Punch

The ad hoc committee set up by the House of Representatives to investigate abandoned projects by the Niger Delta Development Commission has failed to present its report as demanded by the Speaker, Femi Gbajabilamila. Checks by our correspondent on Sunday showed that only one of the two committees asked to submit their reports by October…

Many Nigerians argue that the Nigerian Constitution is loaded too much in favour of the Federal Government, and it becomes extremely difficult for sub-national governments – states and the local governments – to be economically viable. A recent National Bureau of Statistics report indicates that whereas 21 states were able to attract $14.31bn in the…

A 91-year-old Nigerian corporate titan, who will not like to be identified, called in after reading the text of this column last week. He expressed his opinion on how Nigeria’s subnational governments — state and local governments — can become economically vibrant. Among other things, he argued that the cost of governance in Nigeria must…

Those who blame Africans for Africa’s poverty forget that the Asian Tiger nations that they usually commend for zooming into the First World did not experience the economic dislocation that accompanies physical removal of able-bodied youths to another continent. But that is not to say that there were no African fifth columnists that compromised the…

The evidence that Nigeria is broke lies somewhere in the admission by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed: “What (Nigeria has) is a revenue problem. Our revenue (projection was) by (mid-2019 only) 58 per cent (realised).” Government’s piling up debts is just stating the obvious. Nigeria’s debt is now $81.27bn, or…

To aid your understanding of the logical paradox of the pseudomenos, the science of lying, take a look at a posting culled from the Facebook page of Lolu Akinwunmi, Group Chief Executive Officer of Prima Garnet Africa. It goes: “The liar argues, if I say, ‘I am lying,’ then if I am lying, I am…

The Nigerian elite have consistently demonstrated a lack of compassion and empathy for the toiling masses of Nigeria, or “the lumpen proletariats,” as the likes of “old skool” Marxist Kayode Komolafe, now reinvented as Deputy Managing Director of ThisDay Newspapers, would have said. It is increasingly looking as if the elite use the instruments of state to…

It was uncomfortable to hear that Henry Olajide Boyo, the economics columnist with The Punch newspaper, died last Monday, November 18, 2019. How could death come and snatch Boyo away just like that? “O t’oju su mi,” it’s very frustrating. I am told that he wasn’t even ill, just a mishap. I had been engaged as the…

Some think that even if the hate speech “decree” of intolerant Senator Sabi Abdullahi of Niger State North Senatorial District is now going to be passed, sans the death by hanging clause, it is still not worth passing. They argue that gagging of the freedom of speech is symbolic death, especially if you go by…

The 12-year jail sentence pronounced by a Lagos High Court on former Abia State Governor, Uzor Orji Kalu, who was reinvented as Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has sent tongues wagging. Nigerians are asking whatever happened to the cases of some former governors, whom the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had either investigated,…