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According to investigation by Nigerian Presidency, this man (with photo of Prince Adeniyi Matthew) created a fake government agency called Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, appointed himself as Director General, secured office space at the Federal Secretariat in Abuja, opened multiple Central Bank accounts, got N1,302,978,784 (that’s almost a million dollar) allocation in the 2026 budget, summoned […]
Continue ReadingPresident Bola Tinubu’s Villa scriptwriters are supremely gifted. Go back and read Mr. Bayo Onanuga’s So Long a Letter on the Gbajabiamila-Adeyemi ‘feud’ over an agency that is simultaneously legal and illegal. The lengthy statement is a work of prose, daintily littered with repetition and refrain; rhyme and rhythm. Check out this excerpt: “On 27 […]
Continue ReadingI first received a WhatsApp forward about the scandal from notable University of Texas history professor Toyin Falola. I didn’t read it. I thought it was just another corruption scandal, the sort I have become tragically inured to. A few days later, my friend Professor Moses Ochonu forwarded another version of it to me. I […]
Continue ReadingPresidential adviser Sunday Dare jumped into the “akara and kúlíkúlí” conversation and came out as someone living an unexamined life. He gave his mother’s petty trading as an example of what was possible from meagre means. Dare could have left it there, but he had to prove himself a regular APC supporter who disregards the […]
Continue ReadingA new report, ‘The Shadow Owners,’ published by the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics Limited (AERE) has confirmed how the worsening insecurity in our country is being fuelled by powerful forces that are linked to illegal mining that is now effectively a multi-billion dollars organised crime. Last November, ‘Daily Trust’ published a similar report of […]
Continue ReadingAs Nigeria moves closer to the 2027 general elections, it is important to remind all the actors involved in this process to act in a responsible manner and not engage in any untidy or sharp practice that may raise doubts or anxiety about the integrity of the elections. An impression that our democracy is under […]
Continue ReadingThe words, “hunger” and “Onanuga” are almost homophones; words of similar sounds. I am goaded on by the Yoruba epistemology which counsels that likes should be compared with likes. As tortoise’s head safely compares with the big toe, so does a groundnut shell compares with the cocoon of the world’s tiniest rat Yoruba call the eliri. But comparison is not my bother here. My interest […]
Continue ReadingHow staff theft is quietly killing Nigeria’s service economy — and what it will take to stop it There is a saying Nigerians know in our bones: every day for the thief, one day for the owner. It is meant to be a reassurance. Justice is slow, the proverb suggests, but it is coming. Sit […]
Continue ReadingBoldness, be my friend. Arm me, audacity, from head to foot.” Some live by that Shakespearean creed. They say aloud what society only whispers. They speak the unsayable, damn the world and make a difference. Northern Nigeria had the late Dr Yusuf Bala Usman. I think there is another one in Dr. Bashir Kurfi. Kurfi […]
Continue ReadingThere is a detail buried in a press briefing in Kaduna last Thursday that I found rather troubling. It was offered by the former National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Director General, Brigadier General Maharazu Tsiga (rtd). He was in the state to honour the memory of his late colleague, Major General Rabe Abubakar (rtd), who […]
Continue ReadingTales by moonlight thrives on call-and-response give-and-take. “Story, story,” the storyteller invites the audience, honey in his voice, suspense in his eyes. “Story!” the audience booms back. “Who knows the meaning of this proverb? A fish rots from the head,” the storyteller asks. Under this moonlight, I am the storyteller. I can see some eager […]
Continue ReadingFirst the good news, there is an often ignored critical dimension to debates on the political history of Nigeria and on which Nigeria can justifiably take pride. The default preference of (International) Western scholarship is the evasion of any evidence that runs counter to their narrative of the unrelieved incapacity of Africa in general and […]
Continue ReadingI was saddened watching Mr. Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, discuss the state of the nation on Arise Television on Tuesday. To be fair, though, he is the president’s spokesperson and his job entails defending the indefensible. But beyond that, he has the reputation of insensitivity to the plight […]
Continue ReadingSometimes, a matter one thinks is pregnant with an elephant delivers only a rat. Last week, I was on my knees begging Northern Nigeria to save Nigeria from a catastrophe already visible on the horizon. The piece was a code, a shock treatment meant to reset a misbehaving social cell that has become dangerously comfortable […]
Continue ReadingA phone chat with Dr Lasisi Lagunju, editor of Saturday Tribune and ace columnist, on Friday morning sent me into melancholy. He had joked that he hoped I was not in “Okunland” as he did not have N135 million to pay if I was kidnapped by bandits. Kogi West has been experiencing bandit attacks for […]
Continue ReadingWhen General Olusegun Obasanjo military government announced a transition programme in the late 1970s, many politicians began preparing for the return to civilian rule. Among them was Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Awolowo did not wait for the starting gun before thinking about the race ahead. Years earlier, he had looked into the future and concluded that […]
Continue ReadingIn my column of 17 March 2021, ‘Kidnappings Incorporated!’, I shared the story of Nuhu Tanko, a gardener at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, whose two brothers were abducted on New Year’s Eve 2020 while on the road from Dakunu village in Chukum Local Government of Kaduna State. The masked abductors were more than 50 in […]
Continue ReadingIt was the year 2000 or 2001. We were seated almost in a circumference. The venue was the Presidential Villa in Aso Rock, Abuja. We awaited the arrival of President OIusegun Obasanjo. The event was the monthly Presidential Media Chat. It was a forum where the president took questions from select editors. This evening, the […]
Continue ReadingAs the countdown to the 2027 presidential election begins, Nigeria finds itself at a familiar, exhausting crossroads. The same cheap political rhetoric and empty promises are already spinning into motion. Yet, the reality remains stark: Nigeria’s recent headlines on insecurity and economic decline mirror those of a decade ago. Our national debate still focuses heavily […]
Continue ReadingPresident Bola Tinubu, in his June 12 broadcast, condemned terrorists and their work but told us not to “assign blame or point fingers” because “crime has no ethnicity.” Crime may indeed have no ethnicity, but that does not relieve us of the duty to identify the environment that breeds and sustains it. A desert does […]
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