The irresponsibility of business leaders in #Nigeria has enabled bad behaviour.
In October 2017 for the 50th anniversary of the #AsabaMassacre, an event in which my grandfather was killed by @HQNigerianArmy, I was invited to talk about the event on @NigeriainfoFM.
The host of the show, @nellylaoni, felt, quite rightly, that it was important to shine a light on this important part of our history.
Knowing how sensitive the topic was, I kept to the facts. You can watch the show here and judge for yourself:
But that was not good enough, and in addition to chasing me out of the studio, @nbcgovng fined the station ₦500,000 ($1404 in 2017 naira).
Now, this is where the irresponsibility of the leadership of @NigeriainfoFM came in...
The station threw @nellylaoni under the bus. Not only was she forced to pay the fine out of pocket, but her superiors made working quite unbearable for her after the incident, that she was forced to resign not long after.
Today, @nbcgovng fined @ARISEtv & 2 others ₦3 million each ($6550 in today's naira), for covering the #EndSARS protests.
For covering a major news item that affects all of us.
If media owners don't stand up to @nbcgovng this will never stop. Someone has to drag them to court and keep at it.
And this applies to the rest of our so-called captains of industry.
Last year at @officialNESG, I sat in the audience and listened to President Buhari essentially tell gathered heads of #Nigeria's business community that they were all corrupt and that he was going to destroy their businesses.
Buhari's economic policies have more or less destroyed these people's primary markets, and they are just looking.
@myaccessbank has killed its brand in the eyes of a lot of the young generation because the MD was not bold enough to tell @cenbank where to take their order that they should freeze the accounts of protesters.
If our so-called captains of industry are this lily-livered, no wonder older generation Nigerian businesses have been unable to scale.
They are so reliant on government patronage, they can't think of anything else.
That is the only way all of this makes sense.
It is the same inability to think outside the box that made some idiot somewhere order soldiers to shoot protesters in Lekki a week ago.
Now our elites are running helter-skelter because it is becoming increasingly clear that the #LekkiMassacre is not going away.
It may not be immediate, but any smart person should be able to smell the coffee.
If you look at a list of CJNs from 1987, you’d find the following: Bello served 8 years, Uwais, his successor, served 11. Since Uwais was replaced by Belgore, no one has served more than two years, but the key to this strategy is in their age on appointment to @SupremeCourtNg,
Mohammed Bello got in at the age of 45 in 1975.
Muhammad Uwais got in at 45.
Alfa Belgore got in at 49.
Idris Kutigi got in at 53…
Most Southern justices would have hit 60 before getting on @SupremeCourtNg, so most never get a chance to be CJN.
I don't need to start listing how Nigerians set out to make things difficult for trade. A week ago I drove from Lagos to Asaba and encountered 61 checkpoints including Customs in the middle of the country who held me up because of an ambiguous set of unannounced requirements.
Or do I talk about the @fisayosoyombo's piece on @NewsWireNGR yesterday that shows just how a non-issue (because of simple automation) in other climes has been turned into a racket here just because?
Well, #Nigeria is pretty self-sufficient with maize, except for when something happens such as insecurity, which @BusinessDayNg highlighted in an August 2019 report titled, "Nigeria's food insecurity to worsen on Buhari's actions".
Over the weekend past, the newspapers were agog with the news that President Obasanjo had hit out at his current successor, saying that "Nigeria is becoming failed, and badly divided under Buhari."
As is his wont, Garba Shehu reached for his pen and responded immediately, calling Obasanjo a choice new expression, "Divider-in-chief".
Uncle Sege has made a habit of calling out his successors.
Remember the famous one he wrote to Buhari's predecessor where he said that Jonathan was destroying #Nigeria.
I find it interesting that many of those who praised his letter to Jonathan seven years ago are now abusing the man.