Author: Dakuku Peterside

TOUCHING down at the bustling Beijing Capital International Airport, you cannot miss that China has again opened to the world after COVID-19 shut down, nor will you miss the pervasive positive spirit and a sense of endless possibilities in the atmosphere. If you have any doubt, a 30-minute drive from the airport to Changping District, North of Beijing, tells the story of a country’s metamorphosis, ancient roots, and what pragmatic leadership can do. I am a guest of the Chinese government from the 20th of August till the 2nd of September. It has proven to be a unique opportunity to…

INDEED Naira, the Nigerian legal tender, has no religion, tribe or tongue. It is common to all of us as Nigerians and foreign nationals whose businesses involve cash exchanges in the Nigerian currency. Anything that happens to the Naira affects everyone who transacts with it. As is the case with the currencies of other nations, the value of the Naira is not determined by some gods, prayers or incantations. Nor is it by a group of Nigerian eggheads sitting on a round table to apportion value to it. The Naira’s volatility, weakness, stability or strength is a function of the…

THREE recent developments are the focus of people with a keen interest in the political affairs of Nigeria at the moment. The first is whether ECOWAS, which means Nigeria, in real terms, will go to war in Niger Republic. The second is the brouhaha over the Naira versus Dollar exchange rate, having severely affected the living standards of a broad spectrum of Nigerians. The third and by no means the least has far reaching implications on the shape, form and character of the Tinubu presidency. This is the next Federal Executive Council with raging questions on whether or not the…

HUNGER is widespread and chronic in Nigeria, and its prevalence is one phenomenon that statistics cannot fully capture; not even the global hunger index does justice to it. Statistics deals with numbers, but hunger deals with humans. Relying on quantitative data alone to assess the state of hunger in Nigeria is the worst mistake anybody could make. Quantitative data and analysis only show patterns and spread of hunger without delving into the individual lived experiences of those affected and its influences on their existence in all ramifications. Therefore, as bad as the statistics are, they are still child’s play compared…

NIGER Republic is Nigeria’s next-door neighbour. She is not the best neighbour Nigeria would desire but, as a sovereign nation, we have no control over her. Her economic statistics, population demographics, poverty and security threats – terrorism, insurgency, and inter-communal conflicts – are too much baggage for a neighbour any nation will want to have. However, like all responsible neighbours, a threat to a neighbour is a threat on you. A fire outbreak in your neighbour’s house is a valid threat to your own safety and it is in your enlightened self-interest to ensure peace in the neighbourhood. Only then…

TO be precise from the onset, it is apt to posit that the centrality, omnipresence and ubiquitous nature of petrol in Nigeria has elevated it to the status of a deity in our daily lives. We revere this deity and pray that it never unleashes mayhem on us. Any scarcity or increase in the price of this deity brings untold hardship to Nigerians and we are eager to appease it at any cost. We are hugely dependent on this deity because it is the dominant form of energy that powers our way of living. We are a petrol-fuelled economy. We…

IT is a scientific fact that water and oil do not mix, but in the complex and complicated world of criminal enterprise, this natural law does not apply. It is becoming evident that in Nigeria’s crude oil theft industry , there is an inexplicable convergence of interest against the interest of the country. This has gone on for too long , hurting our economic calculations as a country. A massive vessel, “MT Tura 11”, laden with 800 metric tonnes (erroneously stated as 800,000 litres) of stolen crude oil, was intercepted on Escravos Sea in Delta State by operatives of Tantita…

LAST week, The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) issued an alert warning of the high probability of 14 states experiencing heavy rainfall that might lead to flooding. This is not the first time NEMA and Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency (NHSA), through its Annual Flood Outlook (AFO), will issue such alerts, but we keep losing lives and properties to flooding despite early warnings. Our approach and response to such signals have remained reactive. The same last week, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) announced an outbreak of diphtheria in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). NCDC further informed us…

LAST week, I extensively talked with a set of enterprising, upwardly mobile young men and women in Abuja. I chose to label that interactive session “lamentations of despairs”.These young people are your typical hustlers. That conversation centred on an economic phenomenon our economic gurus neglected. But it is responsible for why our economy is not healthy. An in-depth understanding of the phenomena will undoubtedly mark a turning point in our approach to economic planning and governance. The dominant economic practice often focuses on the extremes – either trying to stop the rich from exploiting the system or pulling the poorest of the poor…

EVERY new marriage comes with some level of excitement. This may be due to love, lust, anticipation, or newness. The everyday drudgery of living together and following the routines of life stifles excitement, and soon realities of marriage dawn on the couples. Suddenly, the marriage mates that were madly in love before and immediately after the marriage begin to face “tribulation in the flesh”. The excitement wears off if we do not make a deliberate effort to sustain it. Marriage requires much conscious effort for the excitement and joy to last. President Bola Tinubu, by design or accident, has sparked this feeling…

IN the sphere of presidential engagement and communication, Nigeria has had different shades of Presidents, from the docile and absent, laidback, garrison-style communication, taciturn, to the pragmatic. Each shade created the mood and tone of the presidency and invariably impacted the quality of leadership the presidency exhibited. Although not ascribing to or recommending any shade of communication and engagement for the presidency, I understand the importance of effective communication and engagement of the President to all citizens and stakeholders of Project Nigeria.  In a republican democracy, the primary assumption is that the President is, first and foremost, a fellow citizen.…

DEMOCRACY is taken for granted as the best form of government. At least the West told us so. We have also accepted it by default. We have tried multiple facets of democratic systems – parliamentary and presidential systems, two-party  and multi-party systems – and some are arguing we have a bespoke democracy that is uniquely Nigerian. Homegrown in every shape!! It gives us a sense of participation. It allows for fair representation, and many argue that the representation is not yet wholly free. But whatever and whichever form of democracy a nation elects to practice, the ultimate objective is  freedom,…

LAST week I listened to or read the speech of at least a dozen newly elected governors, and I must confess they were full of hazard warning signs ahead. Citizens have only one option – brace up before going on a roller coaster ride at the sub-national level worse than they experienced in the last eight years. I estimate that about 80% of the inauguration speeches of the dozen newly elected state governors I listened to were uninspiring, and none captured the changing demographics of the states, how to harness new technologies, potential impacts of new federal legislation, prevailing and…

NIGERIANS will pause today for the inauguration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as President and Vice President of the country, respectively. It will mark the end of one era, the Buhari-Osinbajo era, and the beginning of a new era. There are understandably mixed reactions or verdicts on the Buhari era. President Buhari entered office in 2015 with solid political capital, enormous goodwill, and public approval; he is leaving against the background of widespread discontent and a low popularity rating. Fortunately, the ultimate verdict of history is incorruptible. Buhari’s successes and failures are left for posterity and historians to…

No PRESIDENTIAL transition periods are times of excitement, hope, apprehension, speculation, and drama. It is associated with chaos, complexity, and coordination challenges. The incumbent president is not only saddled with the task of leading the country but also must start winding down its activities and prepare to hand over the presidency to the new president and his team. The incumbent almost becomes a lame duck as all the political activities shift to the president-elect. The president and his team start to feel the fleeting nature of power and quickly start losing the friends of the president’s seat to the new…

EVERY Nigerian knows that we have an electricity problem. It has been a recurrent sound bite in development discourse in Nigeria post- independence. This challenge is generational and has defied all attempts in the past to solve it. And Nigerians are gleefully looking to the incoming administration to end the search for the solution to this hydra-headed problem and terminate Nigeria’s electricity conundrum. Whether this administration will succeed where others have failed in unravelling the electricity conundrum depends on its careful study and understanding of the problem. It will entail an in-depth review of all previous initiatives to solve the…

EDUCATION is a critical priority for Nigeria, as it is for any nation serious about growth and development. Unfortunately, in the past ten years, we have not seen any focus on or dramatic improvement in education. Our best efforts at addressing education have put us steps behind our peer nations in all key development indicators. We inadvertently signal to the world that we do not care about the future. Education is a fundamental human right that should be available to all citizens, regardless of socio-economic status or background. This is different in Nigeria. Nigeria’s literacy rate, put at 62% by Globaldata…

NIGERIA’s nascent democratic journey  has lasted for 24 uninterrupted years, the first time in its history. Previous democratic interregnums did not last long enough due to incessant military incursions into governance to give us enough time and data to evaluate its impact on society. The debate on the success or failure of our democracy is raging, and opponents have enough data to back their claims. The jury still needs to be out on that. However, we have made some progress in our democracy, but many Nigerians are yet to connect personally with democratic values  and dividends, making them question the…

DEMOCRACY, by its design, nature, and practice, is not a light toggle switch that is turned on and off. It is not a wall that crumbles in one fell swoop. Democracy is always a process, both in its growth and demise. History is replete with how democracies collapsed in other climes. Disregarding the rule of law is the root of all the cases. The most consequential disregard for the rule of law is the one that affects the entire population, and that is when they lose faith in the electoral process. It often led citizens to conclude that there is…

NIGERIANS have divided opinions about the efficacy of democracy in driving its development. There are constant threats to our democracy stemming from procedural and structural deficiencies in the system. At the core of these deficiencies are the imbalances in relevance and power among the three tiers of government that have seen the ascendancy of the Executive arm above the legislature and judiciary. This anomaly is worse because it defeats the very essence of our representative democracy, where absolute power resides with the people, and they yield their powers to their various representatives at the centre. These representatives are in the National…