Nigerian Banks: Banking or Brigandage?

by Eze Eluchie,

Across the globe, in climes which have evolved sustainable financial practices which serve to stimulate domestic economies, production and growth, Banks serve a most useful purpose as they are institutions where funds can be warehoused and advanced and deployed to entrepreneurs on conditions which reward innovation and ultimately profit society generally.

In our traditional societies, native cooperative associations served the role of modern Banks, congregating resources and lending to their members as needed under conditions which ensured that capital base of the Cooperative remained secured and the constituent members and society generally profited therefrom.

Fast-forward to the present and what do we have in lieu of hitherto traditional structures for wealth regeneration, provision of ad-hoc, mid- and long-term financial needs? A consortium of opportunistic shylocks with keys to vaults rich in deposits of the collective trod our environment, clothed in suave suits parading a deceptive demeanor of integrity and benevolence whilst on the lookout for entrepreneurs to suck-in and devour. Many a budding idea have been ruined by resort to the extortionist Trojan-horse deals inflicted on creditors by these characters leading to a situation where steering clear from entanglement with this bunch has become a fundamental to success for any genuine business interest.

How did we arrive at the dire situation described in the preceding paragraph in an era where Banks in sane climes are becoming desperate to better serve their populations with sensible fiscal policies? With the European Central Bank, the US Federal Reserve bank and others of their ilk go to great lengths to stress and enforce lending rates (presently at below 1%) that encourage investments, with some experimentation with negative interest rates, all in a bid to boost borrowing and enliven their national business climate, their contemporaries in Nigeria shamelessly announce lending rates of upwards of 25%, rates that can only make sense to a borrower who is in the business of producing or trafficking on illicit substances. After ensnaring undiscerning investors to take loans at the scandalous interest rates they offer, our fancy-dressed shylocks (who in every sense of their words and their operational mechanisms are no different from the notorious Italian Mafia), simply go and relax and like the hangman, wait for when their victims default and move in with repossession orders to liquidate.

The practices that go on in the name of banking in Nigeria are only possible in lawless entities. Queries to these characters manning the banking industry in Nigeria will elicit such responses as: ‘Our lending and interest rates are governed by market forces’, ‘We need to pay our Directors well in compliance with prevailing global trends’ and other distasteful responses. ‘Market forces’? What happens to these so-called ‘market forces’ when the US Federal Reserve, the ECB and their counterparts in Japan and other such climes announce, influence or set lending and borrowing rates? ‘Prevailing global trends’ indeed! The prevailing global trends to fix lending rates below 1% no longer prevail when it comes to the Banking industry in Nigeria?

Those who allow the Banking industry to get away with the brigandage it adopts as business practices in Nigeria can only be persons who hate Nigeria and its people with a peculiar passion. Having destroyed virtually all budding entrepreneurs that have had the misfortune of sourcing facilities from them, and with a view to further perpetuate the poverty that have foisted on Nigerians, our Bankers have resorted to granting the kleptocrats manning the various Governments in Nigeria loans that simply disappear between the Banks vaults and the Government Houses where their accomplices sign away future generations of their respective populations. Some States in Nigeria (and the Federal Government itself) are indebted to banks to sums way above total projected incomes of over a century, without any tangible infrastructural projects to show for the scams – debts that ensure the impoverishment of generations unborn.

A critical part of the restructuring of the Nigerian contraption must involve fiscal restructuring and sanitation of the Banking industry with a view to apportioning appropriate punishment to transgressors and identifying which financial facilities to which the future has been mortgaged are genuine and which are scams.

Picture: ‘Arrest the Bankers’ poster at a rally against bank frauds.

Democracy's New Lows - Assassination Threats In US Presidential Elections

by Eze Eluchie,

As US Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald “some-mothers-do-have-‘em” Trump crudely threatens his opponent, Hilary Clinton, with assassination, Democracy as an ideal at the international stage, attains new lows.

The irony is that keen observers and followers of US politics, electoral patterns and trends and Republican Party mannerisms, realize that despite initial setbacks, Mr.Trump appears to be on a sure trajectory to becoming the 45^th President of the United States.

If ‘democracy’ can usher in a geriatric out-of-touch character like Muhammadu Buhari as (s)elected President of Nigeria, affirm a Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, then it may not be out of style for same model to produce  a Donald “some-mother-do-have-‘em” Trump as the next President of the United States of America to complete the circle. 

The utility and efficacy of 'democracy' as the ideal form of government is increasingly being questioned and coming under scrutiny.....

Picture: US 2016 Presidential hopefuls, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

US 2016 Presidential Elections: Donald ‘some-mothers-do-have-them’ Trump – A Threat To Democracy Everywhere?

by Eze Eluchie,

Under normal circumstances and in the true spirit of Democratic values and ethos, people are supposed and expected to make choices that are to their best interest. The unique selling point of Democracy, as a system of government over which several wars have been fought with thousands of lives lost and millions maimed, is that it offers people the opportunity to choose their leaders based on the fundamental believe that, all things being equal, people will go for leaders that add value to their lives and generally better their lot.

Likewise under normal circumstances and all things being equal, the United States had always been looked upon as the ‘bastion’ and ‘defender’ of democracy and democratic values, with several of its foreign policy and international military engagements carried out under the guise of fostering and deepening democracy. A country where democracy has repeatedly served to ensure the emergence of high quality leadership at any given time, serving to ensure great respect for the democratic process across the world, eliciting the admiration of friends and foes alike

Current events leading to the 2016 Presidential Elections in the United States have established that neither are circumstances normal nor are all things ever equal – that much has become clear with regards to the perception of democracy since the emergence of one hell of a queer character, the Donald ‘some-mothers-do-have-them’ Trump phenomenon on the scene of the US Presidential race. A phenomenon which to the amazement of all, including members of the Republican Party to which he has presently shifted his membership, scaled through a most thorough and rigorous Primary series to emerge the Candidate of the republican Party for the November 8 2016 Presidential elections.

That a character of doubtful stability (as chronicled by several high profile commentators in the US, inclusive of President Barack Obama, Senator Cruz, former Governor Jeb Bush and prominent members of the Republican Party and journalists) possessed of the catalogue of incredulity associated with Mr. Trump can scale through a democratic Primary process, clinch a ticket to contest for the US Presidency, with a probable chance of victory during the main elections and subsequent likelihood of being at the helms of the immense economic, social and military authority wielded across the world b the US, senders shivers down the spine of most objective observers of international affairs and serves to question the validity and integrity of popular franchise and democracy as a means of selecting political leaders. From Mr. Trumps mannerisms at his own campaigns rallies (such as asking those opposed to him to be punched and thrown out of the hall or thrown into the freezing cold without their jackets; to asking for a mother to be sent out on account of her crying baby; to repeated assurance to force an independent Mexico to foot the cost of building a wall along the US-Mexico borders; and palpable expressions of ignorance about real life issues and foreign affairs; the litany of absurdities exhibited by the Trump fellow is simply unending. And yet he emerged as winner in a democratic process@#?

If despite its over 200 years of continued governance under a democratic arrangement and a supposedly relatively enlightened populace, a Trump can still happen in the US, one can only feel sorry for the situation across most emerging States in the so-called global south which are pressurized into an all-comer electorate system where all and sundry irrespective of their knowledge and awareness of issues at stake are accorded the ‘right’ to vote – in some climes, a vote can be bought for as little as one single meal, thus leading to the emergence of all manners of sickos and weirdo’s as ‘democratically elected leader’. In one rather pathetic instance of the hypothesis propounded here, under the guise of ‘democracy’, Nigeria incredulously recently (s)elected, in a dubious process applauded by the main ‘custodians of democracy’ – the US and EU, an octogenarian tyrannical ex-dictator notorious for his inclination for ethnocentricism and religious bigotry to rule over a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state. Nigerian, neighbouring West African states and all in that perpetually ‘potentially great’ country are now living testaments to the horrors of ‘democracy’.

From a Sub-Saharan perspective concerned more particularly with how an outwardly engaging and militaristic US would have been quite aggressive in addressing the expansion of extremist Islamist jihadists across the region, one would have wished for a Trump victory come the Presidential elections, but when one totals up the enormity of the damage such a man will cause on virtually all other aspects of international affairs, and that it would be unfair to wish ill on a friendly and exceptional country, one can only hope the electorate in the United States do not wake up the morning after November 8^th 2016 wondering what manner of harm they had just bequeathed on humanity.

Picture: US Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump.