‎In every economy, institutions matter, but so do the individuals at the helm. In Nigeria, where government revenues remain critical to funding budgets, servicing debt, and financing development, a few public officials wield enormous influence by virtue of the agencies they oversee.
Increasingly, governments are discovering that one of the most effective ways to weaken terrorist organisations is not merely to target the fighters, but to dismantle the financial networks that sustain them.
Infrastructure development is evidently a desideratum for Nigeria. The country’s infrastructure gap is estimated at $2.3 trillion, with $100 billion required annually if we are to close the deficit. Years ago, infrastructure development had primarily been top-down, solely driven by the national government, but that is changing under the Renewed Hope Charter of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
It is perhaps for this reason that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's decision to grant a six-month tenure extension to the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, has been widely applauded as a well-deserved reward for excellence and a strategic move to sustain ongoing reforms.
When the Director-General of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Dr. Kelechi Ohiri, paid a courtesy visit to the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Shehu Mohammed, recently, the discussion was not only about standard pleasantries of inter-agency diplomacy.
