SIR: President Muhammadu Buhari held media interaction, Wednesday, December 30, 2015. We thank God for the journalists who represented ordinary Nigerians at that event. They asked most of the questions one would have expected them to ask. On a sad note, a journalist at the occasion related his experience of how his bank could not give him what he wanted to withdraw from his own domiciliary account, telling him the currency was not available. Why should banks aggravate our frustration, rather than encourage savings for the raining day in diverse currencies? It is strangulating and suicidal for a person not to be able to cash his or her deposits in time of need.

Nigeria’s constitution stipulates official secularity, while Christians and Muslims are insisting on politicisation of religion. PMB himself took off on May 29, 2015, paying homage to “Shehu Usman Dan Fodio”, a jihad warrior. He kept selling dollars cheaply to pilgrimage-makers, while neglecting fuel importers who could not access foreign exchange. Abdul Hamid Funsho Alaye, Radio Kwara, was saying that Nigeria’s rulers have stopped sponsoring people on pilgrimage. It is not true.

Secondly, why should Nigerians be deprived of use of credit card to transact business at home and abroad? Is that a plus or minus for the Governor of the Central Bank? The situation is comparable to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who, instead of finding out how it is done in developed countries, simply demolished tollgates.

Another critical issue is that of insecurity. PMB kept saying, in course of the interaction, that nothing could be achieved without security. I agree with him that the Boko Haram insurgents have lost much ground and vibrancy. They came under intense attacks since the last few months of the presidency of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan till date. But still, Nigerians would not want to count what the country has lost in human lives and money since PMB took over, and the carnage is not over.

Nigeria’s constitution stipulates official secularity, while Christians and Muslims are insisting on politicisation of religion. PMB himself took off on May 29, 2015, paying homage to “Shehu Usman Dan Fodio”, a jihad warrior. He kept selling dollars cheaply to pilgrimage-makers, while neglecting fuel importers who could not access foreign exchange. Abdul Hamid Funsho Alaye, Radio Kwara, was saying that Nigeria’s rulers have stopped sponsoring people on pilgrimage. It is not true.

What can stop insecurity is social equity, which is lacking in PMB’s 2016 budget, and in the war against Boko Haram insurgents.

• Pius Abioje,
University of Ilorin.