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CBN notifies Nigerians that it has disbursed more Naira notes to commercial banks

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As part of a coordinated effort to ease scarcity of banknotes of various denominations across the country, ocasioned by the Naira redesign, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has indicated that there were disbursements of naira notes from its vaults to commercial banks across the country

The apex bank also directed all commercial banks to open for operation on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department of the CBN, Dr. Isa AbdulMumin, disclosed this in Abuja stating that a substantial amount of money, in various denominations, had been received by the commercial banks for onward circulation to their respective customers.

According to him, the CBN had directed all banks to load their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) as well as conduct physical operations in the banking halls through the weekends.

“Branches of commercial banks will operate on Saturdays and Sundays to attend to customers’ cash needs,” he noted.
He added that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, would personally lead teams to monitor the level of compliance by the banks in various locations across the country.

He, therefore, urged Nigerians to be patient as the current situation would ease soon with the injection of more banknotes into circulation.

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Senate, Reps set to return to main Chambers next month after renovation

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***as reconstruction work nears completion

After about 18 months of holding plenaries at temporary chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives will return to their main Hallowed Chambers next month.

Indications to this effect, emerged from the near completion stages the upgraded hallowed chambers are presently, with all the State – of – art furnishings beffiting of the federal lawmakers fixed and sitting terraces extended by Visible Construction Company Nigeria Limited handling the renovation works.

The Project Engineer of the Construction firm, Tajudeen Olanipekun, told journalists covering the Senate last week in telephone conversation that the finishing stages of work are speedily being carried out with required expertise and precision for practical transformation of the entire ambience of the space in and around the Hallowed Chambers towards project delivery next month

Engineer Olanipekun’s assurance on delivery of the fully transformed Hallowed Chambers to management of the National Assembly, coincided with the call by the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, to the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), Alhaji Sani Magaji Tambawal that both the Senate and the House of Representatives, are eager to move to their main chambers as soon as possible .

Akpabio’s subtle marching order to the CNA on delivery of the main Hallowed Chambers to both the Senate and the House of Representatives was given on Tuesday last week, during his interactive session with journalists covering the Senate which was attended by the CNA and other top management staff of the National Assembly.

“Please impress it on contractor handling the project to be more speedily on renovation works at both Chambers as the temporary chambers being used since 2022, are not befitting for hosting of visitors from outside the country “, he said .
For on the spot assessment of the projects, some of the journalists covering the Senate , made facts finding visitations to both Chambers under renovation on Friday last week, where they saw , fully transformed , upgraded and reconfigured hallowed chambers, measuring up to global standards.

Recall that the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) in March 2021 awarded a N30 billion renovation contract to Visible Construction Limited to rehabilitate critical segments of the National Assembly complex, which are almost completed now.
Some of the critical segments are the office buildings housing the office accommodation for the Senators and Honourable Members of the House of Representatives, watertightness of the roof of the complex , the cooling system, replacement of lifts that are inoperable in the White House as well as in the House of Representatives and in the new Senate Wing etc.

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Restoring University’s dignity: Komu Leads the Pack

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**As K. O Mbadiwe University Holds 6th Matriculation Ceremony, Wednesday March 20, 2024

By Bright Okereke

Going back the memory lane, recounts how prestigous University institutions were, and how dignified their students were rated and valued both in character and academics.

Though, then Universities were as few as Mgbeke’s teeth and only those who were bright and brilliant could pass through the system.

Then, undergraduates were cherished and adored by all; and ofcourse, they lived upto to their rankings and expectations. Graduates were treated with respect and great importance.
Academic doctors were seen as demigods, Professors; though few and scarce, were viewed as living academic oracles of sort. And they sincerely lived upto their callings.

University education then, reformed its acquirers both in knowledge and in character that graduates became the sanitizing agents and the real refiners of the society. University graduates were mirrors and exhibitors of discipline, dignity and learning; competing effectively and favourably with their contemporaries anywhere in the world.

And, these educational virtues and ethos are the goals of K. O. Mbadiwe University, management team.

Regrettably, the dignity of university education in the present Nigerian society has been badly eroded, with the dignity of most Nigerian Varsities rolling down on a steady decline, except Kingsley Ozumba (K.O.) Mbadiwe University and few others that have maintained focus and respect for the spirits and tenets of ideal University dignity having passed the fundamental litmus test of diligence and integrity.

The admixture of unconscionable given-in on morals, conscience and absolute betrayal of professionalism by most universities have been the bane of this unhealthy decline.

But, the integrity-filled management team of Kingsley Ozumba (K.O) Mbadiwe University Ideato, led by Prof. I. N. S. Dozie, has distinguished KOMU from this fast spreading rot, beclouding Nigerian varsities in the recent times, by demonstrating rare qualities of moral rectitude and forthrightness.

KOMU Management is indeed building a university of quality and dignity with the deployment of the ideal elements of a World-class University with its professionalism fully intact. Yes! Its graduates are verifiable testimonials.

Ofcourse, KOMU has built a very responsible and responsive administrative management that cannot compromise standards at any level.

By establishment, KOMU is a public university with exception; No Academic Year Arrears, impecable staff and students discipline; No sales of handouts/manuals, All books sold by the University Bookshop with no victimisation on students for not buying, protection of students’ right and dignity is of utmost importance to the university and above all, the digitalisation of its programmes and operations to facilitate its flow-rate with the new global education order.

Kingsley Ozumba (K.O.) Mbadiwe University, owned by Imo State Government, is a 21st century University designed to think globally and operate at the trending World-class status.

Indeed, the preservation of students’ dignity is only possible with an academic climate of diligence, perseverance, excellence and meritocracy which KOMU is maintaining firmly in its throes of setting a new order.

The introduction of a modern teaching and learning architecture in KOMU has formed an indispensable component of the institution’s vision and blueprint towards becoming a strong brand on the global stage.

As a yearly ritual, K. O. Mbadiwe University has fixed its 6th Matriculation Ceremony of her fresh students for Wednesday, March 20, 2024, to mark their formal admission and integration into Kingsley Ozumba (K.O.) Mbadiwe University, Ideato, in pursuit of a higher knowledge and greater personality moulding needed for future national and global service delivery.

Thumbs up for the Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe University’s Visitor; His Excellency, Distinguished Senator Hope Uzodimma, whose dogged support has kept the Varsity on high.

In same breadth, the University’s Management, Staff, Students and the host Communities have been greatly formidable in the accomplishment of this great feat.

Bright Okereke is the Media Adviser to KOMU VC

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Fela, “Basketmouth” and Godswill Akpabio

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By Tunde Olusunle

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti the innovative Afrobeat musician, irrepressible composer, untiring activist, consummate artist, multi-instrumentalist and public intellectual it was who popularised the expression “basket mouth.” His career as a performer straddled four decades, most especially between 1958 and 1997 when he transited. Within the period he turned out dozens of hits and albums which earned him accolades at home and abroad. His demonstrated leftist radicalism engendered repeated confrontations with the state, especially during the heady days of military rule in Nigeria. He battled the *khakied* administrations of Olusegun Obasanjo, (his kinsman from Abeokuta by the way); Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida, among others. He was in turn harassed, battered and bludgeoned in several instances, becoming a familiar face in many police stations and detention facilities. It has been suggested that he was arrested at least 200 times during his career!

Fela released *Beasts Of No Nation,* (BONN) in 1989. It was a retroactive jibe on the administration of Buhari and his deputy, Tunde Idiagbon which framed him for foreign currency violation charges. He was jailed for five years but liberated after two years. Upon his release in 1986 there was popular clamour for him to relive his experiences like he had customarily done after every dramatic entanglement with overzealous agents of state. His prefatory chant in the song is: “Basket mouth wan start to talk again o/Basket mouth wan start to leak again o.” He profiled himself as a relentless critic who, like a basket, will of necessity spill whatever liquid is stored in it. He, Fela, was therefore poised to narrate his experiences no-holds-barred while in incarceration, starting with debunking the falsehoods, the state concoctions which sent him to the gulag. Indeed, the judge who sentenced Fela visited him following his hospitalisation while serving his prison term. The said judge Fela contended, apologised to him and confessed the judgment he read out was predetermined by the military authorities.

Bright Okpocha one of Nigeria’s most famous stand-up comedians would subsequently appropriate Fela’s creation as stage name. Okpocha was a pre-teen when Fela’s BONN was released. It is more plausible therefore that he borrowed the “basketmouth” concept from a precursor, a name which has hoisted him to the topmost heights of the Nigerian and African comedy genre. The referent *Basketmouth* presupposes a tell-all, no restraints comedy brand which pulls no punches once he wields the microphone on the performance podium. *Basketmouth* has had a successful career thus far and inspired younger comics who themselves are holding their own.

Since he came to national limelight as governor of Akwa Ibom State in 2007, I have taken keen interest in the career of Godswill Akpabio. His good works in the actualization of the masterplan for the transformation of the state as enunciated by his predecessor the venerable Victor Attah was remarkable. Deploying the services of some of the most reputable construction companies in the land, Akpabio set out on the task of massive infrastructural uplift of the state. Roads, flyovers, bridges, educational facilities, sporting infrastructure, aviation development and so on dominated Akpabio’s exertions. He soon earned a sobriquet derived from the “uncommon transformation” of the state under his watch.

I had the opportunity of verifying the testimonials about Akpabio’s yeomanry when I was his guest on two separate occasions within a fortnight in the first quarter of 2012. Despite having to fly through Calabar on my first trip owing to flight disruptions necessitated by aviation fuel scarcity before being transported to Uyo in the night, the protocol regimen emplaced by Akpabio was non-pareil. My team and I had our fill of the sights and sounds of the redevelopment of Akwa Ibom State which Akpabio was anchoring at the time, in the course of our tours. I must have been one of the first occupants of the “presidential guest house” built by the construction giant Julius Berger within the Government House complex in Uyo. He hosted us to lunch on both occasions and I came away with the conviction that Akpabio was a witty, down-to-earth, pragmatic leader with a good grasp of his state and the workings of government.

Akpabio’s political career has been on the rise since he left Uyo in 2015. First he was elected senator representing Akwa Ibom North West and emerged the minority leader of the upper parliament despite being a first timer, a recognition typically privileged ranking legislators. He did not make it back to the senate in 2019 but was compensated with the office of the Minister for Niger Delta Affairs. Akpabio had previously exited the erstwhile ruling political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), on which platform he served as governor and senator, in 2018. He returned to the senate in 2023 and was concurrently voted president of the senate. In the Nigerian order of state protocol, Akpabio is the Number Three Citizen, only behind the president and his deputy. Video clips of the interminable convoys of automobiles which accompany him like similar very senior government officials regularly assail our sensibilities on the social media. Such wasteful grandeur, such flamboyance in a land ravaged by mass hunger, poverty and insecurity is not the way to demonstrate commitment to fiscal conservatism in governance.

My more urgent concern in this piece is the reflex predilection of Akpabio to logorrhoea. Oftentimes, he seems to lack environmental awareness, public sensitivity and verbal tact. In less than one year of holding office as President of the Senate, Akpabio has committed several gaffes totally incompatible with expectations from his person and position. At the height of the horse-trading which preceded the emergence of the leadership of the legislature, Akpabio showed up at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, at a meeting of members-elect of the House of Representatives. In a veiled threat to the parliamentarians to whip them into line and support the president’s preference, Akpabio purportedly admonished them to beware of the “dangerous” *3Gs.* Suggesting that the acronym was derived from the advice of his mother, Akpabio said the *3Gs* imply *God, the Gun and the Government.* It was allegedly a way of bullying the members-elect about the omnibus capacities of the President, who is concurrently Commander-in-Chief.

Akpabio drew the ire of his colleagues last August when he said on live television while the senate was in session, that “a token had been sent to the various accounts of senators by the Clerk of the National Assembly.” He spontaneously recast his gaffe to the effect that his office had sent prayers to the mailboxes of the lawmakers to enable them travel safely during the legislative holiday. Senate Chief Whip, Ali Ndume indeed warned that the senate took a very strong view of Akpabio’s flippancy and may sanction him. Not too long after, Akpabio made light of the issue of “letting the poor breathe” which became topical in the early days of the hastily announced, multipronged, unfriendly “reforms” of the incumbent administration. His body language was considered derisory of the underprivileged.

Last month, loose-tongued Akpabio publicly said that state governors received N30 Billion from President Bola Tinubu for the provision of palliatives to cushion biting inflation. Oyo State governor Seyi described Akpabio’s claim as reckless and unfounded such that Eseme Eyiboh his media adviser retracted his principal’s goof. More recently, Akpabio in total disregard of the global lachrymose which attended the tragic transition of former Access Bank Chief Executive, Herbert Wigwe, his wife Chizoba and his son, Chizzy, angered not a few people. Banker and entrepreneur Atedo Peterside was miffed about Akpabio’s lack of sensitivity at the solemn church programme held in honour of the departed. Akpabio had upbraided the congregation for not applauding him as much as they did Peter Obi, flagbearer of the Labour Party, (LP) at the 2023 presidential poll. In an obvious lack of spatial awareness, Akpabio also commiserated with the “wife of the deceased” whose remains were also in one of the three caskets at the service. He corrected himself immediately though while still speaking on real-time television.

Akpabio does have a history of verbal indiscretion beginning from his years as super-rich and remarkably generous governor of the oil-bearing Akwa Ibom State. He shocked Nigerians in March 2013 when he confessed on live television that he rigged the senatorial primary of the PDP in his state. He is also credited with the refrain that “what money cannot do, more money can do,” a tacit endorsement of corruption in our national politics which seems to advance that everybody has a price. A lot more verbal discipline, more circumspection is expected of a man who has been privileged to occupy some of the highest offices in the land except the presidency.

Akpabio is a witty, jolly fellow no doubt. He loves to ignite the space around him with wise-cracks. He cannot, however, afford to be an uncontrollable basketmouth during national emergencies such as we have on our hands as a nation. Not against the backdrop of his enviable attainments over time and space which confer specific responsibilities on him. Not at this period of variegated national traumas which calls for sobriety and introspection. Akpabio must live up to what his aggregate experiences confer on him. He should play the father figure and statesman in a country in the throes of psychological depression. These are no times for comic buffoonery and dramatised tomfoolery. These are times when the words from the mouths of our leaders should be the “shea butter” to assuage creased foreheads, soothe frayed nerves and mitigate dripping discomfort.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, FANA, poet, journalist, scholar and author is a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (ANA)

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