YAKUUR- A pensioner, who came for a verification exercise by the Cross River State Government at Yakuur Local Government Area secretariat, Yakuur, in the state, collapsed at the venue out of exhaustion , and was rushed back home, while several retirees and pensioners alleged ill-treatment by officials.

FROM May to mid-September 1991, American journalist Brian Hall went on tour of Yugoslavia and caught a glimpse of the country from within, one that goes behind journalistic narration to present the intimate hatreds, prejudices, aspirations, and fears of its citizens. He was traveling through Yugoslavia and the nation was crumbling in his footsteps.

In a recent document titled “Nigeria’s Debt Management Strategy 2016-19″, the Debt Management Office (DMO) expressed concern on the high risk collateral of servicing and refinancing the nation’s N8.54tn domestic debt which reportedly excludes over N2.4tn outstanding obligations on CBN’s sales of Treasury Bills. The DMO is clearly worried that refinancing of about 30% (N2.56tn) of the domestic debt, which will fall due, in the next 12 months, poses a threat to the economy because maturing debts will have to be refinanced at market rates which could be oppressively higher than the almost 11% average of existing debt.” Furthermore, the projected N984bn domestic loan in the 2016 budget, would raise this already disturbing domestic debt level by over 10% to propel debt service charges, dangerously beyond the current 35kobo from every one Naira of internally generated revenue by government.

Taft was American President from 1909 to 1913; meaning he served only one term during which the US economy was in a recession. He paid the price for coming to power at the wrong time. Taft was not the first, and he would not be the last president, to learn the age-long lesson that economics, like rain, sun or earthquakes etc, respects no president’s wishes. When Karl Marx, 1818-1883, pronounced that “Men make history, but not just as they please” (VBQ p 93), he must have had leaders like Buhari in mind. Nigerians were aware that Buhari, until he went to London for “God-knows-what”, was adamantly opposed to the devaluation of the naira for reasons that were badly explained because he is not an economist.

THERE is no Nigerian I know who is happy with the country’s state of affairs. Every group or nationality complains of marginalisation. Sometimes, the marginalisation beat gets so loud that you will think the drum is about to burst.