News, Events, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Fashion, Beauty, Inspiration and yes… Gossip! The Only Place It Happens!
Despite recent advances in Malawi and Zambia, elective government stutters and sputters to the uncertain rhythms of pathogens and politicians across Africa. The onset of 2022 served notice that #NigeriaDecides2023 is likely to be the most complex and most watched in a brutal biennium for elective governance in the continent. In Mali and Guinea, these uncertainties have produced […]
Continue ReadingWow! The inevitable disputes aside, what an amazing presidential election we just had! Surely one of the most extraordinary in our history. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), losing at home to Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP). Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeating […]
Continue ReadingNigeria’s much anticipated presidential election has yielded an outcome, leaving behind a thick smoke trail of disquiet and global infamy. Mr. Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has since been announced winner of the February 23rd election. At home, the emotions are unevenly mixed between the minority whose partisanship has triumphed and […]
Continue ReadingIn the face of the existential challenges facing Nigeria and in the lead-up to the 2023 presidential election, three Nigerians in the Diaspora discuss the way forward for a nation in crisis. Osmund: I get a bit emotional and quite frankly frustrated, talking about the subject of restructuring Nigeria. It beggars belief that we have a […]
Continue ReadingThe Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had assured the country of its readiness to deploy the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in the build-up to last Saturday’s presidential and national assembly elections. These two technological innovations would have enhanced the transparency of their process and the integrity of outcomes. INECs inability […]
Continue ReadingThose whose understanding of Saturday’s presidential election is that the Labour Party played the “spoiler” for the Peoples Democratic Party miss the significance of the moment. As of now, the PDP is effectively dead and the LP is the new opposition party. The PDP presidential candidate might have won many votes, but they lost on […]
Continue ReadingTalking seriously, Democracy as a concept was alien to Africa, and by implication, Nigeria. Largely, right from inception, democratic norms and values were never assimilated and internalised by Africans. At best, its definition and perception were conveniently based on assumptions. So, it meant different things to different people who thought differently! Needless to repeat that […]
Continue ReadingThe best way to describe what has happened to Nigeria in the last 72 hours, beginning with the country’s first set of general elections on Saturday, February 25, 2023, is to echo Charles Dickens’ poetic, oxymoronic declaration in his novel “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859) on the radical opposites between Paris and London in […]
Continue ReadingWho registered the kids we saw in the election queues in Kano on Saturday? I watched video clips of women on lines with four, five, six-year-old kids. They were all there to cast votes. I saw, in another video, a boy – a child – who was emphatic that he was at the polling unit […]
Continue ReadingIt is the day after. Fogs are gradually clearing (or not clearing) from the face of the firmament. Though we may not see as clearly as American singer-songwriter, pop star and reggae musician, Johnny Nash, saw when he magisterially pronounced that “I can see clearly now,” we can at least see beyond the ridges of our noses. Whichever […]
Continue ReadingDear Ma, I saw your post on Facebook reaching out to 29 to 45 years old virgins and I thought to reach out to you. Although I am not in Lagos, neither am I in the age bracket, I just felt the need to get in touch with you. I live in Abuja and I […]
Continue ReadingNigerians renewed their desire for a better country yesterday when they went to the polls to elect the next president, 108 senators (no election in Enugu East because of a candidate’s death) and 360 members of the house of reps. Two weeks from now, they will elect 28 governors and 993 state lawmakers. After inauguration, […]
Continue ReadingElectoral choices in a democracy ultimately boil down to affirming one’s version of the truth that should reign in the nation. Casting one’s ballot expresses our vision of the country, individual or collective. While some people vote simply as a mundane exercise, many do so because they believe that the ballot conveys the truth of […]
Continue ReadingTomorrow is D-Day. The belly of the sky is heavy but no one knows what it will birth. The sky rumbles in labour pain. The water has broken. But no meteorologist is ready to put their certificate on the line and make a forecast. The sky booms in thunder and lightning, the wind whistles in […]
Continue ReadingThe less you say, the less risk you run of saying something foolish, even dangerous. In 1825 a new czar, Nicholas I, ascended the throne of Russia. A rebellion immediately broke out, led by liberals demanding that the country modernize—that its industries and civil structures catch up with the rest of Europe. Brutally crushing this […]
Continue ReadingIt is yet another moment of transition for Nigeria as the country goes to the polls in 4 days’ time to elect a new President and members of the National Assembly in what amounts to a seventh cycle of general elections since the country’s return to democratic, civilian rule in 1999. One President will be […]
Continue ReadingAncient Oyo people found it very convenient to follow the Alaafin to Koso (where kings are made); they balked at following the Alaafin to Bara (the king’s burial place): Kòso ló se é b’óba rè; Barà ò se é b’óba lo. Nigeria’s politicians do not lick expiring presidential palms soaked in blood; they go for […]
Continue ReadingA beleaguered Nigeria is preparing for one of the most historical presidential elections in the annals of her history. If extant quandaries from fuel scarcity, and maddening quagmires from currency swap crisis unleashed on us by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, don’t railroad […]
Continue ReadingI am calm. I am calm. It is the calm before something awful – Sylvia Plath, American poet and short story writer. Convener of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Professor Ango Abdullahi, was asked by the Sunday Tribune in an interview last week if he didn’t think the North retaining power immediately after Muhammadu Buhari […]
Continue ReadingFellow Nigerians, the moment of truth is nigh. We are at a critical moment – another opportunity to seize back the country from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its merchants of anarchy and grotesque self-entitlement. Failure to get it right for the third time in a row will cause the entrenchment of wuruwuru anda stinking culture of impunity in […]
Continue Reading