A FORTNIGHT ago President Buhari submitted a request to the Senate to approve an external loan of US$29.96 billion (N10.7 trillion). It’s the second time such a request would be presented, the first being in 2016, when the Senate rejected it. As a career banker, it would be rather rich of me to sit here and be sanctimonious about borrowing. I am experienced enough to know one of the axioms of finance, which says it is smart to use other people’s money to get rich. But you must know what you are doing.

A FEW weeks ago a dear American friend and former colleague sent me an email. Permit me to quote him verbatim: “Hello brother Obed. I trust that you are fruitfully engaged these days. I read an article earlier today that immediately brought you to mind. I want to share its contents with you, as attached. 

THE French President Emmanuel Macron was recently quoted as saying that the problem with Africa is “civilizational”. In his words: “With a family that has seven or eight children in Africa, even if you invest billions, nothing will change, because the challenge of Africa is civilizational.” A decade ago, his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, in a well-packed hall at the venerable Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar opined that Africa is stagnating because its collective mindset is rooted in “circles and circles” of thinking. Nothing moves, everything is in “endless circles”, hence no progress is possible. The audience in that sweltering summer in Dakar felt both stupefied and humiliated.

WE live in strange times. Blatant travesties are being repackaged as wisdom and virtue while right is being made an object of derision and scorn. The new hate-speech law being proposed by the APC-dominated National Assembly is an obnoxious piece of legislation. It proposes to slam the death penalty by hanging for hate-speech especially through the social media. To all intents and purposes, they are elevating that crime to the same level as murder and high treason.

LAST April the international charity, Oxfam, revealed that the number of extreme poor in Nigeria had skyrocketed to 94.4 million people, with three million having been added to that unhappy lot in a mere span of six months. As some of my gentle readers would recall, in 2017 Nigeria overtook India for the dubious prize of being the world’s poverty capital. India’s destitute poor number some 70 million out of a total population of 1.36 billion. This amounts to 5.124 percent of India’s total population of 1.36 billion. Nigeria’s 94.5 million poor constitute 47.2 percent of our current estimated population of 200 million. Nearly a half of our population is virtually condemned to the nightmare of the Middle Ages.

THE IMF and other Western agencies have raised issues with regards to China’s open-cheque approach to Africa. I am an admirer of China and do not buy much of the Western propaganda against Beijing. The reason why the Chinese are in Africa, if truth be told, is because the West have never treated us as genuine business partners. The Western media have painted Africa as a black hole into which everything disappears; a continent of war, poverty, disease and desperate youths trying to cross the Mediterranean in rickety boats. The Chinese, by contrast, view us as genuine partners with whom they can do business. The Chinese are not here as Good Samaritans, we all know. But we are doing good business with them. It’s a win-win.  

THE Russia-Africa Summit which took place in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi recently has come and gone. And from all I gather, it was a successful event, aided no doubt by the sumptuous signature caviar, washed down with the best of vintage from the Crimea.

IT is always a joy to be in Ouagadougou. Each time I am here, I’m struck by the warmth and friendliness of the people. I find in most Burkinabe the warmth and conviviality of the ancient savannah of our beloved West Africa. Sadly, I have also noticed, since my arrival here, that something has changed in the atmosphere. There is tension in the air. And it all has to do with the new terrorist onslaught against an unarmed and defenseless people. The killings and mayhem are pushing the people to breaking point.

By Obadiah mailafia THE art of leadership is difficult enough in normal times. In an age of upheavals, the complexities are infinitely more daunting. Political leadership is the one vocation to which many are called but few are really chosen. Today, sadly, the world is truly bereft of great leaders. You wouldn’t, for example, call […]

By Obadiah Mailafia Last week, Army Chief Lt.-General Tukur Buratai raised eyebrows when he advocated the use of prayers and “spiritual warfare” in the war against terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State’s West Africa Province, ISWAP. Interestingly enough, “spiritual warfare” was not on the curriculum of the Nigerian Defense Academy when […]

Economic sanctions and economic mismanagement, in addition to poor governance, heightened the social and political crisis in Zimbabwe. The struggle for democracy reached a crisis point that led to South Africa brokering a fragile peace. This led to a national unity government with Mugabe as President and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, as Prime Minister during 2009-2013. But it was not to last. The old fox bade his time until he could outmanoeuvre his enemies and reconsolidate absolute power.

THEY are counter-suing in the United States; arguing that London is not the right jurisdiction on a case of this nature. The EFCC describes it as “daylight robbery” and is launching its own forensic investigation. Attorney-General Abubakar Malami predictably blames the PDP administration for “conniving with local and international contractors in a bid to inflict grave economic adversity on the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the good people of Nigeria”. But P&ID insist that the government and Malami were to blame for their dilly-dallying and prevarication. The beat goes on.

IT was a big relief to all democratic forces in Africa when the Ethiopian military putsch of Saturday, June 22, was crushed by the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. It all began ominously enough with the assassination of Amhara regional president, Ambachew Mekonnen, whilst at a security meeting with key officials in the city of Bahir Dar. Almost simultaneously, in Addis Ababa, the Chief of the General Staff, Se’are Mekonnen, was gunned down by his own orderly. The alleged mastermind, Brigadier-General Asamnew Tsige, had apparently intended to instigate simultaneous attacks on prominent political and military leaders across the country so as to bring down the government. 

THE Gulf of Guinea bore the brunt of the trans-Atlantic commerce in human souls that went on for 300 years, from the 16th century to the 19th century. While the Arabs and Fulanis were raiding the North, the Europeans were wreaking havoc in the South. Glorious kingdoms were weakened, if not destroyed: Benin, Oyo, Kwararafa, Nok, Kanem-Borno and the Hausa City States. When slavery was no longer viable it was replaced with ‘legitimate commerce’. Lagos was annexed in August 1861 and before long the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria was established. In the North, the feudal Caliphate established by Sheikh Usman Ibn Fodiyo barely a century earlier, was brought down by a British expeditionary force in 1903.

LOTS of people believe in conspiracy theories. I am not one of them. Nor do I subscribe to the view of those philosophers of history who believe nothing significant happens in the world without some conspirators lurking behind it. I’m not also saying that most of our problems are caused by foreign powers. We are, in fact, largely the architects of our own misfortunes. This is not to say that conspiracies don’t exist.  I have studied enough political theory since Polybius and Thucydides to know that conspiracies abound. What the philosopher Isaiah Berlin describes as “the crooked timber of humanity” still defines the character of our sinful world.