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In 2018, reports indicated that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to end extreme poverty by 2030 is unlikely to be met because of Nigeria. According to the World Poverty Clock, Nigeria overtook India as the country with the most extremely poor people in the world. India, with a population seven times larger than […]
Continue ReadingI will have nothing to do with the British. They are full of prejudices and they have not learnt from history, and having nothing to teach anybody, I refused to talk to the British High Commissioner. The other day he sent a message he wanted to come and see me and I told him there […]
Continue ReadingI pray President Muhammadu Buhari will bow to public pressure and terminate the captivity of Omoyele Sowore, publisher of SaharaReporters, and former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC). If that prayer fails, and the order granted the Department of State Services (DSS) by the Federal High Court, in Abuja, Thursday, is not successfully challenged […]
Continue ReadingIn July, a group of musicians/artistes took their peaceful protest to the Redemption Camp where they challenged the General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, to speak up on raging issues. The artistes prodded Adeboye to use his globally acknowledged influence to speak on the security situation in the country, […]
Continue ReadingThere is only one rational conclusion to draw after watching the shocking video of how three senior police officers of an elite anti-kidnapping squad were brutally executed last week in Taraba State: The soldiers involved in the killing could only have been acting in promotion of some sinister agenda rather than in defence of the […]
Continue ReadingThere is this folk song sang mostly by women and children in the streets of Yorubaland since 1789. It runs thus: During the reign of King Abiodun, plenty abounded in the land, so much that we measured our wealth with calabash/We were able to afford the good things of life, from Kijipa cloth to its matching […]
Continue ReadingThe 2015 general elections had just ended, with Nigeria’s ‘achievement’ of an unprecedented transition from one civilian government to another. The losers were beginning to lick their wounds, while the gladiators in the winning party were busy strategising for the ways and means of cornering the juiciest portions of the spoils from the just-concluded electoral […]
Continue ReadingThere are an estimated 190 million Nigerians. The overwhelming proportion of them will live and die unknown and unsung. Airports will not be named after them. Neither will universities be established in their honour. A hundred years from now, people will not even remember they ever existed, except that they might have some children and […]
Continue ReadingIf anyone is looking for a perfect illustration and confirmation of the “coming anarchy” in Nigeria, that person needs not look farther than the on-going conflict and crisis of mutual distrust between the Nigeria Police and the Nigerian Army. Turn away, for a moment, from Boko Haram (Nigeria is still unable to find a solution […]
Continue ReadingNigerians wanted a messiah. They got one, or so they thought. His coronation was loud and boisterous. In faraway countries, people danced in joyous rhythm and celebratory backslapping. It was supposed to be a new dawn premised on change. The emotion was infectious, as people lost in momentary covetousness suspended their reasoning. Some trekked long […]
Continue ReadingFirst, they arrived in the small hours and, proceeding as if Omoyele Sowore owned a small army of his own, seized the political activist from his hotel room. Then, after confirming to the world they indeed had him, they kept him without filing any charges beyond the time-frame allowed by law. Then they asked a […]
Continue ReadingThere was some tragic, tragic news on Wednesday: three police officers and a civilian were gunned down by soldiers along Ibi-Jalingo road, Taraba state. When the police started tweeting about the incident, you could feel their pain. As things unfolded, it became clear that these were not ordinary police officers: the three of them — […]
Continue ReadingOur present national predicament reminds me of the last days of Socrates, the Greek wise man. After an ignorant mob condemned him to death, for urging the people to be rational in their beliefs and in their approach to life, his triumphant detractors gloatingly asked him to plead for his life, so that they might […]
Continue ReadingFellow Nigerians, let me take you back to the year 1998, the 7th day of the month of July to be precise. Chief Moshood Abiola had just been pronounced dead, just like that, and everything, and everywhere, was topsy-turvy. We were numb beyond words. A new leader had taken power the month before, after the […]
Continue ReadingI have been very perplexed about the whole debate over the “Revolution Now” issue in the past week. Let me start by stating that there are three elements of revolution that we have learnt from political sociology. The first is that when the revolution comes, the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Police (security […]
Continue ReadingMost of us who held our noses to support President Muhammadu Buhari again in the last election had hoped for true change, if he was re-elected. Two months into the second tenure, while it may appear as if Buhari is indeed incorrigible, it is definitively clear that he has forgotten why and how he became […]
Continue ReadingOn Monday, security agents not only crippled the #RevolutionNow protests against government ineptitude by deploying all the armed forces to the venue, in Lagos, but also declared such repressive behaviour a “democratic victory”. The irony of that assertion hits one hard. No thanks to alternative facts such as this one, Nigeria these days sometimes feels […]
Continue ReadingFLASHBACK, 25TH SEPTEMBER 2003: Rally after elections? That was my immediate reaction to Hon. Farouk Adamu Aliyu, the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) House of Representatives member from Jigawa State who had called to inform me that he was in Kano for a rally to be addressed the next day by Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). […]
Continue ReadingThe arrest of Omoyele Sowore and deployment of soldiers and policemen to tear-gas protesters is an anti-climax. Buhari’s government made a mountain out of a molehill. He should have been left alone to test his organising powers, afterall his right to protest is guaranteed by the Constitution. The semantic and rhetorical use of #RevolutionNow is […]
Continue ReadingIt is no longer conjectural; Nigeria is at war. In July alone, some 282 of our citizens were gunned down or killed violently. When they were not killed by marauding herdsmen, bandits and kidnappers, they were killed by our own government turning Nigerians guns procured to defend Nigerians on them. The nation is no longer […]
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