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There is hardly any significant individual who supported the emergence of President Mohammadu Buhari and has not found cause to regret the decision and express disappointment at his stewardship. For those of us who did not and warned on the kind of President he would turn out to be, we have been vindicated over and […]
Continue ReadingIf the 2019 presidential election is going to be a referendum on the Muhammadu Buhari presidency using good governance as a yardstick, it will be stating the obvious that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is headed for an electoral defeat. Having failed to fulfil his three-pronged campaign promises of fixing the economy, tackling corruption and […]
Continue ReadingOn Monday last week, the Department of State Services (DSS) paraded in Abuja a woman named Amina Mohammed allegedly for impersonating the wife of the Kogi State Governor in order to gain access to the presidential villa. In the course of the media trial that followed, Ms Mohammed kept shouting, “It’s (allegation) not true, Chikason […]
Continue ReadingThe wealth of Nigeria is desperately tied to oil. As a monoproduct economy, 90 per cent of our export earnings and 75 per cent of our national revenue comes from oil. Yet, a comparison between Saudi’s ARAMCO and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) can only elicit pity for the condition we have created due […]
Continue ReadingIt is already 70 years that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration remains a giant step in the journey of human civilisation. In sum, the declaration has established irrevocably the “equal dignity and worth of every person.” The significance of the famous document (translated into at least […]
Continue Reading“To whom much is given, much is expected” is an idiom that most live by. Employees are expected to deliver results in exchange for a salary. Doctors are expected to treat patients back to good health in exchange for fees. Children are expected to perform very well in exams because we pay fees to schools […]
Continue ReadingMy constructive engagement with my brother, the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, on governance issues of our dear state, certainly predated my emergence as the Governorship candidate in February election under the Labour Party (LP). The Senate President was recently reported that he “would start off setting (sic!) salary arrears owed certain category of workers […]
Continue ReadingI’m all for looking before you leap, doing due diligence before you say ‘I do’ or even I don’t. I just don’t see the diligence in looking for years without leaping. It is neither due nor diligent if you allow a man to test-drive you until your tires are worn. That would be based on […]
Continue ReadingOn Friday, a little-known civil society group, Zamfara Unity Forum, issued a press statement raising the alarm that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was trying to interfere in the 2019 governorship election in Zamfara state. The allegation is that the anti-graft agency has arrested Mallam Dauda Lawal, the consensus governorship candidate of the […]
Continue ReadingFellow Nigerians, this is usually a festive period when most people look forward to the New Year, with high hopes and great expectations. But not anymore. I don’t know if you have noticed, wherever two or three Nigerians are gathered these days, the subject of discussion is Nigeria’s elections, especially the Presidential election, coming up […]
Continue ReadingThe National Emergency Management Agency and the Rivers state government were busy last week evacuating not fewer than a hundred people who were trapped in the rumbles of a collapsed 7-storey building in Port Harcourt. While our sympathies go to the trapped victims of the collapsed building we should call on the government and the […]
Continue Reading“Oro buruku toun terin” That Yoruba adage which, according to my sister, Molara Wood, means that the best way to temper a very serious matter is with laughter, was at play on Tuesday when the Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, received in his palace a delegation led by the European Union (EU) Ambassador to Nigeria […]
Continue ReadingI have never had the impression that the Yoruba are particularly keen in securing the occupation of the Nigerian Presidency – certainly not at the expense of returning Nigeria to the practice, in letter and spirit, of federalism-(as the Yoruba faction of the All Progressives Congress, APC, implicitly proposes). This indifference was further bolstered by […]
Continue ReadingLast week I was introduced to a young man who just “won” his party primary election and will be on the ballot in 2019, representing his constituency in the Oyo State House of Assembly on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). I was told he was given his father’s “slot”. This young man […]
Continue ReadingFor a moment, it appeared the Police had a case against Deji Adeyanju, the convener of ‘Concerned Nigerians’, who it picked up last Wednesday, just at the start of the ‘Police Not Politicians’ protest to raise public awareness of the apparent police bias for the ruling party. There were at least two reasons for this: […]
Continue ReadingThere were two young men who wanted to make it in life, Kelechukwu and Prosper. After their secondary school education, they started to look for ways to make their dreams come true. They probably did a few menial jobs, learnt a trade or attempted to learn a trade but the road to fame and wealth […]
Continue ReadingIn order to defeat terror, Nigeria needs a well thought out anti-terror plan and one thing that must be central to that plan is the buy in of the people because terror can only thrive where there is local support. Take that local support structure away and the terror architecture will collapse like a pack […]
Continue ReadingIn all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last. — Horace Walpole (1717-1797) English writer and politician. If we go by what our politicians (the major presidential candidates notably) are saying about each other this campaign season, we can’t but conclude that they are all ‘misfits’ for office in […]
Continue Reading“Ha Officer! How did Boko Haram insurgents kill, in one fell swoop, over 70 soldiers of the 157 Battalion, Metele, Borno State right in their barracks? I had thought those anarchists had long been, to borrow a presidential language, “technically defeated” since you showed them your mojo early to mid 2015. Are you allowing them […]
Continue ReadingThe 2019 Nigerian Presidential elections are just around the corner and the electorates are going to be faced with the age-old problem of electing one from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (- and I’m not providing any clues to who is who!) Whoever gets elected will face the age-old problem of tribalism, Corruption […]
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