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You 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, […]
Continue ReadingA 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 […]
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