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Following series of reports published by Amnesty International including alleged abuse of human rights, a child rights advocacy group, Kids In Need Society International has filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Makurdi to determine if the persistent and false reports against the military does not constitute a national security threat and infringes on the rights to safety of children and citizens.

In a supporting affidavit deposed to by the organisation’s country director, Solomon Semaka, it prayed the court to restrain Amnesty International from further issuing such inciting reports against the military pending the determination of the substantive matter.

“An order of interim injunction restraining/prohibiting the defendant from further issuing inciting reports which are false and are capable of posing a threat to national security, generating civil disobedience and infringing on the right to safety of children or citizens”.

“An order of court to determine whether or not the persistent inciting reports against the military does not constitute a threat to national security and infringes on the right to safety of children and citizens which the plaintiff advocates for”.

“And for such other orders as the honorable court may deem expedient to make in the application”.

The group counsel, R.P Ibiamu Esq and Baki Iveren Esq of Nderfo & co all expressed confidence that the prayers in the application will succeed based on supporting facts in the interest of justice.

The group further contended in their supporting affidavit that no amount of monetary damages will compensate for children and citizens right to safety if Amnesty International continue to issue such false and inciting reports against the military.

A date is yet to be fixed for mention of the matter our sources revealed.

By Ochanja Obayuana

The man-made virus targeted at ensuring a total desecration of the judiciary appears not yet done with what has become the current fate of Nigerian judges in the face of calculated and unending attacks on them in the performance of their judicial functions. The minions of this war of attrition have again upped the ante in their antics of attritional crusade of attacking not only the mainstream judiciary but have also directed their barrage of bullets against any quasi-judicial bodies sitting in any judicatory capacity.

The ongoing Justice Ayo Salami-led Presidential Panel of Inquiry investigating the many allegations of corruption and abuse of office against the suspended acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, has become the latest victim of the calculated and unwarranted attacks against judicatory bodies.

Trouble started when the chairman of the Presidential Panel, Justice Ayo Salami (Retired), in what has become a new normal not only within the protocol of court room trial but also in all public gathering as dictated by the current Covid19 protocol of social and physical distancing, directed that only one counsel would be permitted at a time to appear for a party or any interested party into the venue of the trial sitting at the State house in Aso Rock.

It is to be noted that this directive is not out of the blues nor out of tune with judicial sittings, as even in the regular courts, only limited number of lawyers and witnesses are allowed into the court room by the presiding Judge per time in keeping with the Covid19 precautionary measures of physical and social distancing.

The above was all that the attritional minions of anti-judicature bodies required, led in vanguard by a self-acclaimed Professor of Law, one Zainab Abiola, and who also claims to be a widow of late Chief MKO Abiola, to descend on the highly respected Chairman of the Presidential Panel, in torrents of vituperations and media campaign of calumny, describing Justice Salami’s directive in such derogatory terms as a “Hitler’s Gestapo rule”. Not done, she went on to describe Justice Salami in a more derogatory expression as an “emperor” sitting at a “kangaroo contraction”(sic)” in respect of Twenty-Two allegations which she referred to as “22 lies” against Ibrahim Magu!

Whilst not holding forth for neither Justice Ayo Salami nor any interested persons in the ongoing investigation of the suspended acting Chairman of the EFCC, (even as the relevant Legal practitioners’ Act and Rules of professional Conduct for lawyers obligate me as a member of the bar to speak in defence of the judex in the face of such slurs as cast on My Lord justice Ayo Salami, Retired), it has become a public duty for all men and women of goodwill to speak out against the pervasive bullish conducts and utterances of persons on self-serving missions, running amok at any slight opportunity to wantonly cast aspersions on judges and persons on quasi-judicial functions.

If the said Zainab Abiola who claims to be a Professor of Law and wife of the late philanthropist and business mogul cum politician, can truly own the two claims of a professorship in Law and wife of the late Chief MKO Abiola, then she has woefully failed in the legitimate and reasonable expectations of what those two claims ought to resonate in her in the eye of the public.

A professor of law is presumed as one who is a lawyer by training, called to the Nigerian Bar and trained in the finest tradition and etiquette of the Bar and who has reached up to the zenith of the discipline of law, from whom the profession, nay, the world expect of her the highest level of decorum both in conduct and speech. In similar vein, her claim as a widow of the late Chief MKO Abiola, a claim not supported by the Wikipedia on the personal details of the late MKO Abiola were there are listed the names of the late MKO Abiola’s wives, except Zainab Abiola belongs to the “other women” listed in the Wikipedia under the listed wives of the late MKO Abiola therein, one should equally expect of her a manifestation of the culture of speaking from the enviable heights of aristocratic decency even in extreme situations of provocation as seen in the behavioural conducts of wives of the late MKO Abiola such as Simbiat Abiola (of blessed memory), Kudirat Abiola (of blessed memory), Doyinsola Abiola, to mention but only the three above, as against the resort to gutter language that came handy for the said Zainab Abiola in a scenario where such descent to the low that she went was unwarranted. One is therefore hard put to believe, against the reasonable expectations of the very backdrop of her claims as a Professor of Law and a widow of the late MKO Abiola, her claims in the above respects as there has never been any mention of her name or appearance of her lawyer’s seal on any process of courts nor membership of any branch of the bar in Nigeria or elsewhere, not to mention any publication credited to her as her contribution to the development of the law in any reputable journal in proof of her claim as a Professor of law, only to pop up at the venue of the sitting of the Presidential Panel to do a yeoman’s hatchet job, apparently for the press, to satisfy whatever interest of causing a distraction she came to serve.

Having brandished her professorial status before our faces, it is therefore meet to equally call her out in public scrutiny to lay bare to the public her entire biodata showing the schools she attended and qualifications obtained, in proof of the professorial claim.

It is instructive to note that among the many allegations of corruption and abuse of office against the suspended acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, subject matter of the investigation by the Presidential Panel, is the allegation of use of proxies who acted as go-between in the collections of bribe money from the many victims of extortions in the allegations of corruption and abuse of office against Ibrahim Magu. It calls to mind the truth of the saying that “if you fight corruption, corruption fights back”.

It bears repeating to state that the façade of constitutional and democratic rights advocacy that she put up in apparent justification for staging her outing on that day of the incident under review, was only intended to mislead unsuspecting members of the public to buy into her antics that the Justice Ayo led presidential Panel is acting out a script against her principal, Ibrahim Magu.

Otherwise, it is difficult to fault the directive of the Presidential Panel on any issue of bias or violation of right of representation as alleged or being insinuated by Zainab Abiola in her diatribes against Justice Ayo Salami, as the Panel never denied, but satisfied, the constitutional requirement of Ibrahim Magu’s right of legal representation.

I have taken time to monitor the proceedings of the Panel and observed that for over one month, and still counting, that this panel has sat, Wahab Shittu has always appeared as lead defence counsel for Ibrahim Magu. At no time has the said Zainab Abiola ever appeared otherwise, she would have been aware of the Panel’s insistence on having only one counsel per party in representation. That a host of counsel must be allowed in at the venue of sitting in satisfaction of that requirement, as Zainab Abiola appears to suggest, is to stretch that legal requirement to suit other interests than the legal interest it is, as even where more than one counsel is representing a persons in court or tribunal, only one of the counsel is allowed to speak in representation.

This is the standard practice all over the world. Any other counsel in the team can only make his/her contribution in ideas or otherwise and harmonise with the lead counsel prior to the sitting.

There is therefore no justification, whatsoever, for Zainab Abiola who was expected to have made all her contributions and handed same over to the lead counsel prior to the sitting, to conceive of any ill motive against Justice Ayo Salami on his directive to permit only but one counsel, across board for that matter, to represent persons at the panel.

Except the Bar rises up to set in motion the legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee against such erring members of the bar, if the claim of Zainab Abiola as a lawyer called to Nigerian Bar is anything to go by, the desecration of the legal profession, particularly the Bench, and by members of the legal profession, as it has become the pastime of many with attritional interests to serve, may yet continue with the attendant consequences of total collapse staring at us in the face.

Ochanja Obayuana, is a public Affairs Analyst writes from Abuja

By Rev Solomon Semaka

In 2015, when Muhammadu Buhari assumed office as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he came with a lot of enthusiasm and that messianic wand to change the story of Nigeria that was on the verge of collapsing especially economically.

As a new sheriff in town, President Buhari made a lot of administrative changes, dissolved many boards and many heads of agencies and public service institutions that were not worth their unions were sacked or relieved of their appointments. This was done to take the country back on track towards economic recovery and prosperity.

However, one of the few places that the head was not changed was the apex monetary authority; the Central Bank of Nigeria otherwise known as CBN where a thoroughly bred economist, a financial expert and reputable banker, Godwin Emefiele was holding fort as the Governor having been appointed by the previous administration of Jonathan Goodluck on June 4, 2014.

For the Governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele to have gained the confidence of President Buhari, it is therefore, unambiguously an indication that he was doing something spectacularly different that worthily fitted into the change mantra of the current led administration. For instance, during his first term, he supervised an interventionist currency policy at the behest of the presidency, propping up the Nigerian naira by pumping billions of dollars into the foreign exchange market. He also introduced a multiple exchange rate regime to try to make pressure on the naira and avoid series of devaluations.

It is also pertinent to highlight unequivocally that the Central Bank under the watchful financial conscious eyes of the Governor; Godwin Emefiele has also taken the cashless policy in Nigeria to an unprecedented level.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Central Bank developed the cashless policy in 2012, which required a daily total limit of N500, 000 and N3,000,000 on free cash withdrawals across all accounts owned by individual and corporate customers respectively. The pilot was run in Lagos state from January 2012 while the policy took effect in Rivers, Anambra, Abia, Kano, Ogun and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on July 1, 2013. The policy was implemented nationwide on July 1, 2014 a few days Godwin Emefiele assumed responsibility as the Governor of Bank.
Before the introduction and implementation of the cashless policy in Nigeria, Bussiness Day had noted that “the ease of cash flow occasioned by the cash-based economy made Nigeria vulnerable to fraud, terrorism, and crime. Armed robbers attacked bullion vans and customers who carried large sum of cash. Apart from that, the central bank spends billions of naira to remove and replace dirty notes in circulation”.

In other to effectively entrench the new cashless regime in the 6 states and the FCT, the Central Bank under Emefiele licensed 26 Mobile Money Operators, 10 Super Agents, 21 Payment Terminal Service Providers, 21 Payment Solution Service Providers, 4 Third Party Processors, 9 Switches and 5 non-Bank Acquirers. It is expected that these licensed entities will smoothen the implementation of the Cashless Policy across the Payments System.

Taking a careful look at the achievements of the cashless policy, Bussiness Day reports that “as evidenced by the NIBSS second-quarter fraud report of 2019, attempted fraud volume decreased by 47.28 percent from Q1 figures, while Web, ATM and Mobile remain the usual suspects to be used by fraudsters”.

“Okojere noted the growth in the volume of transactions that occurred in 2012 against 2018, following the Cashless Policy re-introduction and increase in usage of electronic transactions”.
Consequently, transactions on instant payments grew from 4 million in 2012 to 729m in 2018, transactions on PoS from 2.5 million in 2012 to 285 million in 2018, and transactions on Mobile Inter-Scheme grew from 2,200 in 2012 to 15 million in 2018”.

One of the areas that the administration of President Buhari will be fondly remembered even by generations yet unborn is the agricultural revolution. The peak of its commitment was the directive by the president to the Central Bank on August 13, 2019 not to make foreign currency available to fund food imports.

Otherwise, according to Emefiele in an interview with TBY in 2018 stated categorically that “four commodities—rice, fish, sugar, and wheat—make up nearly NGN1.3 trillion (USD3.6 billion) annually in import bills. These and other commodities on the 41 items list are a drain on our FX reserves. Our proclivity for imports has enriched other countries and impoverished ours. We cannot depend on other countries for food; that exposes us to unquantifiable social and economic vulnerabilities. If we increase domestic food production, we will create jobs, reduce poverty, and shield our economy from foreign impulses”.

“Thus, the CBN is channeling a great deal of development finance and interventions towards agriculture to ensure sufficiency in the production of food and raw materials through our various development finance mechanisms and schemes. Our intention is to ensure that Nigeria does not depend on other countries for most of the things we consume. We must ensure that our non-oil current account balances stand hugely positive”.

“On this note, the Anchor Borrowers’ Program (ABP) has recorded spectacular success, especially with regard to rice production. As we speak, rice production has increased several-fold. Kebbi State alone is expected to produce over 2 million metric tons of rice annually, while employees at Labana Rice Mills seek to keep pace with demand, processing 320 tons of rice a day, a 250% increase from the previous year. Therefore, we have seen sharp drop in rice imports that translates to a significant reduction in rice import bills, saving us over USD600 million in 2016 alone”.

An interesting thing about Godwin Emefiele is that since the return of democracy in Nigeria in 1999, he is the first governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to serve a second term in office. The senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria while screening him for a second term in office in May 2019 through its chairman on Banking, Finance, and other Financial Institutions, Rafiu Ibarahim said the committee was impressed with Mr Emefiele’s more than 32 years’ experience with outstanding performance.

The committee recommended confirmation of Mr Emefiele based on performance in his first tenure. “That the nominee understands the diverse economy of the country and has displayed profound knowledge of the continuous existence of our economy stability. That the nominee has performed credibly in his first tenure which resulted to the exit of the nation out of economic recession”, Mr Ibrahim said. His confirmation was put to voice vote and received a unanimous ‘ayes’ from the senators, reports Premium Times on May 16, 2019.

Consequent upon his confirmation and reappointment for a second term in office, Emefiele the CBN governor unveiled his policy thrust for the next five years. Although the policy document outlines a number of objectives, the most important ones include
a) the aim to achieve double-digit GDP growth in the next five years,
b) bringing down inflation to single-digits
c) improving the payment systems infrastructure and driving financial inclusion to 95% by 2024,
d) maintaining the existing exchange-rate policy regime of a managed float and
e) recapitalisation of the banking industry.

In order to cushion the effect on the Covid-19 pandemic on the Nigerian economy and to ameliorate the sufferings of the poor masses, the Buhari led administration through the Central Bank introduced a N50 billion Targeted Credit Facility as a stimulus package to support households and micro, small and medium enterprises that are affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

This was part of measures and policies aimed at making sure that Nigeria’s economy does not slip back into recession due to the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has so far announced the disbursement of over N49 billion out of N50 billion targeted facility for households and small businesses to over 80,000 families and households.

In addition, healthcare facility operators also benefitted from a N100 billion intervention fund and another N1 trillion fund for the manufacturing sector and is aimed at ensuring that productivity is enhanced, thereby working a way out of the impact of this pandemic.
It is very important to point out that there are many other areas that the Central Bank of Nigeria under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele as the governor has done creditably well to save the Nigerian economy from slipping into recession, the above mentioned are just but the tip of an iceberg.

Therefore, it is imperative to call the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration not to relent in its efforts in supporting Emefiele in the discharge of his onerous duties so as to make the Nigerian economy viable, dependable, sustainable, reliable and strong.

Semaka is a public affairs commentator and Convener of Save Nigeria Movement.