And, as somebody has also reminded us: “As a people normally gets the government it deserves, so a society normally receives the punishment it asks for.” To me, it is now a precious waste of time whenever a frequent reader of this page calls to register his/her agreement with my article — only to launch into questioning Tinubu’s legitimacy as President. Millions of highly educated Nigerians have not developed the emotional maturity which makes it possible to accept with serenity what cannot be changed. Tinubu is President and nobody else. And, to him, I will continue to address myself. Cardoso is also Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. He will also be the focus of my attention. Nobody else.

Lekan, one of the most perceptive columnists in Nigeria today astonished me when he asked that question. Vanguard readers knew as far back as March 2023 that another round of cash scarcity was coming. It occurred in December. It will linger for a while – as long as the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, continue to miss the point. Nigerians should actually be asking two questions regarding cash scarcity: will it end? How? The answer to the first is “Yes”; but not next month or perhaps even March. It will certainly not end before a great deal of damage would have been done to the economy. The answer to “How?” will be left untouched for now. The FG and CBN will be shocked to know the major cause of the lingering scarcity. The stranglehold on cash supply is now assuming the characteristics of a plot.

President Tinubu’s appointed Special Investigator, Mr Jim Obaze, is turning out to be more of an inquisitor than a detached fact-finding inquirer. Before those already gullible enough to swallow everything he has published assume that I have been settled, let me state upfront that I have met only two victims of Obaze’s assault on their right to presumption of innocence. 

“Cash Scarcity: People are hoarding bank notes – CBN.” VANGUARD, December 14, 2023.

Governor Cardoso and his new team at the top of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, can be forgiven if the current cash scarcity being experienced has caught them by surprise.

It was late at night; and sleep refused to come despite trying all the tricks known to me. As usual, I got up; opened my set to read some news of our world. Bored by the Israel-Hamas War report and the final selection of a Speaker for the US House of Representatives, I went in search of news which would be positive and uplifting. Suddenly, there it was. The story of Professor Gebisa Ejeta, a plant geneticist, teaching at Purdue University, USA, who was born in a poor village in Ethiopia; had a difficult childhood; trekked miles shoeless to school everyday, without breakfast and who overcame all those mind-boggling obstacles to become the person who can save Africans from mass starvation in the future.