News, Events, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Fashion, Beauty, Inspiration and yes… Gossip! The Only Place It Happens!
I first met Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala during the Obasanjo administration, at a conference organised by the newly emergent Due Process Office headed by Mrs. Obiageli (Oby) Katryn Ezekwesili. Okonjo-Iweala was minister of finance, so I asked her how much oil Nigeria was producing daily. The conference chairman, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai (now governor of Kaduna State) […]
Continue Reading“It should be clear to the National Assembly that their incestuous relationship with the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on which they have oversight responsibilities cannot continue. It is an open secret that many of our lawmakers are the leading contractors in some of these MDAs where they deploy their oversight powers as a weapon […]
Continue ReadingMy favorite minister in the Buhari cabinet is easily Mr. Lai Mohammed. I think he is a good man who has to earn a living in the business of selling bad eggs to unsuspecting good people. As things stand, the events of the last few days must be making him a bit uneasy. The travails […]
Continue ReadingIt is a show of shame isn’t it, what is going on at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)? Established in the year 2000 to assuage the fears of the people of the Niger Delta and address their concerns about the lack of infrastructural development in the region, despite the region’s contributions to the sustenance […]
Continue ReadingAnyone watching the drama playing out at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between the Minister of Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio, and his hand-picked immediate-past Acting Managing Director of the Interim Management Committee (IMC), Ms Joi Nunieh, must have by now given up on the calibre of people in leadership positions at all levels of […]
Continue ReadingDear President Muhammadu Buhari, I come to you in peace. Nevertheless, I do not have a nicer way of putting this to you: your government is falling apart. I do not know how to make it sound less brutal. That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — at least judging […]
Continue ReadingThe Attorney-General of the Federation/Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, did a good job exposing the infractions of Ibrahim Magu, the suspended boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). To be honest, Magu was reckless and lawless. While his reign lasted, he played God. I have no sympathy for him and I don’t see […]
Continue ReadingFellow Nigerians, before the general elections of last year, I thought I had seen enough of the shenanigans of those in power. Things got so bad that I simply gave up. I even vowed to stay on my lane and let the heavens fall on all of us, if it must. Any independent and impartial […]
Continue ReadingThe Niger Delta Development Commission has been asphyxiated. It is out of oxygen. It now runs on the noxious gas of corruption; its usefulness outlived and outpaced by fraud and mindboggling moral and financial depravity. The agency is a convincing argument against the mushrooming of regional commissions which end up becoming cash machines of a […]
Continue ReadingThe gathering responded with a subdued and nervous laughter. The occasion was the silver jubilee anniversary of THISDAY Newspapers at the Eko Hotel. In view of his current status, it was an irony that the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu was been decorated with the gold medal for […]
Continue ReadingAct 4: Scene I Deities don’t read newspapers. Humans do. Orita Gbaemu is the crossroads in Osogbo where deities are appeased in August at the commencement rites of Osun Osogbo, the globally acclaimed riverine festival that uplifts culture and restores worshippers’ souls. From time out of mind, the Ataoja, once in every August, sits in splendour […]
Continue ReadingIf taking public money was considered such a big deal, according to Joy Nunieh’s account, her colleague confessed he would kill anyone at the instruction of Godswill Akpabio before bothering to ask why the person had to die. But Akpabio has countered that Nigerians must not believe that story until we seek clarification from “all […]
Continue ReadingShe is the final handiwork of creation. Divinely chiselled with total attentiveness, Beki personifies charm, class and candour. No man looks at Beki in a hurry. At the sight of Beki, eyes brighten, gaze and succumb to her spell. Beki is an overdose of elegance. Nature wasn’t only prodigal in lavishing beauty on her, nature […]
Continue ReadingAgain, the book fell from the sleepy hands of Kiko, a PhD student of Addictive Psychiatry. The book, “The Land of Shameless Leaders,” is psychiatry’s grundnorm of psychoanalytic dialectics on greed, deceit, impunity and heartlessness in governance. Kiko knows he can’t graduate without passing Psychiatry 999, a five-unit course. To pass Psychiatry 999, he must […]
Continue ReadingThat the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is a silo of corruption is not in doubt. What is confounding is the punishing joke the agency has become to the people of the Niger Delta who they are meant to help and Nigerians whose resources are being pillaged. Recently, the head of the NDDC, Professor Kemebradikumo […]
Continue ReadingSometimes when some Igbo people talk about the need for the people of Southern Nigeria to unite, they blame the South-West for preferring to align with the North more than aligning with the South-East. The facts from Nigeria’s political history show that it is not true that the South-West aligns politically more with the North […]
Continue ReadingWho is afraid of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s nominee for the soon-to-be-vacant post of Director General of the World Trade Organization? I ask this question because over the weekend, her media adviser, my long-time colleague, Paul Nwabuikwu issued a statement in which he alleged that some “powerful and well-connected forces” in Nigeria were working hard, manufacturing […]
Continue Reading“The more leeches there are affixed to a host, the less resources there are to siphon from said hosts, per parasite. The ability to only absorb energy, without the ability or desire to reproduce it in a productive manner, is a dangerous, unsustainable, albeit attractive long term method of collapse and decline.” Justin K. McFarlane […]
Continue ReadingAgain, the system felled Ibrahim Magu, Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last week. It had always done that. Olusegun Obasanjo, the maiden president at inception of Nigeria’s fourth republic, first erected the crucifixion upon which a crime-fighting czar was hung. While employing the old Yoruba verbal denunciation of thieves by […]
Continue ReadingAre you a Nigerian voter? Did you vote during the 2015 and 2019 elections? Were you mesmerised by President Muhammadu Buhari’s sugarcoated promises of CHANGE and NEXT LEVEL? Well, I have got news for you! Do you want to know what Buhari thinks of you, the Nigerian voter? I mean, what he really thinks, not […]
Continue Reading