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Last week, Aisha Buhari returned to some drama, the Agric minister said Nigerians don’t know hunger, and a fire raged in Onitsha…

Last week, the Lagos State government reacted to the “hellish” traffic bedevilling the metropolis by declaring a “state of emergency” on its roads which are not only disgraceful, but downright dangerous. Bad roads are the root cause of most of the traffic in the state and also aid the nefarious activities of criminals.

The citizenry wait in hope of better days but are surely not holding their breath as the commencement of construction means more traffic. It can only get worse before it gets better.

At the beginning of the week, President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha, returned from London after months out of the country. Just before she arrived, there was a rumour that her husband was about the take a second wife.
Speaking after she got back, she confirmed she was the one in a video circulated on social media a few days before, and that it was the daughter of Mamman Daura – a relative of the President widely touted as the head of a “cabal” in the presidency – that filmed her in her angry state. She was “mocked and laughed at” by Fatima in the Presidential Villa, she further stated.

Apparently, the President’s extended family have been living rent-free, living fat on tax payer’s money for three years.

Speaking on Daura, Yoruba socio-cultural group Afenifere said, “It is unfortunate that Nigeria has reached the point where someone who was not elected or appointed and holds no position known to our constitution has become this powerful.

“It is a big shame and some of the personalities who are illegally in the Villa are granting interviews. It shows the level of impunity. It shows that our nation and the seat of power have been desecrated.”

Hot on the heels of the BBC’s sex for grades expose, The Cable’s Fisayo Soyombo went undercover, spending two weeks in detention – to show how the Nigeria Police pervert the course of justice in their quest for ill-gotten money.

The report was published last week, a perfect riposte to those who spent the previous week comparing Nigerian media houses unfavourably with their foreign counterparts.

Sadly, Nigerian governments at different levels still don’t meet up to the barest minimum when it comes to providing critical services to its citizens.

The fire that raged in Onitsha after a fuel tanker spilled its contents was another pointer to a failure of governance. Several buildings got burnt, there were human casualties, and losses running into multiple millions of naira were incurred with huge swathes of the state’s second largest market razed.

For the seven hours that the inferno lasted, the Anambra State Government couldn’t get fire fighters to put it out, until help came from Asaba in neighbouring Delta State. By then it was too late.

Over the past few weeks, there has been news of a tax plan or the other from the Federal Government and its agencies.

On the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group last week, Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, said the federal government is considering introducing excise duty on carbonated drinks.

Meanwhile, Nigerians on social media condemned the National Identity Management Commission for announcing that citizens would be required to pay N5000 for renewal of National Identity cards.

Citizens didn’t buy the idea, describing it as a fraudulent means to extort the populace.

A few questions arose. Are Nigerians supposed to pay for such a document? And why, in heaven’s name, should a National ID card have to be renewed at such short intervals? It is safe to say that this wasn’t well thought through.

Some of these policies show how far removed from reality many of our policy makers are.

According to minister of agriculture, Mohammed Nanono, “I think there is no hunger in Nigeria; there could be inconveniences. When people talk about hunger in this country, I just laugh because they don’t know hunger.”
Sigh.

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