…As Emefiele tosses the ball back to FG

After seven months of playing hide and seek with the nations’ economy, particularly in terms of jolting the recessed economy back to life, Godwin Emefiele’s Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), through its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), last Tuesday admitted it has run out of options and that the only solution now is for the Federal Government to effectively implement its fiscal policies. As Emefiele laboured to announce the bad news, depression was stalking the nation’s economy. He had insisted that the Muhammadu Buhari-led government at the centre must as a matter of urgency adjusts its spending levels and tax rates to monitor and influence the economy. He particularly urged government to begin to pay huge debts owed contractors as a way of reflating the economy. By this action, the Edo State-born Emefiele may have tossed the ball back to the Federal Government, having exhausted all his strategies to tame the dragon.

Oshio Baba: An activist indeed!

It has emerged that many of those who claimed they were fighting for the masses were not sincere. Many of those who were members of NADECO, fighting against the military regimes were not as patriotic as they made people to believe. A good number of those who fought the men in khaki are today multi-millionaires using the platform of their activism. Adams Oshiomhole, the immediate past governor of Edo State, was a former national president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), a platform, on the crest of which he rode to become financially formidable. He won gubernatorial elections twice and governed for unbroken eight years. While on this beat, he multiplied his wealth, eventhough many civil servants in the state languished in abject poverty with unpaid monthly salaries. After eight years of consistent rape on Edo, Oshiomhole and his deputy were given parting gifts that have become a subject of protests and condemnation by right-thinking members of society. The State House of Assembly, populated by Oshiomhole’s cronies had approved parting gifts of N200 million house for the former governor and N100 million for Pius Odubu, his deputy, in any part of the country. They were also entitled to personal aides and various categories of automobiles that are changeable after two years. The moral questions to ask are: Is Oshiomhole in need of a house? With the money he had accumulated while in government, can he not build himself a choice house without being a liability on the state? If a former governor could cost the state so much, why shouldn’t the Edo people forget fresh elections and let him continue in office? Meanwhile, he left a huge number of workers heart-broken with unpaid salaries. Oshiomhole would etch his name in gold if he can humbly come out and reject the bogus gifts and say he is doing it in the interest of the long-suffering masses of the state that have nowhere to lay their heads.

Bestial!
It appears Satan himself has taken possession of many Nigerians. They do many unimaginable things. A young man was burnt to death a few days ago in Alafia, Orile area of Lagos State by a mob. He was killed for allegedly snatching a wallet and mobile phone from someone. While his other two accomplices were said to have escaped, he was not so lucky. But the idea of setting a living soul on fire and watching him burn to death- writhing in pain, shouting and gnashing his teeth- is a clear evidence that many Nigerians have become beasts. They have given their God-given nature to that of Satan; otherwise it is just unimaginable that people would gather to take a life they never created in such a horrified manner. Why do we condemn Boko Haram insurgents? Why do we scream against the activities of the Fulani herdsmen? We have lost it as a people. To even think of it, after watching the young man die, the mob walked away, each person to his home, happily. And why do we think nemesis will not catch up with perpetrators of such dastardly acts? By the way, where were the police? It is hard to believe that there was no policeman in sight while the jungle justice lasted. According to reports, “The police found his decomposing body in a canal somewhere in the Orile area.” It appears that the police were not aware of this until maybe the next day when the area had been deserted. Security indeed! Those who meted out the bestial punishment on the hapless young man for stealing to arrest his hunger close their eyes to the humongous thievery going on in society. They killed a boy for stealing a wallet when those they elected into office to represent them at various levels have not only stolen everything, they have also mortgaged the lives of the generation yet unborn.

South West & APC marriage

Close watchers of the marriage ceremony between the South West geo-political zone and the All Progressives Congress (APC) speak in tandem that divorce is imminent. When the party was formed in 2014 by sheer doggedness of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other like minds, many people from the South West gave their support. Before the Presidential election last year, APC was like a religion and the name of Muhammadu Buhari was on the lips of many as the only one that had the magic wand, as it were, to positively turn things around in the country. Today, the euphoria has disappeared. It is no longer fashionable to wave the broom, the symbol of the acclaimed progressives, or to shout “Sai Baba.” People of the South West appear to be losing interest in the party as the days go by. Apart from the seemingly friction between Tinubu and the presidency and the apparent disdain with which the former is being treated, the lacklustre performance of the APC government may have taken the shine off the party so soon. It’s against this background that speculations are now rife that Buhari could become an ‘orphan’ (deserted) in 2019. Although the presidency has dismissed this with a wave of the hand, the signs are all over the place that APC is on its way to extinction, unless drastic steps are taken to halt the drift. What is possible is that as 2019 approaches, certain elements who are now aggrieved at the way things are going on in the party, whose interest appears threatened in the Buhari-led APC, may begin to form some other alliances. Already, there are moves in that direction. So, it is not just enough for the presidency to claim there are still long queue of supporters behind the President, it may be surprised to discover that in the long run (at the fullness of time) he may look back to discover that the supports are all gone for good.

Rivers of endless trouble

A few days ago, crisis of a monumental proportion was averted by the police in Rivers State following the decision of the two prominent parties in the state –PDP and APC- to stage a ‘peaceful rally’ in Port Harcourt at the same time and same location. Rivers in the last few years has known blood and tears, occasioned by the activities of politicians and their supporters. Every election in the state claims lives. Despite the orgy of violence and loss of lives, politicians who stoke the troubles never learnt any lessons. For several months now, National Assembly elections in the state have been on hold and the parties have continued to trade blames. Although the date for the re-run has been fixed, PDP and APC still do not believe there’s a need to sheathe their swords. Few days to the election, they have returned to the trenches, throwing verbal punches. The altercations will produce one thing- more deaths in Rivers State. Bad blood will run deeper, innocent souls will be sacrificed on the altar of politicians’ crude ambition. But why would they not learn any lesson? Why would they not give peace a chance? The god of inordinate ambition must have shut their ears and they have become like the dog which the gods want to destroy and as a result no longer hear the voice of the hunter. One day monkey will go to the market and will never return.

 

Zebulon Agomuo