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A week ago, Mr Femi Falana, the human rights lawyer, raised the alarm that the Nigerian Navy had been holding 15 Nigerian citizens captive without trial since September 2018. Worse still, one of them got a court order to be released from illegal detention but the naval authorities have ignored it — which, to be […]
Continue ReadingLast night, the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc held its 2019 CEO Awards Ceremony, to which I was invited. This year, the bank is celebrating its 70th anniversary — having been established as the French & British Bank Limited (B&FB) in 1949. It took the name “United Bank for Africa” in 1961 following its […]
Continue ReadingIn July 2005, aboard an Egypt Air flight from Cairo to Lagos, a number of Nigerians spent hours discussing the state of the nation. We were from different parts of the country and different religions. We discussed virtually every topic — from the horrible roads to the unending importation of petroleum products, from the inhospitable […]
Continue ReadingWe marked the World Water Day on March 22 with a damning statistic: over 60 million Nigerians do not have access to safe drinking water. In simpler English, they get their water from unhealthy sources, such as streams and ponds. I will deliberately leave out the stinking statistics on the 47 million still practising open […]
Continue ReadingAn interesting and recurring debate in our democratic experience of the last 20 years has been: how can we wage the anti-corruption war without the suspicion of selective justice and political vendetta? Justice Walter Onnoghen, the embattled chief justice of Nigeria, has just fallen on his sword after three months of intense controversy over alleged […]
Continue ReadingWith the exception of Rivers state — where former friends are at war — governorship elections have been concluded across Nigeria on the not-so-unfamiliar note: the good, the bad and the ugly. As typical of Nigerian politicians, if they win, “the election was free and fair”; if they lose, “the election was rigged”. No politician […]
Continue ReadingIn case you missed it, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), an advocacy group, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint Muslim ministers from five south-west states when he constitutes his cabinet for his second term. Why? The group says because five of the south-west governors would be Christians, that is the way to go — […]
Continue ReadingLet us perform an experiment. Let us make a Super Law that says if you are an elected public officer at any level of government, you must enrol all your children in public schools. You cannot send your children to private or foreign schools. If they are already in private or foreign schools, you must […]
Continue ReadingSince I have been old enough to follow presidential elections in Nigeria, I have to admit that I have never experienced the kind of gloomy mood that hit some sections of the country after the declaration of Presidential Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the February 23 poll. In the past, there would be spontaneous […]
Continue ReadingThe conduct of the 2019 general election has, expectedly, become the subject of heated discussions and debates everywhere — offices, schools, homes, newspaper vendor stands and social media. Predictably, supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari are satisfied with the outcome which favoured their candidate, while those in the corner of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the flag bearer […]
Continue ReadingIf you ask me, I would say there are three critical stages of elections in Nigeria — and each is potentially explosive. The first is pre-election, where campaign rhetoric is usually a major trigger for tension. There could be episodes of violence, although they are not usually widespread. The second is the election day. It […]
Continue ReadingWhen your wife is pregnant and gives birth at the end of nine months, you cannot claim you were caught unawares and so you couldn’t buy items for baby delivery ahead of time. Since 2015, we had known that we were going to hold another general election in 2019. It is every four years. It […]
Continue ReadingIn 2010, when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan assumed office following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, he promised us electoral reform. He launched a campaign on “one man, one vote; one woman, one vote; one youth, one vote”. He started to speak about “credible elections”, staring our vocabulary away from “free and fair elections”. This […]
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