Obasempire reports that Nigerian TV host and musician Charles Chukwuemeka Oputa, widely recognized as Charly Boy, has termed the federal government’s one-month deadline for lowering food prices as ludicrous and irresponsible.
He voiced his dissatisfaction on Friday in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
This came soon after Tunji Bello, the newly appointed Executive Vice Chairman of the FCCPC, instructed vendors to lower their prices within a month.
Charly Boy labeled the policy as unreasonable, noting that while it aimed to alleviate the hardship of the public, it would likely lead to further complications.
“It’s utterly absurd and irresponsible for governments to introduce policies without proper planning and strategy.
“The recent attempt to reduce food production costs within a month is a perfect example of this reckless approach.
“How can they expect to achieve this when fuel and transportation costs are increasing daily, and the dollar exchange rate is crippling our economy?
“This ill-conceived policy ignores the harsh realities on the ground and will only lead to more problems.
“t’s time for governments to stop making empty policy and start developing comprehensive solutions that address the root causes of issues, rather than just papering over the cracks,” the post read.
Obasempire reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has criticized the way President Bola Tinubu’s administration removed the fuel subsidy, cautioning about the increased difficulties it will create for ordinary Nigerians.
He issued this caution during an interview with the Financial Times.
Obasanjo argued that the government should have focused on alleviating the challenges resulting from the subsidy removal instead of rushing the implementation of the policy.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Not just wake up one morning and say you removed the subsidy. Because of inflation, the subsidy that we have removed is not gone. It has come back,” he stressed.
The former President stressed the need for investor confidence in Nigeria, advocating for a shift from a transactional economy to a transformational one. “You have to go from transactional economy to transformational economy,” he said.
Obasanjo also expressed deep concern over the growing restiveness among Nigerian youths, triggered by widespread unemployment.
“Our youth are restive. And they are restive because they have no skill. They have no empowerment. They have no employment. We are all sitting on a keg of gunpowder. And my prayer is that we will do the right thing before it’s too late,” he warned.
Obasanjo also said that sinister forces are working against the progress of the Dangote Refinery. He alleged that powerful cabals in the oil and gas sector are determined to frustrate the project because it threatens their lucrative business of importing refined petrol.
“Aliko’s investment in a refinery, if it goes well, should encourage both Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in Nigeria.
“If those who are selling or supplying refined products for Nigeria feel that they will lose the lucrative opportunity, they will also make every effort to get him frustrated,” Obasanjo stated.
Obasempire reports that despite President Bola Tinubu’s June declaration suspending import duties and tariffs on essential food items for six months, Nigerian importers report they are still being required to pay these fees.
The presidential order was intended to address rising costs of food, raw materials, and manufacturing inputs, and also included agricultural production inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, pharmaceuticals, poultry feed, flour, and grains.
However, importers claim the suspension has not been enacted, contradicting the Executive Order titled “Inflation Reduction and Price Stability (Fiscal Policy Measures, ETC.) Order, 2024,” issued under the President’s constitutional authority.
Also, the order, effective from May 1, 2024 stipulates that “authorized millers would now import paddy rice at zero duty and Value Added Tax (VAT) for a period of six months in the first instance in order to improve local supply and capacity utilisation of rice millers.”
On importation of rice, it says that from the commencement of this order, the following measures and reliefs shall apply: “Value Added Tax, where applicable, is hereby suspended on the for the rest of the year 2024: basic food items and semi-processed staple food items such as noodles and pasta; raw material inputs for the manufacturing of food items, electricity and public transportation; agricultural inputs and produce and pharmaceutical products for a period of six months.”
Contrary to the Executive Order’s directive to fast-track customs clearance and reduce processing time by at least 50%, the Importers Association of Nigeria (IMAN) reports that its members continue to pay duties on all listed food items, agricultural equipment, manufacturing inputs, and pharmaceutical products, two months after the Order was issued.
The Nigeria Customs Service’s failure to implement the order’s provisions has resulted in ongoing delays and duties payments, contradicting the government’s aim to reduce inflation and stabilize prices.
Chairman of IMAN in Nigeria’s Northern region, Aminu Dan-Iya said, “Customs officials tell our members at entry points that they don’t have any written communication about the suspension.
Obasempire reports that the Bola Tinubu-led federal administration has introduced a new initiative to start providing monthly stipends to unemployed graduates across the nation.
The Education Minister, Prof. Tahir Mamman, revealed this recently while speaking with a group of young Nigerians at his office.
He stated that the federal government has allocated funds for the project but voiced frustration that the news was not adequately covered by the media.
“Also, something which hasn’t come out strongly in the media and people should know in a very robust way is that, every student who has graduated but has not secured a job is entitled to collect an allowance,” the minister said.
“The government has committed a certain allowance for every unemployed graduate in Nigeria. This is very important for graduates and every Nigerian to know,” he added.
Obasempire reports that civil society groups in Oyo State have criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration regarding the management of the #EndBadGovernance protests, including the deaths of unarmed demonstrators.
This was conveyed in a statement endorsed by Prof. Ademola Aremu on behalf of the Joint Action Front (JAF), Socialist Labour, All Workers’ Convergence, Centre for Popular Education (CEPED), CSATF, NATA/ITESIWAJU OYO, and PAM.
The statement observed that the government’s attempts to discredit the protests were unsuccessful.
“This is a victory for the Nigeria working but suffering people. It has clearly shown that Nigerians are not slaves who would be told to surrender their fundamental and democratic rights to resist anti-poor policies. It has also demonstrated that no elected office holder is greater than the citizens of the country,” the statement read.
The groups frowned on the killing of protesters in some states, saying the violence experienced in some places were “largely instigated and provoked by members of the capitalist ruling class in these states either with the security agencies or hired political thugs to drown the movement in blood like they did during the EndSARS”.
They lambasted President Tinubu for failing to address concerns raised by Nigerians in the protest.
They said, “This to us is another gain of the protest except that none of the demands of the protest was addressed in the president national broadcast.
“As far as we are concerned, the national broadcast is just a mere justification for all of the neo-liberal policies responsible for the huge scale of pain and pangs Nigeria working people are going through at the present time.”
The groups also argued that the projects listed by President Tinubu do not have the capacity to bring any significant relief to the masses.
The statement said, “Aside from this, we note that none of the planned projects enumerated in the national broadcast has the potential to bring any significant relief and respite to the masses of the Nigeria working people.
“All achievements highlighted in the national broadcast failed to individually and collectively translate into any meaningful improvement in the life of the working people across the country.
“This is an indication that President Tinubu-led government will not be willing to accede and attend to any of the demands of our coalition except if it is challenged with struggle which is well drawn, determined and well-coordinated.
“Beyond the current ‘end bad governance protest,’ we require a bigger, broader and disciplined movement of the working people and youths for a better Nigeria.”
They also vowed to work with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the media to form a movement aimed at ensuring that Tinubu’s administration accedes to the demand of the people.
Some of the demands listed are: “Immediate reversal of the pump price of petrol to N197, repositioning of all of the public refineries and end to importation of petroleum products.”
They also demanded an immediate reversal of the recent hike in electricity tariffs including renationalisation of the power sector “under the control and management of the elected representatives of the working people”.
Other demands include placing political office holders on the salary scale and allowances earned by the civil servants, free education at all levels and reversal of current regime of fee hike across public tertiary institutions.
The group also urged the national leadership of the NLC and the TUC to convene a Joint National Executive Committee meeting to declare a 48-hour nationwide strike and street protests to support the #EndBadGovernance protests.
Obasempire reports that the coordinators of the protest against economic difficulties and poor governance have announced intentions to continue their demonstration at Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos today.
This information was shared in a communiqué released on Sunday by Hassan Taiwo, Ayoyinka Oni, and Adegboyega Adeniji representing the organizers.
The announcement followed the President’s address earlier on Sunday, where Tinubu recognized the protesters’ concerns and called for them to halt their demonstrations in favor of dialogue.
Part of the statement read: “We consider the President’s decision to address the nation an important victory for our movement.
“Without our courage and resolve to dare the odds, even this acknowledgement would not have happened. So far, we have demonstrated that a President is not greater than the rest of the country.
“In our view, the president cannot be approbating and reprobating at the same time. The President cannot offer an olive branch while at the same time holding a dagger to our throat.”
They called on young people and the general public to join them at 7 a.m. on Monday at Gani Fawehinmi Park for the fifth day of the protest.
Obasempire reports that former Education Minister Obiageli Ezekwesili has condemned President Bola Tinubu’s Sunday address regarding the ongoing nationwide protests against poor governance.
The former minister described the speech as profoundly disappointing.
Ezekwesili stated that Tinubu’s address was a significant missed opportunity to reassure citizens with clear, evidence-based solutions and a detailed plan to combat poor governance.
The government critic asserted that the speech seemed to be crafted from a perspective of “retaliating against Tinubu’s imagined adversaries.”
Tinubu addressed the nation on Sunday about the protests, ruling out the reinstatement of the fuel subsidy and urging protest organizers to withdraw from the streets.
In a statement on her X handle, Ezekwesili lamented that it is regrettable to witness Nigerian public “leaders” talking and acting like failures on issues of governance.
She said: “@officialABAT , As one of millions of Nigerians who were at church when you delivered your late-in-coming Speech to Citizens on the #EndBadGovernancelnNigeria protests, let me loudly say it was terribly underwhelming to read.
‘Your Speech reads like a page from your party manifesto and terribly failed to connect to what our Citizens on the Streets are angry and protesting about.
‘Your speech is quite a monumental missed opportunity to placate citizens with sound answers and outline of convincing evidence-based actions that you and your @NigeriaGov will immediately take to address the priority #BadGovernance concerns.
“Your Speech was sadly again written out of a mindset that is focused on “getting back at our enemies”. Imaginary enemies at that! No true Leader has the luxury of having “enemies” among their Citizens. Not at all. A Public Leader becomes the Leader of ALL with a mind that does not think of any as their enemies.
“This is why it is ever unfortunate to see Nigerian public “Leaders” talk and behave like Losers on matters of public governance where they are expected to rally their ALL Citizens behind the common purpose of nation building.
“It is nauseating to observe this recurrent innate unwillingness of Nigerian public leaders to admit responsibility for the demands of the same public leadership that they kill and maim citizens to assume.
“@officialABAT, Citizens know when they are being badly governed and from what one can see, Nigerians have now realized that they must collectively speak up and take action otherwise their self-obsessed rulers (and not leaders) will not pay them any heed at all.
“As we remember and pray for families of all our citizens mauled down or maimed for demanding an End to Bad Governance, let me call on you @officialABAT to immediately instruct the IG @PoliceNG and his men to “STOP KILLING PEACEFUL PROTESTERS NOW!”
“Also fish out all law enforcement personnel that have killed and maimed citizens and ensure they are sanctioned as a deterrence to their colleagues.”
Obasempire reports that at least 205 chairs, musical instruments, and other equipment valued at millions of naira were reportedly stolen by vandals in Katsina State on the first day of the ongoing nationwide planned peaceful protest against adversity.
Vandals targeted a Living Faith Church in the Daura Local Government Area, making off with 205 chairs, musical instruments, and other valuable items worth millions of naira.
Pastor David Sarki, who oversees the church, informed our correspondent in Katsina on Sunday that the church service had to be canceled because of the incident.
He said, “Because the hoodlums took everything inside the church on the first day of the protest, they decided to worship at their various home cells.
“We have two security personnel working in the church; one was on duty while the other was off. When the protest began around 10:00 am, the hoodlums just diverted to the church, many of them in Keke Napep (tricycle), broke the door and windows and entered the church auditorium.
“They took everything inside the church auditorium, including the wall digital clock, musical instruments, pulpit, pastor’s chairs, plastic chairs, a desktop computer at the reception, and a scoreboard where the accountant usually kept church documents. They scattered everything.
“Three churches were their target. They succeeded in invading the Living Faith Church and Deeper Life, but couldn’t gain access to the third one, which is the Anglican Church, because of the strong protection at the gate.”
He added, “We have informed the police and the army about it, and the police told us yesterday that they have made some arrests.
“I am surprised by this attack. When we are thinking about ending bad governance protests, which have now escalated to the invasion of churches, it is something that everyone should seriously condemn. It is not food that we store in the house of God; it is a place of worship. Why is it only a church? The government should come to the reality that they are serving humanity, and God will judge us all, whether political or religious leaders.
“My prayer for the perpetrators is that they should repent from what they are doing because for you to enter a church, a place of worship, is wrong, and you know you are not fighting, man. They should seek repentance. I know God is forgiving, and He will forgive them.”
Similarly, the Pastor in charge of Power of Resurrection in Katsina State, Nelson Onyekachuku, whose church was also invaded by the hoodlums during the protest in Katsina town, lamented the vandalisation of the church windows as the hoodlums could not gain access to the building due to the iron protectors of the church gate.
Onyekachuku, who is also the former state Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Katsina, condemned the action entirely, noting that they should not add to the pain of the church.
He called on the government to change its policy, address the issues of the people and always ensure the protection of the church whenever such an incident happens.
Obasempire reports that Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has criticized President Bola Tinubu’s national address concerning the ongoing protests throughout the country.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Soyinka voiced his dismay and apprehension about the government’s response to the protests.
Soyinka observed that while the presidential address detailed the government’s corrective measures since its inception, it failed to adequately address the management of the protests.
He denounced the use of live ammunition and tear gas against peaceful demonstrators, calling it a “regression” that recalls colonial-era acts of contempt.
Soyinka said, “I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation.
“His outline of government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis.
My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short.
“Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.
“Live bullets as state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest.
Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S, not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong indeed in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters.
“They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation.
The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed ENDSARS protests.
“It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late stage pioneer Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.”
Soyinka noted that the “nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention”.
He said, “Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the YELLOW VEST movement in France? Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum.
In all of the coverage that I watched, I did not catch one single instance of a gun leveled at protesters, much less fired at them even during direct physical confrontations.
“The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.
“The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. No nation is so under-developed, materially impoverished, or simply internally insecure as to lack the will to set an example.
All it takes is to recall its own history, then exercise the will to commence a lasting transformation, inserting a break in the chain of lethal responses against civic society”.
Obasempire reports that there has been alleged accusations of bribery and violence in the recent anti-governance protests in Nigeria.
Demonstrators claim that some individuals were paid to disrupt their efforts, while others allege that they were subjected to violent tactics by authorities.
Protesters have voiced frustration over what they perceive as attempts to undermine their right to protest. According to reports, individuals allegedly affiliated with Seyi Tinubu and Umaru (Shettima) were accused of offering money to disrupt the demonstrations.
It was claimed that ten buses were used to transport people who were reportedly stationed at the stadium to observe and potentially interfere with the protests.
One protester expressed disappointment, stating that leaders like Tinubu and Shettima should act as father figures to the citizens. They criticized the lack of allowances and rights for citizens, suggesting that political leaders should emulate practices seen in Europe.
While some protesters lack concrete evidence of bribery, a man who identified himself as a Keke Napep driver claimed to have proof. He alleged that he and others were paid 5,000 naira each to counter the protests. This man reported being taken to a location where payments were made to anyone who showed up.
Additionally, the protests have seen reports of police aggression. Demonstrators recounted being teargassed on one day and shot at with live ammunition the following day.
These revelations have added to the growing tension and concern surrounding the ongoing protests.
