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It is now a platitude to argue that Nigeria is lurching and gyrating in a debilitating state of anomie, of systemic crisis. The significance of this identification is that the numerous challenges we grapple with on a daily basis have increasingly become unamenable to an item by item resolution. Once validly identified as one, a […]
Continue ReadingAt the All Progressives Congress (APC) party membership registration exercise in Katsina a week ago, the president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari spoke thus: “The problem is that I will like especially the elite to please be reflective. When we came, where we were, the resources available from them and the condition of the infrastructure,” Buhari […]
Continue ReadingCritics of the 1999 transition to civil democratic rule programme make the pertinent point that it amounted to walking blindfolded into the fourth republic because the rules of engagement (constitution) were not made manifest prior to the swearing in of elected officers. This non sequitur, putting the cart before the horse, stemmed from the choice […]
Continue Reading“Every honest Nigerian knows that there is no way any non-northern Muslim President could have done a fraction of what President Buhari has done by his nepotism and got away with it. There would have been a military coup a long time ago or we would have been at war. The president may have concluded […]
Continue ReadingIt is a platitude to characterise the year 2020 as significantly abnormal. In this characterisation, Nigeria and the United States of America are in a class by themselves. For the latter, keeping bad company is the exception but it is mostly the rule for the former. This is the difference that one individual can make […]
Continue ReadingPastor Tunde Bakare is in a near impossible situation-that of balancing his personal relationship with Major General Muhammadu Buhari with the obligation of his bully pulpit as a liberation theologian and social critic. He was caught in the Buhari web when their paths crossed in the 2011 presidential election where he paired with then candidate […]
Continue ReadingCaveat emptor: No arguments and positions canvassed hereunder should be construed as preference for any other option than the expeditious return to true federalism going forward “The proposition for an Igbo president is likely to be the most consequential subject in the 2023 election year. If it comes about, there will be consequences for Nigeria […]
Continue ReadingThis season, I mean the Covid-19 pandemic season, has been emotionally draining for me, as it is probably the case with many others. I started out trivialising its onset and laughed at the Asians who, before any other demographic, cultivated the culture of wearing masks in the city of Oxford. Considering the headstart of China […]
Continue Reading“The situation was fast degenerating into anarchy. It was at this point that LASG (Lagos State governor) requested for the military to intervene in order to restore normalcy” – The Nigerian Army “The army does not report to me, I have reported the matter to the highest command in the military. It’s not something we […]
Continue ReadingSeveral weeks ago, I anticipated the concerns of Pastor Enoch Adeboye with this conclusion: “I have decided to broach the advocacy of restructuring this time around on account of the apparent foreclosure of any meaningful constitutional review by the status quo powers and the increasing perception of such foreclosure as the abrogation of the middle […]
Continue ReadingFifty years ago in January 1970, the victorious commander of the conquering Nigerian Army, Major General Yakubu Gowon, pronounced the outcome of the civil war as that of “no victor, no vanquished”. Such generosity of spirit was consistent with the jolly good fellow visage of the youthful Gowon and it rightly earned him accolades across […]
Continue ReadingIf morning shows the day, Professor Auwalu Yadudu, a former legal counsellor to the late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, cannot be a credible character witness for constitutional rectitude in Nigeria. And he knows this, hence his recent sly self-distancing from the Abacha heritage. Before the cock crows, Jesus told Peter, you would […]
Continue ReadingQuite frankly the bad news is not that my good brother and friend, Obadiah Mailafia has been invited by the security services, it is the plausibility of the allegations that he made and the indications for Nigeria that worry me. Before him, there was the precedent of the ultimate insiders, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and […]
Continue ReadingIn discussing the theory and practice of corruption in Nigeria, Godswill Akpabio is a compelling subject. He has enjoyed this dubious distinction since his days as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State. Per capita, Akwa Ibom is about the richest state in Nigeria and the tendency in Nigeria is that the bigger the state treasury, […]
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 ReadingBetween Otto Van Bismarck and Claud Cockburn, one must have plagiarised the other. The remarkable wit, “never believe anything until it is officially denied” is attributed to both of them. In an extraordinary development a week ago, the Nigerian Presidency, whose most compelling trademark is lethargy, caught us all off guard with a peculiar swift […]
Continue Reading“One of the swiftest ways of destroying a kingdom is to give preference of one particular tribe over another or show favour to one group of people rather than another. And to draw near those who should be kept away and keep away those who should be drawn near,” Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio. As a […]
Continue Reading“Jonathan built 125 almajiri schools, with boarding facilities, libraries, sports arenas, free tuition, free school uniforms and casual wears. This was simply to give life meaning to these kids deliberately neglected by their parents and society. Sadly, Buhari’s first assignment in week-one in office was to cancel this development that incorporated Islamic and modern Western […]
Continue Reading“In spite of our age difference, he encouraged me to call him by his first name Abba, but I always preferred Mallam Abba. Forget what anyone might tell you, Mallam Abba was a decent, humble and simple gentleman who delighted himself with intellectual and higher pursuits. He was cerebral. He was a technocrat, a workhorse […]
Continue ReadingFirst, my sympathies to the peoples of the Niger Delta.They are, in a manner of speaking, a tragic micro victim of a macro Nigeria victim. Alongside lumbering Nigeria, they must be contemplating life after oil – with the terminal lifespan of the oil industry in active and acute contemplation. After enduring a lifelong gratification of […]
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