Abubakar Bin Aliyu

28 March 2015 – Nigerians ascended a political mountain that had hitherto proved insurmountable in 55 years of independence and close to 2 decades of cumulative democratic experience. 15 million votes were enough to terminate an era dotted with unprecedented financial recklessness and unbridled corruption heralded by Goodluck Jonathan. Almost a year after that historic feat, Nigerians eagerly wait to have their first bite of the fruit of change in the form of the 2016 budget. A country’s budget is its government’s voice and statement of intent on major aspects of public finance, including but not limited to, capital projects and social welfare. The peculiarity with Nigeria’s budgetary process is its overwhelming catalysis by preeminent political forces, including elected and appointed interests. The N6.07 trillion budget presented by President Buhari presented before a joint session of the National Assembly on December 22nd 2015 was premised on a crude oil benchmark price of $38/...

Share this on WhatsApp The Muhammadu Buhari administration, through the Bank of Industry, on Thursday formally launched a N10 billion Youths Entrepreneurship Support (YES) project to empower youth with loans to start businesses. Speaking at the launch of the project in Abuja, the Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, said his ministry would partner all agencies of government to create new jobs. He said more than 40 per cent of Nigerian graduates had no jobs and that an average of eight million Nigerians entered the job market annually. The minister said that the ‘YES’ project of BoI was part of the Federal Government’s youth employment scheme, saying that about 36,000 jobs would be created annually through ‘YES’. He appealed to prospective beneficiaries to repay the loans for the success and sustenance of the project. Waheed Olagunju, the acting Managing Director of BoI, said that a participant under the scheme could access ...

The trial of a former Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, Air Chief Marshal Alex S. Badeh, began on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, presenting its first witness, Air Commodore Salisu Abdullahi Yushau (retd) before Justice Okon E. Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja. Yushau,  former director, finance/account (DFA), Nigerian Airforce between October 2010 and December 2013 told the court how Badeh allegedly took money to the tune of N3billion from the coffers of the Nigerian Air force to acquire properties in different parts of Abuja and Yola for himself and his family. Led in evidence by the counsel to EFCC, Rotimi Jacobs, The PW1 stated how personnel emoluments were released and when asked what the balance is used for, he told the court that a balance of over N1billion is usually left depending on the programmes executed within the month. According to him, of the N1billion, the sum of N558,200,000 (five hundre...

BUHARI AND MTN On Tuesday, when President Muhammadu Buhari accused MTN of “aiding” the killing of 10,000 Nigerians by Boko Haram, I shuddered a bit. The president shouldn’t be making such public statements, I told myself. MTN clearly erred by failing to register 5.1 million subscribers and many of us have condemned the telecoms giant, but such a weighty allegation coming from the president is unnecessary — in my opinion. It is good that there finally seems to be a headway in the resolution of the issue, and I hope a good lesson has been learnt by all concerned, from operators to regulators. Valuable. NNPC CONFUSION Kindly give me a call if you understand what Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, is up to. When he became NNPC GMD last year, he reduced the directorates to four, saying we needed a “trim” organisation. Now that he is minister, he has increased them to seven “fat” units. He calls them “independe...

If I may quickly say this, I was not really a fan of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari until I read his interview in TheNEWS magazine some time in 1994 — nine years after he was overthrown in a coup by General Ibrahim Babangida. Questioned on the things he got wrong as military head of state, Buhari replied candidly (and I paraphrase): “We made mistakes, but they were genuine mistakes… we were in a hurry to change Nigeria.” That instantly won me over. His perceived highhandedness was not for personal profit; it was in desperation to reform Nigerians. In one sentence, I saw honesty, I saw patriotism and I saw authenticity. I became his disciple from a distance. I started dreaming of a Buhari presidency precisely in 1998. I can’t remember everything now, but I was then the Features Editor of THISDAY. Mr. Victor Ifijeh, then the Editor, drew my attention to a public lecture on leadership by Buhari and asked me to write a “Man in the News” feature on him for t...