What is he complaining about?

Card - zero tolerance for buying and selling in the temple

Although, it is understandable how you might feel when you see your former clean car being plastered with variety of unwanted stickers by the new owner. But what can you do?

That was the case between the former President of United States of America’s Chief of Staff, Andrew Card and President Barrack Obama, when the former was chastising the latter for not wearing a suit jacket, claiming Obama’s attitude to stain the history-gained respect of the Oval office should be condemned.

In his words, “I don’t criticize Obama for his appearance, I do expect him to send the message that people who are going to be in the Oval Office should treat the office with the respect that it has earned over history.”

His love and respect for the coveted seat of the United States of America presidency is applauded, but it is high time this politicians realise that when the time comes to quit the stage, dont forget your props there!

By ol’Victor Ojelabi

Side Note: To read more, click http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/05/bush-chief-of-staff-to-ob_n_164286.html

Despite Market Crash! Ndi Okereke-Onyuike Led Selected CEOs to Witness Obama’s Inauguration

Ndi (second from left) during her campaign for Obama presidency

On 12 January, 2009, the Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, had addressed a press conference where she expressed her frustration with how influential forces in government encumbered her efforts to get the Federal Government to intervene directly to save the fast dwindling fortunes of the Nigerian stock market.

Though the ‘Professor of Capital Market Studies,’ had, in the words of capital market experts, glibly talked of the hope of rejuvenating the stock market, but it seems what was uppermost in the consideration of the Nigerian Stock Exchange DG was the inauguration of Barrack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Prof. Okereke-Onyuike had, while Obama was campaigning for the office of the US presidency, run into a storm of scandal, when she reportedly invited corporate bodies in the country to pay sums ranging from N275,000 to N2.5 million for an Africa for Obama fund raising dinner for the Obama campaign.

The fund raising dinner was mired in controversy especially after it was made public that the US constitution frowns at funds raised by non-citizens of the United States of America. The uproar attending this became more aggravated when a representative of the Obama campaign wrote to condemn the fund raising effort; this is even as critics of the fund raising dinner in Nigeria had condemned the dinner as an arm twisting venture by the occupier of the high office of a regulatory authority to force the entities within her purview of control to donate money to a cause which relevance, they claimed, holds no significance for the people being made to pay for the fund raising dinner.

The public outcry that attended the fund raising dinner compelled the Economic and Financial Crime Commission to step into the affair and invited the NSE’s DG for questioning. At the end of the EFCC’s investigations, it was decided that the money so raised be refunded to those that paid for the dinner.

However, despite the apparent frustration of her efforts at supporting the Obama’s campaign, latest report indicates that the NSE’s DG had, top on her thoughts, the Obama campaign and the inauguration. Reports have it that soon after addressing the media this past Monday, 12 January, 2009, the Stock Exchange DG led some chief executives of listed companies on the Stock Exchange to the United States to witness Obama inauguration as the President of the United States of America.

Obama will be a good president

Obama: Head or tail, history made

Away from our beleaguered stock market and the yet roiling global financial markets. At least, a little bit of sanity is returning to the Nigerian stock market though not by way of positive market activities, thankfully, the management of the Nigerian Stock Market has finally discerned the wisdom that informs free market activities by removing the one percent down limit on stocks price depreciation. Good enough, prices are stumbling; curiously, most hurt in the crashing prices are stocks of banks and insurance companies. The manufacturing sector is curiously holding steady, prices of UAC Nigeria, UAC Property and even those in the health sector; especially the pharmaceuticals have managed to hold their own at relative sliding rate. Does this tell a story?

 

I think it does, the power of any economy is a function of its real and active sector. Investors seem to have decidedly held faith with companies that are producing goods and products they can relate with and have turned their backs on the services of the financial sector with the average fall in price of stocks in that sector calculated at more than 50 percent. I guess it all about fears and negative sentiment. Yet, I can still dare to propose that in that sector lies the redeeming prospect of the market. Why?

Financial sector players understand the Nigerian economic market, perhaps, much more than any other sectoral player, and of course, they know how to get things done. They have been at the commanding height of the economy since the military inspired economic structural adjustment programme as influenced by the International Monetary Funds. Nigerian banks and bankers had survived much turbulence since 1993 when we first witnessed the first wholesale crash of the national banking sector and had returned stronger and better.

  So if First Bank is selling for less than 30 per cent of its peak price in 2008 at N20 plus and Access at less than 100 per cent of its high this year, I am tempted to go searching for value in the finance sector.

Please, excuse me, the stock market was not supposed to be in focus this week. I am very sure, the most discussed issue that would be discussed the whole of this week will be the USA presidential election while the most mentioned name any where in the corners of the globe this week will be Barrack Obama, that genteel, lithe figure that suddenly happened on the American political scene and had since captured the imagination of American across age, gender and other persuasion.

It’s natural to expect an opinionated African to canvass an Obama presidency, isn’t it natural? Of course, to my mind, this is the final resolution of the opposites that had defined relationship among people across the world, and for once, an indication that Africa, will, despite the interface of all morbid attributions in national leadership of countries across the black African continent, is where ultimate civilization and prosperity is headed. This may not be more than 50 years, I feel a reordering of the global economic space, an Obama USA presidency will be the beginning of the process.

Is this some fanciful thought? I don’t know, but it’s not every time that an individual, seemingly unqualified for a position just suddenly start marshalling the most effective strategies to beat political institutions in the United States.

The fact that Obama, a black-white man, or put properly, a white-black man (still wonder why they still primarily describe him as a black man as if the white gene and pigmentation of his mum were of no consequence) subsumed the Clintons and veteran John McCain in the opinion of people across the USA should convince anybody that Obama will be a good president.

No need to cajole logic and other persuasive argument about the worthiness of Obama, he has proved this by taking the battle to republican states and even competing on favourable numbers in McCain’s Arizona. And even more interesting, he turned the institution of the republican into a bleary eyed pumpkin mask only suitable to be laughed at during Halloween. Obama is that awesome.

So, can we be practical enough to stop all those talks of a McCain miraculous come as he had done before in those other elections into the senate. This is a different ball game; we are talking here about a phenomenon who is just being introduced to the world stage. Something tells me the world will not be the same after four years of Obama…but that will be if he survives the first term. Now, that’s talk for another day.