On January 30, 2019, Nigeria joined the ranks of nations with an all-encompassing Competition Law upon the enactment of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCCPA). This development which was long overdue received several accolades both locally and internationally, as Nigeria being Africa’s biggest economy lagged behind in this important law needed to ensure fair play in the market as well as regulate abuse of dominant and monopoly power by big firms.

While Nigerians are still reeling from the shock of a so-called foreign investor called P&ID deploying the law as an instrument of fraud in a foreign court with the sole aim of dispossessing us of a humongous chunk of our national wealth, it would appear that yet another “foreign investor” has most atrociously short changed Nigerian workers vide a series of highly suspicious tax deductions.

We have not come to read the Book of Lamentations about Nigeria’s woes, nor to sing the songs of David. We see the half-empty glass, but we prefer to focus on the half-full glass. We want to focus on the future—rather than the past or the present. As mentioned above, we are asked to speak on “The Economic Restructuring of Nigeria”—an omnibus topic indeed! Since the First National Development Plan (1962- 68), transformation of the economic structure/diversification has been the fulcrum of all national plans. For decades, every government has tried its brand of ‘economic restructuring’ or economic diversification and yet the economy remains tied to the life-support of oil, peasant agriculture and largely informal services sector. Income inequality, poverty, and unemployment remain major defining features of the economy. 

Since the advent of democracy in 1999, the link between party financing and corruption in Nigeria has become more like Siamese twins. It is difficult to separate. They cut across political divides, whether perceived as “saint party” or a “sinner party”, progressives or conservatives. Perhaps, this may be the reasons why people of integrity, technocrats, professionals, and retired civil servants appear to distance themselves from party politics as they do not see it as an avenue through which they can make their contributions to the building of a nation because of the presumption that politics is for those who have the wherewithal different from integrity and expertise.

by Garba Shehu Last week, Nigeria’s senate majority leader reintroduced anti-sexual harassment legislation to parliament, following a serious exposé by the BBC of sex for grades scandal at the University of Lagos. The bill had been tabled before in 2016 but it was not passed: some members of our party, working with the opposition, then […]