A Nigerian newspaper and Online version of the Vanguard, a daily publication in Nigeria covering Nigeria news, Niger delta, general national news, politics, business, energy, sports, entertainment, fashion,lifestyle human interest stories, etc
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari recently constituted a high-calibre Presidential Economic Advisory Council, EAC, chaired by Dr Doyin Salami, former adviser to the IMF and, for eight years, a member of the Central Bank’s monetary policy committee, with other members, including Professor Chukwuma Soludo, former CBN governor. For a president who largely shunned economic technocracy in his first term, and who only recently appointed an entirely political cabinet for his second term, this was a pleasant surprise.
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Olu Fasan THERE is a well-known practice in the business world in which a large multinational corporation could be sold for £1 or $1, the token price tag serving only as a symbolic proof of exchange. But why would a corporate entity be sold for a token sum? Well, that often happens when a company,
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Last week, Nigeria lost a great son, Chiedu Osakwe, who died on September 22, aged 64, in Geneva, Switzerland. Ambassador Osakwe’s contributions to the world trading system, to Africa’s economic integration and to Nigeria’s trade diplomacy were so hugely significant and unparalleled that his death sent shock waves across world.
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Some Nigerians, out of sheer sentimental or romantic patriotism,condemned the recent decision of an English judge, Mr Justice Christopher Butcher, to uphold the arbitral award of $9.6 billion against Nigeria in a breach of contract case brought by Process & Industrial Development, P&ID, Ltd, a company based in British Virgin Islands. But count me out! Proper patriotism is not about defending the indefensible! How could “patriotism” make anyone blind to the utter misrule in Nigeria? A country where most citizens have no faith in government, trust in politics or expectation of good governance.
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By Olu Fasan RECENTLY, President Muhammadu Buhari, through his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, queried the chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Dr. Tunde Fowler, for failing to collect enough taxes. In a letter dated August 8, Abba Kyari asked Fowler to explain why there were “significant variances between the budgeted tax collection and
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HATE-filled ethnocentrism is rupturing the Nigeria state. Instead of dialogue and mutual understanding, Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities are locked in belligerence and brinkmanship.
Read More PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari is insouciant about the process of government, the art and mechanics of governance. Otherwise, how else would one explain his lackadaisical approach to ministerial appointments and his aberrant views about the role of ministers? As everyone knows, Buhari spent the first six months of his first presidential term without a cabinet, without ministers! Now, déjà vu, he is nearly three months into his second term and still hasn’t named his ministers; instead, he is saying to Nigerians: “Give me more time”! But what is it about ministers that President Buhari always struggles to appoint them?
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President Muhammadu Buhari bowed to the inevitable last week. Following intense public outcry, he suspended the Rural Grazing Area, RUGA, project. But the RUGA plan is so dangerous, so provocative, that he was utterly wrong to have even mooted it. With RUGA, Buhari risks stoking the unravelling of Nigeria’s artificially maintained façade of unity.
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The central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, believes smugglers are “killing” Nigeria’s economy. Speaking at a recent roundtable event in Lagos, he said: “Nigeria is very good at making brilliant economic policies, but smugglers are those sabotaging these policies”. Thus, he said, the CBN would “block the smugglers’ accounts in all Nigerian banks”. Those circumventing the government’s foreign exchange restrictions on certain importswould also be “blacklisted” and prevented from operating in the foreign exchange market and the banking industry.
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A FEW weeks ago, Dr. Femi Aribisala, wrote a provocative but logically unassailable article in this newspaper, entitled “No Yoruba president in Nigeria for another 20 years” (Vanguard, May 21, 2019). He argued that when it’s the South’s turn to produce the president in 2023, it must go to Ndigbo, not the Yoruba. He posited that, having produced Nigeria’s president for eight years and vice president for another eight years, since the return to civil rule in 1999, the Yoruba shouldn’t expect to govern Nigeria again until 2038!
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