I was in #America for almost the whole of last month, and one of the places I visited was El Paso in Texas. El Paso is just a wall away from Juarez in Chihuahua, #Mexico.
Both were once the same town until the Texas Revolution in 1835. Then, they went their separate ways.
The contrast between both cities today is the result of the different economic systems they run, something I talk about in @FinancialNG
Talking about this is very depressing for me because it portends a very bad future for #Nigeria. You see, like Nigeria, #Mexico is a rentier economy that runs based on the whims of a powerful elite and their criminal associates.
For 71 years, the PRI ruled #Mexico and used electoral fraud, bribery, corruption, and repression, to maintain their grip on power.
Does that sound familiar to your ear as a Nigerian?
Repression is what we are seeing now full-on as the APC implodes internally, the CPC faction goes fill on repressive, while the ACN faction cowers with its tail between its legs.
Now that we are running a country where a difference in political opinion can get your account frozen, it will be interesting to see how the different parts of Seme, a town which has one half in #Nigeria, and the other half in the Republic of #Benin, will look in half a century.
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It's amusing to see a lot of pro-government misters trying to spread the disinformation that the #EndSARS protests of October 2020 were "hijacked" and turned into some sort of orgy of violence.
The facts, as recorded in this world of digital media where it is now difficult to hide, is that @NigeriaGov, unable to find "leaders" to either bribe, intimidate or otherwise coerce, cynically turned to thugs to disrupt (not hijack) the protests.
The govt's strategy succeeded to some extent, but the jury is still out, and it is increasingly looking like a case where they won a battle in order to lose a war.
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...
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".