By Dele Sobowale “Mice are mice; that is why mouse traps work.” President Bola Tinubu’s fresh request to the National Assembly to approve external loans totalling $24.14 billion is tiresome.  Once again, it raises concerns that Nigeria is hurtling towards a fiscal precipice, with public debt increasing at an alarming rate even as government revenues show signs […]

By Dele Sobowale “Mice are mice; that is why mouse traps work.” More than half of the corruption in the Federal Government, FG, would be wiped out; if only the Presidents responded to those reports the way they should. I stopped downloading, reading and analysing the Annual Report of the Auditor General of the Federation, AuGF, when […]

By Dele Sobowale ”Capital is a coward: it flees from wherever there is turbulence.”  Time managementFor almost ten years, the idea has been disturbing my mind that perhaps the time has come in Nigeria when governments at all levels must consider security as an economic variable. Right now, Nigerians, in and out of government remain […]

By Dele Sobowale “$3bn refinery fraud: N80bn found in sacked MD’s account” – Report, May 3, 2025 There is probably no adult Nigerian alive who was shocked or surprised by the news report. It was a tragedy waiting to unfold. That the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, would be probed was never in doubt. The […]

By Dele Sobowale Nigerian leaders in Abuja and at state levels are desperate; even if most Nigerians are not aware of it. The federal and state governments are going broke with each passing day. Meanwhile, ignorance is bliss. Most Nigerians go to bed without the vaguest idea about how their economy is being gradually demolished by the […]

DISCO hiked my bill from N2.7m to N29m” — Lagos Deputy Gov. The report in a national newspaper of April 15, 2025, provided the best opportunity for all stakeholders to re-visit the matter of privatisation of electricity supply to Nigerian consumers. Put bluntly, Nigeria’s electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) have become the greatest fraudsters in the […]

By Dele Sobowale “It is unthinkable that wisdom should ever be popular.”Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832. Access Bank Plc is perhaps the most innovative Nigerian bank in the last two years as the changes in the nation’s economic landscape have multiplied the uncertainties banks and other financial institutions face in the country today.  It has diversified […]

By Dele Sobowale “The most obstinate illusions are ultimately broken by facts” – Trevor-Roper, 1914-2003 When Dangote  Refinery, two weeks ago, announced that it would no longer sell fuel to marketers in naira; and, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, simultaneously pronounced the end of naira-for-crude arrangement, it was clear to some of us […]

By Dele Sobowale “It never rains roses; if you want more roses, you have to plant more roses.” George Elliot, 1819-1880. After several months of trial and error, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is finally on the right track. Exchange rate is stabilising; the gap between official and parallel market rates has been closed. For […]

By Dele Sobowale “Ditch foreign aid or remain trapped”. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, February 2025.  The call to African states in general and Nigeria in particular, to stop relying on foreign aids could not have come at a more appropriate time. The return of Donald Trump as President of America can be likened to two natural disasters which […]

By Dele Sobowale “An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man”- Emerson, 1803-1882, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ p 105 “Every great enterprise starts off with enthusiasm for an exalted aim; and ends up bogged down in petty politics” – Charles Peguy, 1873-1914, VBQ p 49 The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, is one of […]

By Dele Sobowale “We discouraged (the government) from borrowing and the Nigerian desk and the World Bank suffered the consequences. “If you check, you would see that if the World Bank country director does not lend, it is either he is demoted or removed. But, it is our responsibility to make sure that the lending […]

By Dele Sobowale “History does not repeat itself; man does.” Barbara Tuchman, Harvard University Historian. The Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, is adamant that the licence given to a private organisation/individual will not be revoked. In that statement, the Minister betrays ignorance four ways, historical, social, security and economic – as will be shortly explained. But, […]

By Dele Sobowale Report, December 14, 2024. “Stop this cash crunch.” Daily Trust Editorial, December 16, 2024. “Recurrent cash scarcity is unacceptable.” PUNCH, December 16, 2024 “OPS fears SMEs’ collapse as cash scarcity lingers,” PUNCH same day. Cash crunch: The way out In the past one week alone, virtually every paper in Nigeria has joined the national […]

By Dele Sobowale “Nigeria is no longer a potentially big market for multinationals. It is now increasingly regarded as a poor and declining economy.” Nigerian businessman who recently returned from Europe. Lafarge, formerly  West African Portland Cement, is one of the latest companies in Nigeria, whose core investors have thrown in the towel, after P&G […]