The Nigerian government recently reviewed the excise duty rate and structure applicable to tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. Specifically, government approved an additional N1 specific tax on each stick of cigarette (N20 per pack), which would increase to N2 per stick in 2019 (N40 per pack) and eventually N2.90 per stick in 2020 (N58 per pack) while maintaining the current 20% ad valorem rate on unit cost of production.

It is common knowledge and several events have proven that when you fight corruption anywhere in the world, corruption fights back with great intensity. This especially applies to Nigeria where the same people who fleece poor Nigerians of their future disguise as saints and cry to the highest heavens whenever there is an attempt to bring them to justice for their misdeeds.

A three-page feature with the headline  above, in the Sunday Vanguard newspaper of April 22, 2018 refers.

Every day we consign history to the background, we lose a vital part of our essence as a people and nation;we sink deeper into the abyss of ignorance and what we have in place is modern Buccaneers who ‘do not know Joseph’

It is true that there are many positive stories about Nigeria, which have either not been told at all or have not been told well enough.