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God forgive me. When Yemen’s Houthi rebels hit two key oil installations in Saudi Arabia a couple of weeks ago, I was not sad. I read somewhere that oil could hit $100 as a result and the little rascal in me smiled. I was thinking of the extra revenue for Nigeria, the impact on our […]
Continue ReadingWhat is patriotism? The definition should be fairly straightforward: loving your country. One of my favourite all-time tunes is the 1988 song, “Nation and the People”, by The Mandators, with the refrain: “Love your country/Your nation and the people”. They sang passionately: “Some are trying to find solutions to all the problems we have/Some are […]
Continue ReadingScary. That, in one word, captures my conclusion after reading a chapter on judgment debts in Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke’s book, Burden of Service: Reminiscences of Nigeria’s Former Attorney-General, which is due for public release tomorrow. If care is not taken, judgment debts will bankrupt this country. For starters, judgment debts are court-ordered payments for […]
Continue ReadingChief Obafemi Awolowo, God rest his soul, once said: “There can never be peace in a kennel where there are three bones to four dogs.” Simple but profound analogy. At the heart of many communal tensions and conflicts — such as the latest attacks against Nigerians and other foreigners in South Africa — is the […]
Continue ReadingYou may not really know how it feels to be stigmatised as a Nigerian until you travel out of the country or have dealings with foreigners. Years ago, when I arrived at the University of Sussex, UK, for my master’s programme, I set out to fraternise with other African students. One evening, I went on […]
Continue ReadingIn February 1998, Gen Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s military head of state, sent troops to Sierra Leone to restore democracy. Major General Johnny Paul Koroma had sacked the democratically elected president, Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who fled to exile in Guinea. Thankfully, the military junta was displaced by the ECOWAS troops, led by Nigeria, and Kabbah […]
Continue ReadingYou are forgiven if you think an English high court just awarded a $9 billion fine against Nigeria in a case of breach of contract with Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID), a little-known Irish engineering and project management company. Actually, the award was made as far back as July 2015 by an arbitration panel […]
Continue ReadingThere was some tragic, tragic news on Wednesday: three police officers and a civilian were gunned down by soldiers along Ibi-Jalingo road, Taraba state. When the police started tweeting about the incident, you could feel their pain. As things unfolded, it became clear that these were not ordinary police officers: the three of them — […]
Continue ReadingTwo matters gripped me at the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneur Forum held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, recently. Both strike at the heart of the economic struggles of Nigeria, particularly our current situation. Nigeria, bombarded by youth unemployment and extreme poverty, is clearly in dire straits. The symptoms are manifest in the rising […]
Continue ReadingAnybody who is interested in studying the quality of leadership in Nigeria and why our country is perpetually stuck in underdevelopment would have learnt a great deal from the screening of ministerial nominees by the senate. I don’t know where to start from. After the reign of speculation and anxiety, President Muhammadu Buhari finally sent […]
Continue ReadingOn a visit to my mum years ago — this should be in 2009 — I saw an improvised battery-powered lamp on her table. It was mounted on a wood, probably six-inch long, with space for two AA batteries. There were several energy-saving bulbs mounted on the low-tech device. “What is this?” I asked her, […]
Continue ReadingI recollect vividly as if it happened yesterday — the day I first had a one-on-one with Mr Nduka Obaigbena, editor-in-chief and chairman of THISDAY Newspapers. I had heard so much about him, the good and the bad, and I had always been fascinated by the good. By instinct, I focus more on the positive […]
Continue ReadingI want this on record: I am opposed to the ruga racket. And my misgivings have nothing to do with the conspiracy theories on Islamisation and Fulanisation. I call it a “racket” because that is exactly what it is. I don’t understand the indecent haste by civil servants in the ministry of agriculture and rural […]
Continue ReadingIf you were born in the early 1980s, it is safe to conclude that since the day you started brushing your teeth by yourself, you have only known a conflict-prone Nigeria. You are almost 40 years old now and the headlines you’ve been reading all your life are killings, kidnappings and bombings. You’ve never known […]
Continue ReadingBy their PRO you shall know them. Sometime in February this year, I got a distress call from a friend’s wife in the UK. She said there was a spelling error in her new Nigerian passport which she needed to correct urgently because of some critical deadline she had to meet. She had gone to […]
Continue ReadingWhere were you on June 12, 1993? I was in Ilorin, Kwara state, enjoying the weekend with my cousins. I could not vote because I registered in Lagos. If I had voted, I would have thumb-printed the space for the Social Democratic Party (SDP) whose presidential flag bearer was Chief MKO Abiola. I had been […]
Continue ReadingIt started like a little rumour weeks ago that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) was planning to descend on the African Independent Television (AIT) and Raypower FM, owned by Daar Communications Plc, for allegedly violating the broadcasting code. Its founder, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, is a prominent member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the major […]
Continue ReadingYour Excellency, I want to seize this opportunity to wish you the best of the Ramadan season as you prepare to be inaugurated for your second term in office. May the lessons of Ramadan — especially the aspects of sacrifice and service to God and humankind — guide your next steps as the leader of […]
Continue ReadingI always hesitate to use the “R” word because I don’t understand how it really works, but a lot of Nigerians have been talking about “revolution” for a while. They say Nigeria will experience a revolution at a point in time, given the way the society has been going: the rich getting richer, the poor […]
Continue ReadingEleven years ago — to be specific, on July 7, 2008 — the title of my column was: “One Day, the People Will Rebel”. I warned that the extravagant lifestyles of our elite in the face of crippling poverty in the country would come back to bite all of us one day. At the time, […]
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