A Chinese woman has been charged with fraud after it was revealed that she was employed by 16 different companies at the same time, but she never really showed up for work at any of them.

The woman, identified as Guan Yue (pseudonym) by Chinese media, had reportedly been juggling over a dozen employers and collecting paychecks for at least three years, without actually getting any work done for any of them. She and her husband, who is also a suspect in this case, allegedly kept a very tight record of employers, her exact role at each company, the date she had started working for each of them, and the bank account details provided for the woman’s monthly salary. Guan Yue would constantly be looking for new employers, and when going to new job interviews, she would take photos and send them to current employers as proof that she was meeting with clients. Believe it or not, the fraud worked flawlessly for years, allowing Guan Yue to buy an expensive apartment in Shanghai.

Guan Yue was so busy in her constant search for corporate employment, that whenever she had multiple job interviews lined up at the same time, she would pass them on to other people, in exchange for commissions. However, she did keep most of the jobs for herself, always finding other companies to work for whenever she got fired for lack of results.

Unfortunately, the fraudster’s scheme started falling apart this past January, when one of her former employers found a resignation letter from Guan Yue on an online work group. Liu Jian, the owner of a tech company, had hired Yue and seven other associates in sales positions but fired them after a three-month probation period because they hadn’t generated a single sale.

Some time later, the woman made the mistake of sending her resignation letter to another company and several online work groups. Jian was a member of one of these groups and realized that Guan Yue had been working for another company while in a full-time position at his tech firm. After doing a bit of investigating himself, Liu Jian contacted the police about the former employee.

Liu Jian’s actions set in motion the exposure of a massive fraud that went back at least three years and exceeded 50 million yuan. Ironically, Guan Yue was arrested right in the middle of an interview for a new job. She had 16 jobs at the time of her arrest but wasn’t putting in any actual work for any of them. She was getting monthly paychecks though, as well as commissions from associates she had helped get hired.

Yue, her husband, and more than 50 accomplices involved in the salary fraud were arrested. According to Chinese media, this kind of labor fraud is a massive problem in China, with hundreds of specialized groups reportedly taking on jobs from multiple employers. They are trained interviewees, have polished résumés, but are only interested in free paychecks.

Oddity Central

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu's lightning-fast reform push after taking office in May sparked hope that his administration would be a business-friendly antidote to mounting economic troubles facing Africa's biggest economy.

Fast forward to more than 100 days in office, and the key planks of his economic overhaul - unshackling the naira from its rigid regime, and allowing fuel prices to rise - are coming loose.

The naira hit a record low of 1,000 to the dollar on the black market this week, widening the gap with the official rate, which stood at 785 on Thursday.

Petrol pump prices, meanwhile, have not budged since July - despite a more than 30% rise in oil prices.

Some now fear Tinubu will not be able to wean Nigeria off the costly policies that have stymied investment and throttled economic growth.

"Momentum just seems...almost in reverse," said David Omojomolo, Africa economist at research firm Capital Economics.

Public anger is swelling as inflation spirals higher, however, and Nigeria's two biggest workers' unions are planning an indefinite strike next week to protest over a cost-of-living crisis.

"Sentiment towards Nigeria has been continuing to sour as the initial reform momentum under President Tinubu's administration has faded," said Tellimer analyst Patrick Curran.

DOLLAR DELAY

For years, Nigeria has tightly controlled the official naira rate, even amid declines in the price of oil, sales of which bring in 90% of the country's foreign currency supply.

But providing dollars at an artificially low rate has led to a yawning gap between official and black market rates, leaving businesses and investors unable to access dollars. The central bank has also created import restrictions aimed at reducing dollar demand.

Tinubu's decision to let the official naira rate weaken saw it briefly converge with the black market. Last week, he assured investors they could take money out, touting a "reliable, one figure exchange rate of the naira."

But the gap has widened to nearly 30% this week, and four sources told Reuters it was virtually impossible to get dollars from the central bank on an ad hoc basis.

The incoming central bank chief said on Tuesday that policymakers faced a nearly $7 billion backlog in foreign exchange demand; foreign airlines alone had $783 million in ticket sales trapped, the International Air Transport Association said.

This is one major factor keeping investors from putting money to work in Nigeria.

Another is negative real bond yields and the slow central bank response: 10-year local government bonds yield less than 15% while inflation is running above 25%.

"What they have done so far is not enough to attract domestic debt holders or foreign investors into their domestic debt market," said Carlos de Sousa, portfolio manager at Vontobel Asset Management.

Reuters Graphics

The tattered finances left by the previous administration have also been no help.

In August, the central bank published audited accounts for the first time since 2018, revealing that its $33 billion in FX reserves included a $19 billion commitment in derivatives - slashing the liquid amount of reserves.

JPMorgan calculated net FX reserves stood at $3.7 billion as of the end of 2022, "significantly lower" than prior estimates.

That news sent Nigeria's international bond tumbling.

"Lower net FX reserves reduce the willingness to introduce a flexible exchange rate regime in the near term," said JPMorgan's Gbolahan S Taiwo.

The central bank has also kept other restrictions that businesses say make life tough, including a ban on using central bank foreign exchange to import 43 items.

"The government may have intended to make it a free market, but the CBN isn't allowing it to be one," said a Nigerian private equity investor who did not want to be named.

The delay in scrapping fuel subsidies is exacerbating the dollar crunch. Last year, subsidies cost 2% of gross domestic product, according to Fitch.

Despite being Africa's largest oil exporter, Nigeria imports nearly all its fuel as it does not refine nearly enough to meet the demand of its 200 million citizens. In recent years, it has swapped crude for fuel, depriving it again of a source of U.S. dollars.

It is still using oil cargoes now to pay for fuel it imported previously, and a de-facto pump price limit set by state oil company NNPC LTD's sale price means it is again the sole petrol importer.

Reuters Graphics

Tellimer said Nigeria's gasoline prices would need to rise 73% to align with global prices.

Analyst say Tinubu, elected with the narrowest margin since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 and facing inflation at nearly two-decade highs, lacks the social capital and mandate to push any harder.

"There is the concern that when the going gets tough...they will walk back on the reforms," Omojomolo said.

Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has asked the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago to reject President Bola Tinubu’s objections on an order for Chicago State University (CSU) to release all his academic records not later than October 2.

In an application filed at the court on September 27, Atiku rejected Tinubu’s objection and description of his suit as a ‘fishing expedition’ which has no bearing on the presidential election petition case at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

Atiku said contrary to Tinubu’s claims, the demand for the release of the academic records is not a fishing exercise but to test the authenticity of 12 pages of document including two different diplomas that was allegedly issued by CSU and the basis of CSU’s assertion that Tinubu graduated in 1979, given the discrepancies and his affidavit to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He also said the discovery obtained from the case would be sent to Nigeria by October 4 so that such evidence may, in turn, be filed with the Supreme Court by October 5, which is when his counsel intends to submit any new evidence to the Supreme Court.

“For the foregoing reasons, the Court should overrule the objections in their entirety. If the Court overrules the objections, the applicant respectfully requests that it enter an order requiring production of documents no later than October 2, 2023, and the deposition scheduled no later than October 3, to allow time for transcripts to be finalised, and the discovery obtained to be sent to Nigeria (which is six (6) hours ahead) by October 4 so that such evidence may, in turn, be filed with the Supreme Court by October 5, which is when applicant’s Nigerian counsel intend to submit any new evidence to the Supreme Court,” he said.

On August 2, 2023, Atiku filed a suit at the US court, demanding that CSU release all of Tinubu’s academic records over irregularities in the certificate he submitted to INEC. This move was prompted by Atiku’s belief that these documents would help clarify what he said are inconsistencies in Tinubu’s background.

The former vice president argued that among other things, a “second Chicago State University diploma dated June 27, 1979, that bears the name “Bola Ahmed Tinubu “has since emerged but also presents with a different font, punctuation, seal, and signatures, than that of the June 22, 1979 diploma, among other alleged discrepancies.”

Atiku told the US that he wanted to authenticate these documents whether a “Chicago State University diploma in the name of Bola Ahmed Tinubu dated June 22, 1979, that was submitted to the INEC before the presidential election in February 2023 is genuine or was forged.”

But last week, Tinubu asked the court to permit CSU to release only his certificate to Atiku but block the school from revealing any other information about the person who owns the certificate, especially their gender and any records of where they went to school, among other things after Jeffrey Gilbert, a US magistrate judge, ordered the university to produce “all relevant and non-privileged documents” to Atiku within two days.

Sun

The leadership of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) says it does not have any date for a meeting with the federal government that may lead to the suspension of the proposed strike scheduled to commence next Tuesday.

This is just as the organised labour vowed to mobilise all its affiliates and members across the country to ensure full compliance to the declaration of the proposed with a view to pressing home its demands until they are met.

The Congress, through the Head of Information and Public Affairs of NLC, Benson Upah, on Thursday said the issues on ground were beyond what the Ministry of Labour and Employment can handle, saying its position was not to denigrate the Minister, Simon Lalong.

“Firstly, we do not have any agreement with the government to suspend the planned strike action. Neither do we have any date for a meeting with government that may lead to the suspension of the proposed strike.

“While we do not intend to demean or minimise the office of the Minister of Labour and Employment, this matter is beyond the Ministry. This should have been obvious to them during our most recent meeting,” Upah said.

He said while they appreciate the role played by Lalong in securing the release of the executives of the National Union of Road Transport Workers from what it was described as “unlawful or illegal” police detention, he noted that they take exception to the Ministry describing the executives as factional leaders.

Upah added, “They were lawfully elected into office. We still find it necessary to advise the police and those elements behind their travails to desist from this despicable and shameful conduct. They are advised to retrace their steps.

“If democracy is to be of meaning to us, then we should resist the urge or temptation for impunity. Enough is enough.”

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) directed all its affiliates and members to shut down the economy next week Tuesday, October 3, 2023 over the federal government’s failure to meet all its demands.

Meanwhile, the United Action Front of Civil Society, the Organised Platform of Civil Society Groups and activists on matters of Governance and Democracy has endorsed the declaration, noting that they would do everything to support the mobilisation of the organised labour.

Daily Trust

One of Nigeria's main oil and gas unions will join a nationwide strike starting on Oct. 3 to protest against government policies that are causing economic hardship for Nigerians, union leaders said on Thursday.

Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and relies on the commodity for around 90% of foreign exchange earnings and about half its budget.

Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) directed its members to ensure "unwavering compliance" with the indefinite strikecalled by Nigeria's two biggest workers union federations.

NUPENG represents a myriad of workers across the entire value chain in the oil and gas sectors, including upstream oil platform workers, fuel tanker drivers and pump attendants, and its decision to join the strike is a significant escalation of the unions' dispute with the government.

NUPENG President Williams Akporeha said the government's policies have caused "excruciating and debilitating socio-economic pains" for Nigerians without any accompanying measures to cushion "the immediate effects and impacts."

President Bola Tinubu has been under pressure to reverse his decision to scrap a popular petrol subsidy that had kept fuel prices low but was costly on government finances.

While his policies have cheered investors, unions say they have led to soaring costs for Nigerians - an estimated four in 10 of whom live below the national poverty line- as they grapple with the highest inflation in nearly two decades.

Reuters

There was a protest on Thursday at the headquarters of the federal ministry of works and housing in Abuja, after Dave Umahi, the minister, locked out some staff for coming late to work.

According to multiple reports, Umahi who got to the ministry’s complex ahead of some directors and staff in the morning, denied them access to their respective offices.

“The minister got to work and discovered that some directors and other staff had not reported to work so he locked them outside,” Kelechi Boms, a journalist, told TheCable.

Boms added that the workers were later granted access to the ministry but proceeded to lock the entry and exit points at the ministry in protest against the minister.

“They locked the gate so that nobody could come in and go out,” he said.

In a video shared by Leadership Newspapers on X, the aggrieved employees in large numbers, can be seen chanting “Umahi must go”, “solidarity forever”, citing far distances from work as the reasons for their late coming.

The workers also reportedly accused Umahi of high-handedness, adding that he stopped engineers and directors from doing their work since he assumed office.

They also alleged that the minister has been violating public service rules since his appointment by bringing in consultants to run the affairs of the ministry.

The Cable

Federal Government has declared Monday, October 2, as a public holiday in commemoration of the nation’s 63rd Independence Day celebration.

The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Oluwatoyin Akinlade.

Tunji-Ojo assured Nigerians of the Federal Government’s continued commitment to surmounting the challenges facing the country.

“It is today a known fact that difficult socioeconomic and security challenges are global and Nigeria is not isolated,” the minister said.

He, however, said the government was daily making efforts to address “these varied and numerous challenges with all the might available until respite comes our way.”

Tunji-Ojo urged the citizens to remain united to achieve the greatness the country is destined for.

“Our warm welcoming spirit and love as well as our unbounded human capital and the richness of our land makes Nigeria unarguably the leading black nation in the world, being Africa’s pride and beacon of hope for the Renewed Hope of President Bola Tinubu.

“Our founding fathers, despite the differences in faith, tribe, and tongue, came together for Nigeria’s freedom which we enjoy today,” he added.

Punch

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian shelling kills five in southern, eastern Ukraine

Russian shelling on Thursday killed three women in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and two people in eastern Donetsk region, local officials said.

Prosecutors said the three women were killed on a street in Kherson, a town abandoned by Russian troops late last year along with other settlements on the west bank of the Dnipro River. Russian forces routinely shell Kherson and nearby areas from positions on the river's east bank.

Prosecutors in Donetsk region in the east said two people died when Russian forces shelled Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held city of Donetsk and near the long-contested town of Maryinka.

In Kostyantynivka, west of the town of Bakhmut, in Russian hands since May, three people were injured when Russian forces launched two air strikes within an hour, prosecutors said.

Reuters could not independently verify any of the accounts of military activity.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian drone strike causes blackout in Russia – governor

Russian air defense systems have engaged ten hostile targets over the Kursk region, the Defense Ministry said on Friday morning. However, one of the incoming drones managed to hit an electrical substation causing a blackout, according to governor Roman Starovoyt.

“A Ukrainian drone dropped two explosive devices on a substation,”Starovoyt wrote on Telegram at 5:00am local time, shortly after warning about “air defense systems activity in the Kursk region.”

One of the transformers caught fire as a result of the attack, causing a blackout that affected five settlements and a hospital, according to the official. There were no reports of any injuries.

The governor asked residents to “remain calm,” adding that firefighters were sent to tackle the blaze and that power would be restored “as soon as it becomes safe.”

The Russian military said it intercepted a total of ten drones over the Kursk region, and another one in Kaluga, thwarting yet “another attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack using aircraft-type UAVs.”

The Russian border regions of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod, as well as Crimea and Moscow, have been frequently targeted by drones since Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Russian officials have also accused Kiev of plotting acts of sabotage targeting the country’s major infrastructure sites, including nuclear power plants.

Reuters/RT

In the Bible, Keren-happuch was the youngest of the three beautiful daughters of Job, who against the norms of a patriarchal society, inherited her father’s vast latter-day wealth along with her two other sisters. But in the sometimes inexplicable twist of fate, this is the story of another Keren-happuch whose sun set before it rose.

Her story as told by her mother was hard to follow. Even if I had eaten the head of a tortoise, the fabled medicine for anhedonia, the woman’s story, especially her futile search for justice, would still have broken my heart into many pieces.

Perhaps you have heard it, too. It’s the story of Mrs. Vivian Akpagher whose 14-year-old daughter, Keren-happuch, died two years ago in circumstances that still leave the woman and her family broken and traumatised.

Sometime in June 2021, Keren-happuch Akpagher, a student of Premiere Academy, Lugbe, Abuja, had managed to place a call to her mother to complain that she had eye infection and needed proper medical attention outside the school. It wasn’t a normal call, according to her mother. After an earlier call by a matron who appeared to have tried to downplay the situation, Keren-happuch used the phone of a sympathetic teacher to call her mother.

Unusual call

Her mother was confused. The Keren-happuch she knew wasn’t the kind of daughter that took her studies lightly or one to raise a false alarm. Yes, she was diabetic, but she had learned how to use her insulin and also to watch her diet. So, what was this about? As far as teenagers go, her mother said, she was a jovial, happy, lovable girl who along with her three siblings – all boys – had come to terms with the passing of their father.

Of all the things her mother thought about when Keren-happuch made that second desperate call from school, the last thing on her mind was that that could be the beginning of her last days with her daughter.

After she arranged for her to be brought to a hospital from school in company with the matron and it was time for them to take her back, she refused to follow the staff, insisting that her mother must follow them to the school and get a pass to take her home.

The school staff tried to assure her that Keren-happuch would be fine, that it was only a minor problem, perhaps a bacterial infection, which would be managed at the sick bay. But her mother instinct kicked in. She brushed aside the assurances and drove behind them to Premiere Academy. On arrival, the misery she was subjected to before she could finally take her daughter home was an indication of the foreboding days ahead.

Like Keren, like Syl

She was vetted and coldly scrutinised. And in a school where she had two other children, her ID was taken and snapped at the gate before Keren-happuch was finally released to her after hours of cat-and-mouse with the authorities. As she departed, she had an eerie feeling that she was walking into a trap, but the relief from retrieving her daughter and hope that she would be fine overcame her sense of the looming danger.

Sadly, what she was afraid of would not only happen to her, a slightly different but no less traumatic variety of it would happen again five months later to another family in another school nearly 700 kilometres away in Lagos. Grief likes company.

Like Mrs. Akpagher, the Oromonis also had their son, Sylvester, as a boarding student in Dowen College, one of the elite private schools in Lagos. For a long time, school bullies and absent-minded administrators ignored Sylvester’s anguished complaints, which he recorded in videos.

His parents obviously didn’t notice on time, too. Everyone, it seemed, turned a blind eye until Sylvester took ill and died from circumstances related to his abuse shortly before his 12th birthday.  

Abuse and bullying have become epidemics in our schools. According to a 2007 study by Elizabeth Egbochukwu in the Journal of Social Sciences,four out of five children are at risk, the sort of risk that may have claimed the lives of Keren-happuch and Sylvester within five months of each other and which Keren-happuch’s mother probably thought she could prevent by rushing to take her child home on that day.

Of course, schools love to show off their safety records and virtually all would claim low incidence and tolerance of abuse. But even at 99 percent, the one percent of students who may die or be damaged from abuse or bullying is some family’s 100 percent.

What I feared…

As Keren-happuch’s mother’s story goes, the night after she took her daughter home, the girl became gravely ill. She had to be taken to Queen’s Clinic, Area 6, Abuja, where urine and virginal swap tests had allegedly revealed dead spermatozoa, apart from a piece of festering condom also removed from her inside.

When her personal effects were retrieved from Premiere Academy, she had marked a place in her Bible, “What I always feared has happened to me (Job 3:25).” There was a strong suspicion at the hospital that she may have been sexually abused.

Her mother said she was told her daughter died from sepsis. She claimed that she kept officials of the school informed from the moment of Keren-happuch’s admission, up to the point where she later died and about all that happened, including what the doctor said.

On its part, the school has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that Keren-happuch wasn’t gravely ill when her mother took her home and that she might have died from her mother’s negligence. The school has also reported the doctor who allegedly said a used condom was retrieved from Keren-happuch to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).

With Keren-happuch’s mother and the school at dagger’s drawn, you would expect the police to take a genuine interest to find out the truth. But after two years on this case, it’s beginning to look like even if you beat the police on the head with the facts, they would still not recognise them. On occasions when the police are determined to work, they do very well, in spite of the challenges.

But when the police decide to bungle a case – which is more often than not – they make such a thorough mess that leaves no sensible margin of common sense whatsoever for either the process or outcome of the matter.

More questions than answers

How, for example, can the police explain that neither Keren-happuch’s mother who was squeezed to pay over N1 million for her daughter’s DNA nor her representatives were present at Queen’s Clinic when DNA was taken, whereas the school and the police were there? And how come Mrs. Akpagher who paid for the test can no longer have access to it?

How can the police explain that two years after Keren-happuch’s death, the matter is still languishing in the court, while police sources tell the press they are being leaned upon to kill the matter? How? And isn’t this malicious official negligence the same reason two years after Sylvester’s death, the police have also failed to do what is required to get the coroner’s report ready?

It’s not only the police that should be getting a beating here. The report in LEADERSHIP on Sunday also indicated that the House of Representatives in the 9th National Assembly took a casual look at the matter, and almost immediately abandoned it, since it’s not typically the sort of case that allows them to eat with two hands.

The current assembly, especially Senator Ireti Kingibe, representing the FCT and the House Committee Chairman on FCT, Muktar Aliu Betara, will do well to revisit the matter immediately.

Nothing will bring back Keren-happuch, of course. But this is a good test case for the new Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun, who has promised that the force on his watch would turn a new leaf.

He can’t walk past this crime scene without justice for Keren-happuch’s memory. It was Keren-happuch yesterday and Sylvester the next day. The only incentive an abuser needs to get their next victim is for Egbetokun to do nothing about Keren-happuch and Sylvester.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP

In the last four months since Bola Tinubu became Nigeria’s president, many Nigerians have watched in utter horror as the administration continues to fumble. The missteps are simply unacceptable, more so for a government that claims to be on a self-assigned mission of renewing the hope of longsuffering citizens. But I doubt if any discerning Nigerian is surprised at the embarrassing slipups and gaffes. In fact, what would have been surprising is a situation where Tinubu, in Aso Rock, levels with Nigerians.

It is in the character of those who are presently allocating the country’s collective values, authoritatively, to deploy propaganda and lies in governance. To them subterfuge and outright sleight of the hand are legitimate governance tools. But are they? I daresay they are not because government propaganda threatens democratic self-governance. In other words, it is an enemy of democracy. 

As U.S. Senator William Fulbright noted in his 1970 book, The Pentagon Propaganda Machine: “There have been too many instances of lack of candour and of outright misleading statements in treating with the (American) public. Too often we have been misled by the very apparatus that is supposed to keep us factually informed or, in the very strictest sense, honestly guided.”

The Tinubu administration has chosen, deliberately, neither to keep Nigerians factually informed nor honestly guided, so much so that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, speaking through his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, recently quipped that “if the Tinubu government says it is morning, go outside to verify if the sun is shining.” That may sound like an exaggeration. But the actions of the government make it extremely difficult not to believe that this is an administration that lies compulsively. 

But by so doing, the government is hurting itself and squandering the already depleted stock of goodwill of the few Nigerians still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt because as Levi Obijiofor noted in an October 12, 2016 article in The Sun newspaper: “The easiest way a government and a ruling political party can dilute the faith, the confidence, and the authority placed in them by the people is to undervalue the citizens and to assume that civil society is naïve, easy to fool, uncritical and always willing to accept half-truths.”

What is even most disconcerting is that most of these lies are needless. Truth would have been apposite particularly given the fact that like pregnancy, most of the events or issues the administration is lying about, sooner than later would become public knowledge. 

Take for instance the controversy over what was agreed during Tinubu’s meeting with the United Arab Emirates President, Mohamed bin Zayad Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi recently. Tinubu on his way from India after attending the G20 meeting on observer status stopped over in UAE. The mere fact that he had the presence of mind to raise the issue of visa ban and suspension of flights to Nigeria by both Etihad and Emirates Airlines was commendable. His predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, the man who threw Nigeria into this pitiable ditch couldn’t care less.

If the Tinubu government had levelled with Nigerians on the outcome of the meeting, he would still have earned some plaudits. By meeting with the UAE President, he had thawed the diplomatic ice and discussions on how to proceed from there would have been the next logical step. 

Most times, diplomacy is not a 100-metre dash. It is a marathon that requires patience and skills. But this government can’t help itself when it comes exaggerating things. So, Tinubu’s spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, went to town with Abuja’s version of what transpired at the meeting and he was emphatic. “President Bola Tinubu and President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayad Al Nahyan, on Monday in Abu Dhabi, have finalized a historic agreement, which has resulted in the immediate cessation of the visa ban placed on Nigerian travellers,” Ngelale ululated in a statement. “Furthermore, by this historic agreement, both Etihad Airlines and Emirates Airlines are to immediately resume flight schedules into and out of Nigeria.”

More than three weeks after these emphatic claims were made, nothing has happened – the airlines have neither resumed flights nor have Nigerians started getting UAE visas. And nothing will happen simply because no such agreements were reached. Apparently embarrassed, the UAE countered the Abuja narrative, but with some finesse. 

Short  of saying Nigeria lied, a statement by the UAE government said both leaders had during the meeting, “explored opportunities for further bilateral collaboration” with the hope of “reinforcing ties between the UAE and Nigeria.” Some days later, an official from the Gulf state told the CNN: “There are no changes on the Nigeria/UAE travel status so far.”One needs to have penchant for saying untruths to make the claims the Tinubu presidency made, knowing full well that the UAE will give its own account of what happened and that subsequent events will bear out whoever was telling the truth out.

Nigerians were still dealing with that when the NASDAQ bell brouhaha broke. Last week, Ngelale came out with another fib: “The world’s second largest stock exchange, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System, NASDAQ, on Wednesday in the world’s financial capital, invited President Tinubu to ring the closing bell, making him the first African President to ever receive the honour.” 

Of course, Tinubu wasn’t the first to be accorded that honour, if, indeed, ringing NASDAQ bell is an honour. It has since been established that Malawian President, Jakaya Kikwete, rang the same bell as far back as September 21, 2011. In any case, ringing the US Stock Exchange bell in the Wall Street is a bigger deal than NASDAQ and President Goodluck Jonathan and others had done so in the past.

But assuming, without conceding that Tinubu is, indeed, the first African leader to ring the NASDAQ bell, so what? What does it matter to Nigerians? How would that affect the current Nigerian condition? Will it burnish Nigeria’s sullied image in the comity of nations, solve the debilitating problem of insecurity, and tackle hunger and the humiliating poverty in the country? On August 27, the self-same Ngalele whose reputation as Abuja’s fib master has been firmly established, issued a statement where US Presidential Envoy and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Ambassador Molly Phee, was quoted as saying: “President Joe Biden is asking to meet with you (President Tinubu) on the sidelines of UNGA and you are the only African leader he has requested to meet. It is a mark of his high regard for your leadership.”

Again, that did not happen. The UNGA ended and Biden went back to Washington DC without casting as much as a glance in Tinubu’s direction. So, why is Tinubu obsessed with being the first to do everything? Some say that he already sees himself as the greatest Yoruba leader ever, surpassing the achievements of Obafemi Awolowo and Olusegun Obasanjo. Well, he may well be. 

Some of his minions argue that Awolowo was only a regional leader and now Tinubu is Nigeria’s president. But how he can claim superiority over Obasanjo remains to be seen. But to his people, he is looking beyond Nigeria as he sees himself as one of Africa’s greatest leaders. Well, he may well become. After all, he is Nigeria’s president either by hook or crook. But he cannot get there as controversially  as he became president.

The policies of the Tinubu administration in the last four months have been a cocktail of lies and propaganda. Whether it is the fuel subsidy removal gambit, or the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPC, claiming it had obtained an Afrexim Bank loan of $3 billion with which it would help stabilise the naira or even the so-called Student Loan Act, which he ceremoniously signed on June 12, it is sheer sophistry on display. That is the tragedy of the Tinubu era. Truth be told, lies and propaganda as governance tools will neither do his administration any good nor take Nigeria to the golden era we all crave for.