Acknowledgements and gratitude (1)
This Christmas season I had intended to engage in a critical investigation of religion given the powerful theological significance of the controversial purported birth of Jesus on December 25.
Guess who is dollarising the economy
Any patron of Bureau de Change may find that a difference of about N10 per dollar now exists between the official rates of N155 per dollar ex-Central Bank, and about N165/dollar in the open market. This is in place of the permitted 1 per cent markup officially allowed to commercial banks on dollar purchases ex-CBN.
14 Nigerian banks to enjoy $7bn reserve
“The report of the 14 Nigerian banks which had been appointed as Asset Managers of Nigeria’s reserves was carried on the back page of The Guardian Newspaper of the 5th of October 2006. The report confirmed that “already deposits worth $7bn representing part of the apex bank’s share of foreign reserves estimated at about $38bn had been released to the consortium of bankers, according to the CBN Head of Corporate Affairs, Mr. Festus Odoko”.
Parable of the fool and his money…
The other day, a friend narrated a story, which I found stranger than fiction; the story related to the travails of a family who lost a successful and illustrious breadwinner, who, incidentally, died without a Will. The family’s elders were consequently entrusted with the responsibility of efficiently managing the estate of the deceased.
CBN’s management of surplus cash as economic sabotage
It is bad enough to ever be in a position where one borrows one’s money back, but for our Central Bank to have done so for so many years at rates of between 13 and 14 per cent, as admitted recently by Governor Lamido Sanusi, can at best be described as an unfortunate moral hazard, which may border on economic sabotage.
Is poverty the ultimate reward for pension contributors?
The consciousness of sensitive Nigerians is often assailed by the undignifying sight of senior citizens and other such retirees, who wearily wait in distress for verification of their identity or eventual payment of pension entitlements from government agencies responsible for disbursement. The unsightly juxtaposition of such horrid spectacle against the background of impunity in the misapplication of pension funds is obviously also lost on our current political leadership; worse still, in spite of the reforms enacted in the 2004 Pension Act, there has been no single conviction of anyone for the reckless looting of pension funds.
