Men will stain your white
Nigerian lawmakers might have promised and failed us again
Good morning, Big Brains. I hope your weekend was better than mine. All I did was write exams, suffer from the worst migraine, wonder where my billionaire husband is and rethink my life choices. But the fact that 97.8% of you guys said you love The Big Daily in our survey made me feel better. Thank you for being our day ones. Cheers to a healthier writer-reader relationship!
- Margaret
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Reading time ~ 7 mins
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Let’s get into the news you missed during the weekend:
Nigerian lawmakers might have promised and failed us again
It’s layoff season in America
The Big Deal
Nigerian lawmakers might have promised and failed us again
We hate to be the pushers of the “Men will stain your white” narrative, but your favourite lawmakers have left us with no choice. If promises were debts, we’d have forwarded our account details to all the parties involved in what’s starting to look like another round of disappointment.
We were grieving the death of affordable data plans last week when federal lawmakers decided to raise our hopes by suggesting that they would ensure the tariff hike was reversed. This sounded like great news to Nigerians who were just starting to wrap their heads around the reality that 1.8GB now goes for ₦1,500.
It’s been a week since we allowed ourselves to believe that our lawmakers had found themselves on the right side of history, but the entire situation is starting to give “I hope you’re hungry… for NOTHING!”
Since they made that promise, only the opposite of what was promised has happened— other popular telecom service providers like Airtel have also increased their prices by 50%.
Right now, there’s little to no update on how these lawmakers plan to implement the tariff hike suspension. A report from This Day Newspaper suggests we’re probably better off kissing that suspension goodbye because the best we’re likely to get out of this situation is a 15% reduction in the 50% hike. And if that is eventually implemented, don’t let us catch you giving any cookies to Nigerian lawmakers. The real heroes are the National Labour Congress leaders (NLC) who haven’t stopped pressing the necks of everyone responsible for the hike.
Why is this a big deal?
This is far from the first time lawmakers have raised our hopes only to serve us nothing. At this point, it’s almost like a ritual—big declarations and radio silence right after.
Take, for example, their attempt to stop the electricity tariff hike that we’ve all grown to know and detest. In May 2024, lawmakers asked the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to pause the increase, but NERC said :
NERC ended up airing them so badly and followed up with a claim that it didn’t receive any “official communication” to suspend the hike.
And it’s not just electricity. These guys pulled the same stunt when they tried to tackle insecurity. Lawmakers have been “passionate” about ending insecurity since forever. In January 2024, they dropped their shame and admitted that Nigeria doesn’t have a working strategy to fight insecurity. Guess why we don’t have a working strategy? The House of Representatives held a security summit about three years ago and failed to implement the strategy that came out of the summit.
For the average Nigerian, this isn’t just about politics. It’s about survival. Whether it’s data, electricity, or security, these issues directly affect our pockets and peace of mind. But instead of real solutions, we get lawmakers making promises that hardly ever translate into action. It makes you wonder what that means for our future as a country.
Anyways, join us at Zikoko Citizen Townhall tomorrow to figure out how to stop the opps from running this country down. As for our leaders, may God bless them if it’s necessary.
It’s layoff season in America
Government workers in the United States of America are just as stressed as we are in Nigeria, and it’s all because of Elon Musk. The billionaire tech bro and Trump’s favourite adviser has taken it upon himself to lead a mass firing spree across the US federal workforce, and his approach is serving major “Do you even deserve this job?” energy.
Musk, now running the USA’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has decided that every US federal employee must justify their work or risk being kicked out.
Trump, never one to miss a dramatic firing opportunity, has been hyping Musk up, even urging him to be “more aggressive” with the cuts. And Musk, who has a boss to impress, has started slashing public spending, with the US Defense Department already set to lay off at least 5% of its civilian workforce next week.
Unions and government employees are not taking this lightly. The largest federal workers’ union is already preparing for a legal battle, calling Musk out for treating civil servants like disposable papers.
But Musk insists that the bar is “very low” and that as long as these workers can prove their are value, they should be safe. This raises the question: How exactly do you impress someone who has a history of building robots and making self-driving cars?
Whether this mass firing spree will truly cut costs or just throw thousands of Americans into unemployment is something only time would. But our eyes are going to remain on the Musk-Trump duo.
Your next big read
→ “No Be Cho Cho Cho”: Citizen Townhall Wants to Help You Make a Real Difference: Put a finger down if you’ve said, “God abeg”, “What kind of country is this?” or “I heard the national grid has fallen” again in the last 100 days. Put down another finger if you don’t have ₦50 million to japa in 2025. If you have two fingers raised, we can both agree on two things — you are tired of Nigeria’s current state and don’t have enough money to leave the country. If we’re stuck here for now, we have no choice but to fix the country — we’ve answered all the questions you might have about the Citizen Townhall event.
→He Got Funding to Study in the US and Said Goodbye to His Canadian Dreams: Nehemiah started dreaming of moving to Canada in 2020, but his dreams changed when he got a funding opportunity to study in the US. In this edition of 1000 Ways to Japa, he shares tips on how to apply for an assistantship opportunity in the US in 2025.
→ We Asked ChatJibiti to Rank Tinubu’s 2025 Policies: If you typically yawn at the mention of policies, there are chances that you will enjoy this piece because I asked ChatJibiti (not to be mistaken for ChatGPT) to rank Tinubu’s new policies for me.
The Big Picks
NAFDAC Shuts Over 11,000 Shops, Arrests 40 Suspects Over Fake Drugs: NAFDAC has shut down over 11,000 shops and arrested 40 people in its nationwide crackdown on fake and substandard medicines.
Global Prayers For ‘Critically’ Sick Pope Francis: Pope Francis spent his tenth day in the hospital on Sunday, as Catholics worldwide prayed for his recovery, a day after the Vatican warned that the 88-year-old’s condition was “critical.”
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