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Opinion

Thursday, 28 April 2016 01:54

Nigeria-China currency swap at a glance

Joe Uche Uwaleke As the name implies, currency swap is an arrangement between two friendly countries to trade in their own local currencies, paying for import and export trade at pre-determined rates of exchange without the use of a third currency like the United States dollar. Since the financial crisis of 2008, central banks around the world have entered into bilateral currency swap agreements with one another. These agreements allow a central bank in one country to exchange currency, usually its domestic currency, for a certain amount of foreign currency. The recipient central bank can then lend this foreign currency…

Wednesday, 27 April 2016 01:58

Jonathan is by far the better man than Buhari

Femi Fani-Kayode Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, ‘let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us’. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision”- Psalm 2: 1-4. Everything that I said about President Muhammadu Buhari and his APC during the presidential campaign has come true. In less than one year I have been proved right in my continuous assertion that when…

Tuesday, 26 April 2016 01:39

Naira-Yuan deal: A fool's dream

Edward Oparaoji Since giving away the “store” to China, with the Naira-Yuan swap, the Muhammadu Buhari administration has been making strenuous efforts to justify the awful deal. The intended benefits are to reduce the demand for the United States dollar in trade transactions with China, which account for 70-80 per cent of our imports, and ease the demand and pressure to devalue the naira. However, the deal falls short of the objectives and may hurt our economy. Abuja has embarked on this silly spin, of a likely increased Chinese imports, to distract from the horrendous deal, which boils down to…

Monday, 25 April 2016 02:27

From China with love

Yakubu Mohammed President Muhammadu Buhari did not go to China with a begging bowl in hand. In other words, he did not go there seeking for aids. And he did not come back from China with aids and handouts. He is very much aware that aids of any sort from industrialised world to the so-called developing countries, aka the Third World alias poor nations have gone out of fashion. Some 30 years back, development experts had consistently drummed it home to the poor countries in need of development that the way to go about it was not by collecting hand…

Sunday, 24 April 2016 01:12

My media crucifixion: Fighting corruption through a corrupt process

Bukola Saraki My dear brother Dele, let me thank you most sincerely for your article last weekend, “My Candid Letter to Saraki.” I take everything you said in that article to heart and I must commend you for your candidness indeed and the sincerity of your intentions. As you said in your article, you are someone I have known more by reputation than by any personal relationship, until recently when we struck up some personal acquaintance based on our shared political interests, especially during the last presidential election. However, I understand why you had to sound so defensive for knowing…

Sunday, 24 April 2016 01:06

Confronting the curse of oil

Reuben Abati The monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, meeting was held the other day in Abuja, with the representatives of state governments again cap in hand, asking for their share of federal revenue - read: oil revenue, or better still, national cake, or our money. A paragraph in the report by the online newspaper, Premium Times, caught my attention and here it is: “But at the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, meeting, representatives of the 36 state governments went home SAD (emphasis mine), as they were handed parlous shares from a total N299.75 billion statutory allocation for the month,…

Friday, 22 April 2016 02:16

The Senate, CCT and the politics of Saraki’s trial

Reuben Abati The present Senate serving the Nigerian people runs the risk of being remembered as the worst since 1999. Public Relations Consultants and media officials of this particular Senate have done their part flooding both the print and the online media with details of how productive the Bukola Saraki-led Senate has been, and they have been quite aggressive in telling us about 30 important Bills which when passed, will change the face of Nigeria and deliver change. The Senate according to one report has considered over 125 bills, debated over 48 motions, and passed three bills. But nobody is…

Saturday, 23 April 2016 01:35

‘Yuanising’ the Nigerian economy

Jideofor Adibe The talk in town these days is about President Buhari’s recent trip to China and the deals, loans and currency swap that resulted from that trip. Of particular concern to many people, is the reported naira and renminbi (also known as the Yuan) swap deal, which is expected to ease trade transactions between China and Nigeria. But beyond the rhetorics and the obfuscation around technicalities, what is this deal all about? And will it really ‘crash’ the value of the dollar against the naira as some people believe? In this piece, we will look at the pros and…

Thursday, 21 April 2016 03:01

Mixed Metaphors: Fits and starts

Sonala Olumhense As confirmed by the Kaduna State government, they were killed when soldiers opened fire on Shia Muslims they claimed had tried to assassinate the army chief. The sect, members of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky’s Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), denied the accusation. It has also said that hundreds more of its members are still missing. It is painful to hear the Nigeria military’s attempt to justify the mass killing of hundreds of unarmed people, and now it also turns out they were also buried in an attempt to cover up the crime. What is more regrettable is that this…

Wednesday, 20 April 2016 02:18

Don’t believe the lie: There is no war against corruption in Nigeria (2)

Femi Aribisala In Buhari’s first coming, he bamboozled Nigerians with a so-called War Against Indiscipline. This entailed treating Nigerians, young and old, like primary school children. We were forced to queue at bus-stops under the watchful eyes of soldiers wielding whips with orders to flog publicly those deemed unruly. Late-coming civil-servants were required to do frog-jumps. The pathetic thing about this was that the government actually believed such charade constituted cogent public policy. Once Buhari left, Nigerians stopped queuing. So much for the War Against Indiscipline. The truth of the matter is that President Buhari is a retired military officer;…

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Tuesday, 19 April 2016 02:12

PMB's foreign trips: My takeaway

Babatunde Raji Fashola In making this public intervention, I seek to highlight the benefit of global relationships and cooperation in a world that is changing daily as a result of globalization and transborder economics, social and even criminal activities where no one is safe, except all are safe, and to leave the dispassionate observer his opinion after deep reflection on the value, or lack of it, of the President’s foreign trips. This way I hope every Nigerian who cares about our country will have some information about what their President is doing about the things that concern them. First I…

Monday, 18 April 2016 01:55

Yuan swap deal: Sublime or ridiculous?

Simon Kolawole Watch out all you dollar hoarders: the Chinese yuan is coming for you. Many financial analysts think the dollar under your pillow may soon be worth less than the rate at which you bought it. They think you run the risk of vomiting most of what you have swallowed since the forex crisis started. With the yuan going to be directly available to Nigerians — effectively eliminating the “middleman” called dollar — it is safe to say the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has made a bold move in its controversial management of the exchange rate crisis, a…

Sunday, 17 April 2016 00:51

What I learnt from tickling apes

Frans de Waal Tickling a juvenile chimpanzee is a lot like tickling a child. The ape has the same sensitive spots: under the armpits, on the side, in the belly. He opens his mouth wide, lips relaxed, panting audibly in the same “huh-huh-huh” rhythm of inhalation and exhalation as human laughter. The similarity makes it hard not to giggle yourself. The ape also shows the same ambivalence as a child. He pushes your tickling fingers away and tries to escape, but as soon as you stop he comes back for more, putting his belly right in front of you. At…

Saturday, 16 April 2016 01:45

The changing face of change in Nigeria

Jaye Gaskia Thanks to the endless monologue of the ‘Change government’, its ‘disunited governing party’ [remember Fela’s Beast Of No Nation – who and who unite for united nations?], and their ‘Common sense revolution’; we now know too much about our past and particularly our recent past. We have managed to acquire far too little understanding of our current challenges and present hardships; and seem to have absolutely no clarity about our future, even of the nearest future! This seems to me to be the most apt summation of the outcome of nearly one year of change. Yet as the…

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