THE subject of the narrative, in this column, last week, was the $7bn which Festus Odoko, former CBN Corporate Affairs Director, confirmed had been deposited with 14 Nigerian banks in October 2006. It is not clear how many banks, actually, succeeded in raising the mandatory capital base of N25bn, and the additional N35bn steep threshold, required to manage part of Nigeria’s foreign reserves; nevertheless, on hindsight, CBN may have quietly dropped this clearly ambitious requirement, so as to pursue its declared agenda.

THE Chairman of the Special Presidential Panel for Recovery of Public Property, Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla, noted in a NAN report on (September 7, 2018), in Abuja, that the Agency is continuing its investigations to “recover monies that had been taken away (stolen?) from the people of Nigeria.” One of such ‘loot’, according to the Chairman, is the “$7bn fund that the Central Bank of Nigeria granted 14 commercial banks in 2006. Incidentally, Obono-Obla also confirmed that, these banks have not repaid the money to government’s treasury “after 13 years.” Curiously, however, according to the Special Panel’s Chairman, “when we enquired from CBN, the state of that money, the banks told us that the money was ‘dashed’ to them.”

‘THE most important  question now is: For how long must misguided government economic policies ruin our nation while we do nothing? This year like others has only twelve months. At least five will be spent with nobody thinking about how to prevent more deterioration. The remaining seven months cannot possibly reverse the accumulated damage – unless a new and radical solution is found”. An excerpt from ‘As Dangote goes, so does Nigerian economy’ by Dele Sobowale, Vanguard Newspaper on Monday, January 21, 2019.

OUR collective sense of compassion may have become so dulled, overtime, to media reports and media images of emaciated senior citizens, collapsing after waiting endlessly in queues under the hot tropical sun, for verification and payment of pension entitlements.    In reality, the victims of this oppression, have no ethnic or religious colouration, but are all bound by the common index of social deprivation, while the rest of us discountenance the gross abuse of the dignity of aged men and women, who had served their country for most of their lives.

PRESIDENT Muhammed Buhari inaugurated a Technical Advisory Committee for the implementation of National Minimum Wage, on Wednesday, January 9, 2019 in Abuja. The occasion offered Mr. President the opportunity to declare his commitment “to a review of the present N18,000 minimum wage;” PMB consequently, assured workers that “we at the federal level have made adequate provision for increase in the minimum wage, in our 2019budget proposals, which we have submitted to the National Assembly;” notably, however, the budget submission came, barely a week before Parliament went on recess in December 2018!

A SUMMARY of Professor Sam Aluko’s interview, in February 2004, with TAYO ODUNLAMI of The News magazine was published, in this column last week. In the first part of that interview, the distinguished Professor of Economics, responded to questions on the potential impact of Naira devaluation, fuel pricing, privatization and foreign investment.

THE late Prof. Samuel Aluko was probably Nigeria’s best known Economist, until he passed on in 2012. In addition to his prowess as a notable scholar and sage, he later served as Chairman of the National Economic Intelligence Committee, in the Abacha Administration, and arguably provided the robust intellectual anchor to the military Dictator’s successful Economic Programmes, in which, despite Nigeria’s international pariah status, the naira notably remained stable at around N80=$1, even when the foreign reserves base was a paltry $4bn.

PRESIDENT Muhammed Buhari, finally laid the 2019 budget before the National Assembly, on Wednesday 19th December 2018; that is, barely 2 days before Parliament vacated for the Year End holidays. Incidentally, there was no apparent regret, nor indeed explanation why this mandatory process took so long; arguably, however, tardy implementation and gross distortion of the budget plan are the usual products of such casual approach to this critical national assignment.

“Those Micro-finance banks that we have today, are not ‘giving’ loans at single-digit interest rates”; for example, “You borrow N50,000 for 90 days and they expect you to pay another N50,000 interest to them in another 90 days. That is outrageous and that is too exorbitant…” besides, “if you don’t pay the N50,000 interest, they seize your bicycle, or your car or your machine.” (CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele-see story titled ‘Microfinance Banks Charging Outrageous Interest Rates on Loans”, Punch edition of December 10, 2018).

PETROLEUM product Marketers and Depot Owners Associations, gave the government, a seven day ultimatum last week, to redeem their long overdue balance for over N800bn for fuel, already sold at Government regulated price of N145/litre.