On Saturday morning, last week, in a conversation with friends on Facebook, I was reminded of Reverend Martin Niemoller’s famous 1937 statement – more about this later. Over the week leading up to this conversation, I had had problems with the (lack of) quality of after-sales service for my car (from one of the country’s leading car retailers). I complain [...]

There is a variety of Nigerian patriots for whom the mantra “my country, good or bad” is a creed of some sorts. Not, though, in the manner of a self-evident truth, existing alongside other such axioms. But a fundamental dictum of conduct that must be observed, as it were, in “every field of national endeavour” regardless of the specific issues [...]

The emergence of the online retail business in Nigeria was always going to upset a few established practices. One big question centered on how online retailing would play in the face-off between traditional retail outlets (our not so “supermarkets”, and corner shops) and the discount shopping malls that are increasingly a central feature of our large urban centres. Whereas the [...]

There is this local quirk which never ceases to amuse (and amaze) me. A robust capacity for mimesis ensures that no sooner is the sod turned on some groundbreaking activity, than several copycat versions make their debut. One explanation for this is the serial failure of our criminal justice system. A key consequence of which is a shameful disregard (or, [...]

One advantage of shopping on-line is the sheer convenience of it all. It used to be something one did from a straight-backed chair across from a personal computer. And that on its own was sufficient to challenge so many shopping paradigms. Shopping trolley? Gone. Rough-hewn personnel at the checkout counter? Gone too. Even the conflicting odour from so many shoppers [...]

Of late, bank customers in the country have had cause to smile on their way to the banks. Courtesy of recent central bank directives to the banks, they are being spared a couple of additional charges on their transactions. Having gently been shunted away from main branches into ATM sidings, most bank customers had laboured under the weight of the [...]

What is the purpose of government? Given the intensity of the arguments on all sides of this question, I suppose that discussion around it has been with us for as long as the institutions, which collectively bear that name have been. Whatever side of the argument you look at this question from, governments are naturally conservative institutions. Oftentimes, this is [...]

The judgment, last week, of a federal high court, in which it found (amongst others) government’s deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry “unlawful, illegal, null, void and of no effect whatsoever, being in flagrant violation of the mandatory provision of section 4 of the Price Control Act, cap P28, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, [...]

In the first week of February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the country’s trade figures for last year. Importantly, we appeared to have sold more last year (N22.45tn) to the rest of the world, than we bought off them (N5.62tn). At least one analyst that I read on this, proceeded to account for the growth in our foreign [...]

The strongest case for second-guessing the Monetary Policy Committee’s (the MPC is the Central Bank of Nigeria’s rate-setting arm) likely decision(s) when it meets Monday, next week, was made almost a month ago. Most serious watchers of the economy expected a lower inflation count for January this year, simply because the federal government’s half-successful attempt at removing the “subsidy” on [...]