Insight Review

Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN) has stopped the sale of foreign exchange (FX) to Bureau De Change (BDC) operators in the country. The registration of new players has also been halted, with immediate effect.

The Senate has passed a bill that seeks to establish an Electoral Offences Commission bill.

The bill, if signed into law, will empower the commission to investigate electoral offences, prosecute electoral offenders and maintain records of all persons investigated and prosecuted.

The legislation also prescribes a 20-year jail term for offenders found guilty of snatching ballot boxes during elections.

The economic and social imbalance between the North and the South makes political power sharing a sensitive issue. The South is much richer and boasts far better socioeconomic indicators than the North. Extensive oil reserves are located in the Niger Delta, and the South has Lagos, the commercial and media capital of the country as well as one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. While there are numerous ethnic groups, the two largest, the Yoruba and the Ibo, make up the majority of the Diaspora that provides increasingly important foreign exchange remittances from abroad. It is true that Christians are a majority, but there is an important Muslim population in Yorubaland, and across the South, both religions are affiliative — that is, an adherent chooses to join. Local conflict tends to be based on ethnic differences and competition for access to resources, especially in the oil-rich Delta, and very rarely do the clashes have a religious component. Given the history of inequality between the two regions, southerners often dismiss the North as backward.

Nigerians complains of how bad the country has become under a government, but will rather be paid #5000 to vote for a leader they consider the "savior" every 4 years.

"We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed," Pantami said. "But the Sharia does not allow us to kill them without reason."

A look at the Nigerian state, shows that much progress has not been made on national development as a result of political office holders thinking the short-term interest for personal reasons.

At least 110 people were killed in the Boko Haram attack on a farming community in Jere Local Government Area of Burno, a top United Nations official has said.

The attack on mostly rice farmers in Zabarmari, a community in Jere Local Government Area, with residents saying at least 43 farmers were killed.

President Muhammadu Buhari who condemned the attack in a Saturday night statement did not speak on the casualty figure.

As part of the debate on the aftermath of the #endsars protest, storm of reactions by Nigerians has greeted claims by a member of the United Kingdom parliament, that General Yakubu Gowon, a former Nigerian Head of State, stole half of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The #EndSARS protest was a popular repudiation of a crude police culture and rejection of human rights violations. Young Nigerians seized the opportunity to draw lines in the sand, reset the boundaries of allowable conduct and with one voice stating that they would never again allow any institution or set of individuals to oppress them and or continue to barbarically denigrate their fundamental rights. In the protest, the youth affirmed the sanctity, inalienability and inherent nature of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

A government who intends to provide good governance will not send thugs to injure and kill peaceful protesters. We have witnessed in the past few days that the Nigerian politicians do not really care about the lives of Nigerians.