By Dele Sobowale

“And Samuel spake unto all the [house(s) of Nigeria] saying, “President Jonathan had not been able to perform the most basic responsibility of any leader, which is provision of security to the people of this country”. I Samuel 7:3 joined with the third paragraph of the Declaration Address by Samuel Nda-Isaiah, APC, Christian, Northerner, presidential candidate, Minna, Tuesday, November 4, 2014.

There are two “Sams” prominent in the Bible – Samson, signifying power and Samuel, the visionary prophet and law enforcer. Because most people tend to assume that Sam means Samuel, I had to ask Nda-Isaiah which was his own Sam; I already write for a Samson – our own Uncle Sam. I was not too surprised when he told me Samuel – the man who rose from obscurity to lead the house of Israel at a time they were under siege and getting slaughtered by worshippers of strange “gods”.

I feel qualified to write about Sam Nda-Isaiah, as a candidate because I was among the first few people who knew about his ambition to run for the highest office in the land. It was a venture which many people considered quixotic. One old boy of one of our best secondary schools, reminded me of the story of Don Quixote, written by the unforgettable Miguel de Cervantes, 1547-1616. He thought the matter was a joke. But, I reminded him of Napoleon Bonaparte, who rose from such obscurity to greatness and Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer and Governor of Georgia, who, against all odds, became President of the USA. I was an early convert to Sam’s quest for two reasons – his courage and the chance for a clean break with the past which his candidacy offers Nigerians. Courage, to me, allied with vision and a sense of justice, is the rarest of all human attributes and I immediately enlist in the army of anyone who possesses that attribute.

The Declaration itself was not different from others in many respects. The most remarkable being that it was not made in Abuja, but Minna because Sam is from Niger State and the Kakaki Nupe, a high class chief. He had simply ensured that his charity began at home – instead of Abuja – which is the destination of this one man’s odyssey.

I made no contribution directly to the content of the address – so nobody can accuse me of grading my own paper. But, I am convinced that it touched on the most important issues affecting, and the most virulent social and political maladies, afflicting Nigeria today. Let me briefly address three.

Security challenges have escalated from skirmishes, with Boko Haram, in Maiduguri metropolis in 2009 to stolen dynamite at Ashaka Cement and attempt to detonate a bomb at Apapa in Lagos in 2014. Take a look at the map of Nigeria, and you will discover that the two most distant state capitals are Ikeja and Maiduguri. That partly defines the extent of escalation of insecurity. Most Nigerians are still under the impression that only Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are under fire. Ashaka Cement is located in Gombe State, approximately 127-130 kilometers from Adamawa State. To reach Ashaka, Boko Haram operatives passed through almost 130 kilometres of Gombe and the capital of Gombe State. Obviously, only a deluded person would fail to understand that Gombe might be the next state to fall. Meanwhile, the dynamite sticks, stolen from the cement plant, could blow up structures (beidges, buildings, airports, power plants etc) anywhere in Nigeria. That was not the situation in 2010 when Yar’Adua passed on. Surely somebody must be goofing for us to have lost so much ground to the enemy.…

NSE: WILL THE LAST TO GET OUT TURN OFF THE LIGHTS

“Who will bell the furious bear? ..as stock market tumbles 11.52% in a week.” MERISTEM, PUNCH, November 9, 2014, p 58.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, made investors poorer by 8.88% in October. The first week of November slashed another 11.52%. Cumulative loss now stands at 20.40%. On the aggregate, Nigerian shareholders have lost one fifth of the paper wealth in just five weeks. And the end is not in sight.

Incidentally, managers of large portfolios – pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds etc – whose assets are being savaged have not yet woken up to the fact that this is not a seasonal correction but a fundamental decline in the trust which shareholders have in the Nigerian capital market to deliver value over the long term. Furthermore, they have not noticed that foreign investors are once again exiting the NSE in droves. They will not soon return – not as long as crude oil prices remain below $80; because of its implications for the Nigerian economy.

Nigeria’s economic policy managers must be the only people left on this planet who cannot read the “hand-writing on the wall”. Further declines in the price of crude will only accelerate the rate of sell-offs by investors. Those who delay will find no buyers, at any price, for their shares. That was what sent Transcorp from N7.50 to underN0.60 before it started a recovery, based on nothing substantial, reaching as high as N5.25; and now is heading back to the basement at N3.08.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, had made a lot of noise about reform. But, it has been just a lot of hot air. The big investors still manipulate share prices, drive them up furiously and then off-load at a peak leaving gullible investors with losses to deal with.

LAST LINE: If in doubt about what to do, don’t ask your stock broker, he is part of the conspiracy; ask us. We represent the small investors who are being fleeced. We will tell you the truth always.

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