An idle mind is the devil’s workshop’ or ‘the devil finds work for idle hands’ are popular aphorisms which have equivalence in several languages and cultures.

“In spite of the effusive enthusiasm of this Administration, some Nigerians refuse to celebrate the recent debt relief conditions granted by our major creditors of the Paris club. “Under the terms of the Paris club deal, Nigeria will see $18bn of its total debt of $30bn canceled on condition that it pays the remaining $12.4bn between now and March 2006.

President Yar’Adua, on Tuesday 24/11/2009, by proxy, laid before the Legislature the 2010 National appropriation Bill. In view of the results and products of our national budgetS over the years, it has become patently obvious to even a blind man that in spite of abundant resources at government’s disposal, the annual budget rituals of the three tiers of government have had little or no positive impact on the welfare of majority of our people.

Before this Bill became public knowledge, Dabiri-Erewa had been one of the federal legislators who always stood on the right side of every issue or controversy, be it the Ettehgate, the Freedom of Information Bill or the Diaspora issues. In fact, only last Monday, a young man from my hometown who is languishing in a Benin Republic prison on drug offences, called me requesting that the plight of people like him should be brought to the notice of Hon Dabiri.

Currently, the CBN is annually responsible for about 70% of all dollar revenue that enters into the domestic forex market. The balance 30% or less is supplied by oil companies and a few exporters outside the oil sector! While these private dollar suppliers are legally permitted to approach the banks directly for the exchange of their dollars to naira, the owners of public sector dollar revenue in our reserves are not so lucky!

Our Government and Organised Labour are once again for the umpteenth time in about five years embroiled in what may best be described as an unending petrol price control war, which was ignited over two decades ago with the drastic devaluation of the naira and increasing product prices.

I will begin this week’s article with a reference and excerpt from veteran journalist, Bisi Lawrence’s piece titled “Oh to spray again” in Saturday Vanguard edition of 10/10/09.

In last week’s article, “Dollar Reserves: Who Owns What?” we endeavoured to lift the shroud over the amorphous concept of Nigeria’s foreign reserves. Incidentally, the Senate has lately in consonance with our position, also frowned at the illegality of the component of the reserves defined as excess crude account! (See Daily Independent headline of 23/10/2009, “Sharing of $2bn Excess Crude Fund Illegal – Senate”).

At the peak of the crude oil price boom in 2007, this commodity sold for as high as $150/barrel on the international market and Nigeria fortuitously garnered her highest ever external reserves of over $60bn. This figure would have exceeded $72bn, but for the ‘illegal’ withdrawal of about $13bn to exit the controversial Paris and London Club debts just over three years ago!

By Les Leba The question on the lips of all concerned Nigerians lately is whether or not the abysmal decline in our economy can be arrested by the measures currently adopted by our Central Bank. My usual response to this question is that you cannot sow rice and hope to reap cassava (a la Majek […]

This week, we will conclude the series of articles on “The Putrid Mess Also in CBN!” with an examination of the misguided application of the Central Bank’s instruments of control, and wonder why these wrongheaded policy measures were not subjected to the simple test of whether or not they were in conformity with commonsense!

The object of the earlier articles in this series is to show that the Central Bank’s (CBN) condemnation and indictment of banks is as hypocritical as the proverbial ‘pot calling the kettle black’! Indeed, the CBN’s posturing assumes an immoral colouration, because in reality, the malaise in the banks was actually instigated by the failure of the apex bank to effectively perform its secondary role as the official regulator and supervisor of the money market.

By Les Leba Most of our people would recognize the role of commercial banks as custodians of our savings, but probably much less are in reality acquainted with the role of banks as lenders to individuals as well as corporations. This is not surprising as possibly less than 10% of our estimated population of 150m […]

Media reports indicated that such auditors were indeed deployed to the banks late in 2008, shortly before expiration of Soludo’s five-year term; however, it would seem that these auditors failed woefully in alerting the nation of the inebriate state of the banks! Indeed, possibly based on the incorrect reports filed back, or in spite of the ugly reality, the former CBN Governor boasted that Nigerian banks were stronger than ever and could readily support the government if the effects of the global recession approached our shores!

The object of this column in the last two weeks has been to debunk any insinuation that Central Bank of Nigeria, the government’s agency for regulating and supervising the banking sector, and the EFCC, Nigeria’s financial crimes fighters did not know of the rot in our nation’s financial markets!