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Dr Obadiah Mailafia, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), shook the airwaves recently when he told a radio station that a northern governor is the commander of Boko Haram. He also said the terrorists were flying freely during the coronavirus lockdown. “We have met with some of their high commanders, […]
Continue ReadingWhen Shoprite owners announced that they were selling their stake in the Nigerian market, many of us were baffled. Initially misunderstood to mean the South African food retailer was going to close its stores in the country, the development was clarified as a case of investors opting to sell the business to Nigerians in a […]
Continue ReadingMallam Mamman Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s confidant, is someone who speaks just once in a blue moon. He hardly grants media interviews or appears at public events. Only a few Nigerians can point him out in a crowd. A Google image search will return less than a dozen pictures of him. For a man who […]
Continue ReadingWhy is Nigeria like this? Don’t look too far: the answers are well articulated in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) saga. I would say NDDC is a microcosm of Nigeria. If you understand the genesis of NDDC, as well as the latest revelations, you do not need to stretch too much to understand why […]
Continue ReadingDear President Muhammadu Buhari, I come to you in peace. Nevertheless, I do not have a nicer way of putting this to you: your government is falling apart. I do not know how to make it sound less brutal. That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — at least judging […]
Continue ReadingOn Friday, President Muhammadu Buhari discharged the ritual of signing the revised budget into law. That, we know, is the easiest part of the job. The projected expenditure for 2020 is now N10.8 trillion — curiously more than the N10.5 trillion that Buhari originally signed in December 2019 when the world was still a better […]
Continue ReadingWhether we like it or not, the issue of electricity tariff is a touchy one. In the power sector reform, we are always talking about power generation, transmission and distribution. We are always talking about how many megawatts we are producing or want to produce. We have also regularly discussed the cost of gas and […]
Continue ReadingIn 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo came up with Vision 20:2020 — an audacious dream to make Nigeria one of the 20 biggest economies in the world by 2020. There were plenty projections that were supposed to combine to make Nigeria attain the goal, but the one that always catches my fancy was that we would […]
Continue ReadingThe National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the federal agency that regulates — and strangulates — the broadcast industry in Nigeria, always gets away with murder. If you ask me its major contribution to the development of broadcasting in the 21 years of our democracy, I can only remember the frequent imposition of sanctions on broadcast stations […]
Continue ReadingOur paths crossed in 2014. I was about to set up TheCable online newspaper. The biggest challenge was getting a good editor to take charge. Having practised journalism for over two decades, I wanted to take the back seat and concentrate my energies on other businesses. But unable to get a suitable candidate, I began […]
Continue ReadingHow time flies. When Major Abubakar Umar was appointed military governor of Kaduna state by Gen Ibrahim Babangida in 1985, he was just approaching his 36th birthday. He was fresh-faced and handsome, with the trademark well-arranged moustache — the trend at the time. Beyond his looks, Umar came across as a progressive, one who cared […]
Continue ReadingThere are many things that make you sad, even angry, about Nigeria. Recently, the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) asked SMEs to pay N120,000 each for “compulsory fumigation” before they would be allowed to re-open after the COVID-19 lockdown. Look at it again: these businesses had not operated for months, had probably sacked thousands of […]
Continue ReadingIn the 1960s, when Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari was an A Level student at the King’s College, Lagos, the Yoruba students always had a good laugh anytime his surname was publicly announced. They could not figure out how anybody on earth could be named “Gambari”. In much of Yorubaland, “Gambari” is a pejorative name for […]
Continue ReadingYour Excellency, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, you would recall that when the coronavirus pandemic began to take its toll on the Nigerian economy, President Muhammadu Buhari set up the Economic Sustainability Committee (ESC) and made you the chairman. Your brief, according to media reports, is to help work out […]
Continue ReadingSometime in 2019, I got a text message from Mallam Abba Kyari, the late chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, who was on a visit to the UK. It was very short: “Simon, I’ll be in London this afternoon. If you have the time, let’s catch up over coffee.” Why not? There were plenty […]
Continue ReadingPerhaps the biggest COVID-19 debate in Nigeria today is: should the lockdown be lifted? Residents of Lagos state and the federal capital territory (FCT) have been under a lockdown since March 30. The aim is to slow the spread of the virus by limiting public interactions. It was also to allow those who had contracted […]
Continue ReadingOn January 18, 2020, when I first read of the new coronavirus on the BBC website, my heart missed a beat because of what China means to the world. The headline was: “New virus in China ‘will have infected hundreds’.” And these were the opening paragraphs: “The number of people already infected by the mystery […]
Continue ReadingIn case you are just tuning in, let me keep you up to speed. They say fifth generation of wireless communication technology, known as 5G, was launched in China in November 2019 to weaken our immune system and infect us with the coronavirus. They say Bill Gates, the Antichrist, will then plant chips in our […]
Continue ReadingThis is one of the most profound statements about the human race you will ever come across: “We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us and wealth classified us.” I don’t know the author (I’ve seen it attributed to Susan Boerner, the American artist) but I know one thing: […]
Continue ReadingThe dethronement of His Highness Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II as the emir of Kano did not catch some of us by surprise: it was long in the making. All you need to do is google his public statements in the last four years, either when he was commenting on President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic policies or […]
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