Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday urged Nigerians to make the right choice during the 2023 general elections.

He warned that making the wrong choice in the election may consume the nation.

Obasanjo spoke as the special guest of honour at the Wilson Badejo Foundation’s 15th annual lecture with the theme, ‘Overcoming the twin challenge of poverty and insecurity in Nigeria’ held in Lagos.

The former President expressed the hope that if the right choice was made in 2023, the nation may witness progress.

“It is either we make the right choice in 2023 because if we make the right choice, we would get there.

“However, if we do not make the right choice in 2023, things would consume us and we pray against that one. We must make the right choice in 2023,” Obasanjo said.

He had earlier said that Nigeria has not taken its rightful position because of poverty and insecurity.

He said, “Nigeria is not where it is supposed to be today. If anyone says it is ok where we are at the moment, then the person’s head needs to be examined.

My friend, late Ahmed Joda, used to tell me that God has given us everything a nation needs and there’s no need for prayers because if God has given you everything and you squandered it, then something is wrong.

“I told him that even at that, we still need prayers as a nation because what is good needs prayers and on the other side too, we still need more prayers.”

The guest speaker who is the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof Eghosa Osaghea, in his lecture titled, ‘Overcoming the twin challenge of poverty and insecurity in Nigeria,’ explained that when “one’s country fails the individual, then that individual becomes a failure.”

He said, “Poverty cannot divide us but it binds us what divides us is corruption. If you see street protests across the world, it is the poor who do it.

“Corruption, by whatever means, is what causes division.

“Many people today dig their boreholes for water, employ private security units, etc, yet, these are things that the state should have put in place.

“It is the duty of the state to provide these for the common good of all.”

In light of Nigeria’s dwindling revenue, the continued payment of trillions of naira on fuel subsidy by the government and the attendant economic challenges, the World Bank on Wednesday raised the alarm that the country might be facing an existential threat.

The international financial institution warned that if the country failed to optimise its tax system and focus on other areas to boost its revenue, the already low revenue would continue to drop. It noted that despite the rise in the price of oil in the international market, Nigeria had not reaped the benefits because of the huge amount spent on fuel subsidy.

The Senior Public Sector Specialist, Domestic Resource Mobilisation, at the World Bank, Mr Rajul Awasthi, said these at a virtual pre-summit, with the theme ‘Critical Tax Reforms for Shared Prosperity’, organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group on Wednesday. He insisted Nigeria would have to eliminate the subsidy regime eventually.

After the Federal Government earmarked about N4tn for subsidy payment in 2022, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said recently that government might spend a whopping N6.72tn as fuel subsidy in 2023 or pay N3.36tn up to mid-2023 if the subsidy regime would was to end in May 2023.

Also, the minister had consistently said the nation was battling with revenue problems, which had compelled the government to keep borrowing. The debt stock had risen to N41.6tn in the first quarter of 2022 with projections that it could peak at N45tn by the end of the year. Nigeria is rated the fifth on the list of the World Bank’s debtors, with $11.7bn debt stock as of June 30, 2021.

The International Monetary Fund had in March projected that Nigeria might spend 93 per cent of its revenue on debt servicing in 2022, but the minister disclosed a few weeks ago that about 119 per cent of the country’s revenue was spent on debt servicing. This implied that government had to borrow to meet its debt financing obligations, a development many economists had described as disturbing and unsustainable.

The virtual event, anchored by the PwC’s Fiscal Policy Partner and Thematic Lead, NESG Fiscal Policy and Planning Thematic Group, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, was attended by several stakeholders, including the representative of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and the Executive Secretary of the Joint Tax Board, Mrs Nana-Aisha Obomeghie.

Meanwhile, in a slide he shared during his presentation, which showed Nigeria’s Development Update, Awasthi explained that between 2015 and 2019, Nigeria’s non-oil revenues were among the lowest in the world and as a result the second lowest in spending, and that oil revenues were also falling even when oil prices were higher.

He stated, “Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa and the largest country in Africa by population, so it is critical to Africa’s progress. There is no doubt about that. But the government of Nigeria, from the public finance perspective, is really facing an existential threat. Let’s not downplay the situation. That is the actual reality.

Opposition against the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress deepened on Friday as popular Christian members of the party vowed to mobilise voters against it in 2023.

The aggrieved Christian members said the decision of the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to pick a fellow Muslim from the northern part of the country as his running mate was an error that they would fight with their voter cards in February next year.

Some northern Christian leaders in the APC on Friday called on Nigerians to reject any ticket that was not mixed between Christians and Muslims during the 2023 elections.

According to them, since the Muslim-Muslim ticket for the presidency is divisive, it must be rejected by all patriotic Nigerians.

They barred their minds during the APC Northern Christian Leaders’ Summit, saying the insinuation that northern Muslims would not support a Christian running mate to Tinubu was untrue and divisive.

Among the leaders, who spoke during the event, were a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal; a former Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; a former Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung; and Senator Ishaku Abbo (Adamawa North).

Reinamaria:
Tinubu might not be my candidate of choice, but I will never support mocking anyone just because they're older or less stronger.

ImmaculateJOE:
Babachir Lawal is leading the vawulence in APC against Tinibu... While Nyesom Wike is leading the vawulence in PDP against Atiku.

The Miracle worker is causing confusion in the enemy's camp so that the Miracle Candidate will emerge peacefully and reign successfully..

Oromoni: Black substance found in victim’s intestine, LASUTH lacks testing lab, says pathologist

A pathologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Dr Sunday Soyemi, on Tuesday, said a blackish substance was found in the intestine of 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni (Junior), a pupil of Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos, who died in controversial circumstances.

Soyemi stated this while being cross-examined by the family’s lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), before the coroner inquest set up to unravel the cause of the boy’s death.

The news of Sylvester’s death went viral following a social media post by his cousin, Perry Oromoni, who alleged that some senior pupils of the college beat him up in his hostel because he refused to join a cult.

But the school denied the claim, stating that the boy complained of leg pains following an injury he sustained while playing football.

A coroner inquest was subsequently set up to look into the circumstances surrounding the death.

At the Tuesday proceedings, Soyemi, while being led in evidence by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Babajide Martins, said the first autopsy carried out on the corpse was botched because the process was not properly done.

Soyemi, who faulted the first autopsy report, noted that some organs that would have revealed whether the victim died of ingestion of a poisonous substance were not cut by the first pathologist.

According to Soyemi, the deceased had a generalised infection that could have been treated with massive doses of antibiotics, intravenous fluid and blood transfusion.

He said, “Following the order for a post-mortem examination issued by the coroner, I conducted a second autopsy on the body of the deceased. An initial interim report was issued and finally, a full autopsy report was also issued to the office of the coroner.

“Prior to the conduct of the autopsy, I did a total body radiograph to rule out any skeletal injury, that is, fracture; none was found and the radiologist confirmed there was no fracture. Before I started the autopsy, the doctor who conducted the first autopsy was in attendance and he was in attendance throughout. So, I observed that the autopsy was not properly done. All that was not properly done is documented in my statement.

“For example, at the first autopsy, the pathologist never opened the oesophagus; the oesophagus is the food pipe. He also did not open the trachea; it is the air path through which we breathe. These are vital things that he should not have missed out.

“He concluded his report as chemical intoxication. For one to be intoxicated with a chemical, that chemical has to pass through the oesophagus, that is the food path. For someone that has not opened the food path, he cannot talk about chemical intoxication. A chemical that would be injurious to one, after ingestion, should cause injuries on the oesophagus because it would pass through the oesophagus, so it should never have been anything near chemical intoxication if he did not open the oesophagus.

“He also did not open the lungs; he did not detach the lungs from the heart. If he had done that and waded the lungs, it would tell him that something is wrong with the lungs. These are some of the many things he did not do. He did a botched autopsy and this was the cause of the controversy surrounding this case.”

However, Soyemi, during cross-examination by Falana, told the inquest that he did not carry out any test on the black substance found in the deceased’s intestine on the grounds that LASUTH did not have a laboratory to test poisonous substances.

He further admitted that the substance found in the intestine could have been anything as it was not tested to confirm what it was.

Soyemi also denied authorising a television interview granted by the doctor representing Dowen College, Dr Iwikwe Isabella, who spoke on the autopsy findings.

He said, “That’s not the practice. I was embarrassed when the report was being discussed on TV. I was embarrassed in the sense that she didn’t perform the autopsy; she observed all through. It’s not the normal practice even if you have done the autopsy.”

Soyemi, who noted that his findings showed that the deceased had lobar pneumonia, infection of the lung, liver, and also infection on the right ankle, maintained that the deceased died of septicaemia.

He explained that if the deceased was physically assaulted or beaten, all the exposed areas would show haemorrhage.

Earlier, the presiding magistrate, Mikhail Kadiri, had a heated argument with Falana when the counsel objected to a question the director of public prosecutions asked Soyemi.

Falana noted that Kadiri was fond of saying the inquest was not a regular court at his convenience.

However, the duo later settled the matter.

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