppressed deserve to get justice. That therefore gives the Biafran agitation a global attraction.   Today, November 8, 2016, Americans go to the pools to elect the 35th President of the United States of America. And today we are all Americans, even if we will not all vote. This is because the American election has a globa...

To be sincere, I am truly excited with the way the war against corruption is gathering steam. My prayer is that PMB would not allow the momentum to decline. Up till two weeks ago, the focus seemed to have been on the past government. Then enter the Judiciary and the pandora box seemed to have been opened. Justice ADEMOLA blamed his problems on the Attorney General of the federation, Mr Malami. He had ordered the arrest of Malami for professional misconduct when he was in Kano. Though he eventually discharged Malami because of the intervention of the NBA, he was sure, the senior advocate of Nigeria, now AGF had been looking for an opportunity to take his pound of flesh.  Justice John Inyang Okoro said Minister Amaechi is behind his own problems. Amaechi asked him to influence the governorship election Supreme Court appeal judgements on Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Abia States. Amaechi insisted he was conveying the wishes of PMB and his party APC. Before that, the APC governorship candida...

 Last Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari( PMB)launched the new National Orientation campaign called: Change Begins with me. That same day, INEC was ' compelled ' to postpone the Edo gubernatorial election. In his address at the launch, PMB said " We must resist the temptation to fall on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our Country for so long" I believe that postponing election for partisan reasons is one of those things that PMB was preaching about. Interfering with the independence of INEC,CBN and such other regulatory agencies is part of our 'poisoned' past. I am one of those who have called for a national reorientation and the broadening and deepening of the fight against corruption. I had fully agreed with former UK Prime Minister David Cameron that Nigeria was fantastically corrupt and opined that merely focusing on the alleged corrupt election funding of the former ruling party was only scratching the surface. So I ...

Last week, the cat was let out of the bag, the woman who had been hiding her pregnancy was delivered of a baby in a market square, leaving nothing to imagination. From a technical recession we emerged into a real, true and official recession. From a -0.36% contraction of GDP in Q1, we landed to a -2.06% contraction in Q2. Thank God for democratic governance and more for the integrity of President Muhammadu Buhari, and the professionalism of the NBS management,may be, the figures will have been dressed up, which was the fear of some people as it seemed to have taken the National Bureau for statistics( NBS), much longer time than usual to release the Q2 report. It was the 'jazzing' up of economic data that has led to the impeachment of the Brazilian President last week . Last week, before the official confirmation of the recession, I had advised on this column that we needed a single minded focus on Agriculture and Manufacturing as a means of working ourselves out of the reces...

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 That our economy is in recession has been established and the symptoms are crystal clear. I identified some of them last week. The question I believe that the government and the people of Nigeria must be asking is how do we recover from recession and restore growth to our economy?First, I believe that the bullish and reflationary 2016 budget( though some disagree that it is reflationary) was crafted with this in mind. The government clearly saw the direction the economy was going and decided to borrow to spend our way out of recession. With further decline in revenue the borrowing may be more than projected 2.2Trillion Naira if the budgeted goals must be achieved. But there are a couple of challenges. Are we actually able to find lenders within the time frame of Budget 2016?. How soon will the spending be done and how quickly will the impact be felt? . The rumored 'emergency powers' being sought by President Muhammadu Buhari must be directed to this end. If this is only to sh...

 Last week, I read the news that Nigeria has officially lost its position as the largest Economy in Africa,now humbled to the 3rd position, behind Egypt and South Africa. Our GDP climbed down from $ 568Billion in 2014 to $481 in 2015 and then $296B as at July this year.This is hardly surprising given the official massive devaluation of the Naira and the steady decline of the GDP from 2014, quarter after quarter till date. It has been established that our economy is in recession with evidence starring us all on the face. The macro-economy is in turmoil with inflation exceeding 17%, interest rate galloping ( 14% MPR) and the Naira depreciating everyday both at the interbank(N365/$) and the parallel market( N400/$). Companies are off loading excess staff to keep afloat, fuelling unemployment and underemployment which have reached 45% among the Youth, worsening poverty and social malaise. Nigeria's misery index has climbed to 47.7%, becoming the Country with the 5th highest misery inde...

 A couple of weeks ago we raised issues against the ill-advised order and threat issued by the Minister of Labour to the Banks to stop laying off excess staff or their licenses could be withdrawn. Some of us took great exception to what we believe was an unwarranted intervention of the government in purely private company affairs. We drew attention to the wrong signals that kind of action would give to the investing community, especially at a time one thought that Nigeria should be desirous of new investments. But recent happenings indicate that either our concerns fell on deaf ears or that we are mis-reading this government. We may actually be wrong in thinking that this government is interested in pursuing genuine private sector investment in the Nigerian economy at this time! Since according to this government "economic management is purely a government affair", we in the non- governmental sector may actually be wasting our time offering suggestions on how to bring our o...

When all is said and done, Atiku Abubarkar , former Vice President, is easily one of the most sophisticated politicians in Nigeria. He is also one of the most experienced, and perhaps since MKO Abiola, one of the most cosmopolitan politicians in Nigeria with tentacles and connections across the length and breadth of Nigeria. Particularly, he seems to be one of the most prepared political leaders of this Nation after the first generation political leaders like Zik, Awolowo and Sir Ahmadu Bello. But since Nigeria's democratic top political leadership seems to often go to the most unprepared, Atiku has been a serial Presidential aspirant, forcing him to criss-cross carpets  so often. But to be sure Atiku remains an important constant in contemporary political equations of our Country.  If he has not yet made a great success of his political ambition to lead the Nation at the highest level, he has shown great success in his business pursuits and is actually perceived as a very s...

  I have been on vacation in the United States of America( USA) in the last couple of days and have been sucked in by the elaborate process of Presidential primary elections which culminated in the Republican National Convention, a week earlier and the Democratic National Convention last week. The two conventions produced billionaire Donald Trump and Former Secretary of State and former First Lady Hilary Rodham  Clinton as their respective presidential candidates to stand for the November Presidential elections. The Democratic convention was particularly electrifying. I was completely blown by the testimony of former mayor of New York City, billionaire Michael Bloomberg who literally called Donald Trump a Con man. That was the most devastating blow and seemed to persuade me that Hilary Clinton may be on her way to making multiple history. She already made one as the first woman to be nominated as a Presidential candidate by a major political party in the USA. She had bettered...