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After nearly 70 years of agitation, Nigeria finally looks set to establish state police. That is, every state will have its own police force. On Thursday, House of Assembly speakers in the 36 states of the federation announced their support for the proposal. That means we should expect state legislators to endorse an amendment when […]
Continue ReadingI was filled with regrets after watching a documentary by the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) titled ‘Fuel Subsidy: Lifting a Nation’s Burden’. I started ruminating over what might have been. In the opening, Dame Winifred Akpani, founder and CEO of NorthWest Petroleum and Gas Company, reminds us of how fuel […]
Continue ReadingThere’s a new trend in our land which many are complaining about but which I doubt they are doing much to address. It is the use of the Cybercrimes Act to file criminal charges for alleged defamation where the civil laws should ordinarily suffice. First, what is defamation of character? I will adopt this definition […]
Continue ReadingTwo weeks ago, armed men invaded the Lagos home of Mr Segun Olatunji, editor of FirstNews, grabbed him, loaded him onto a vehicle and sped off. There was no warrant of arrest, as you would expect in a democracy, or a word to his family on what his offence was. There was no information on […]
Continue ReadingCount it all joy, dear readers, if I am summoned by Nigerian legislators after the publication of this article, for it is most likely I will be invited only once, tongue-lashed, and asked to remove my shoes and frog-jump back to my house. For heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), they cannot be that […]
Continue ReadingFor decades, the Nigerian government has regularly rolled out obnoxious policies to make life difficult for individuals and businesses. The expatriates employment levy (EEL) must rank among the top five. It is as silly as silly gets. Although it has now been suspended by the same Bola Tinubu administration that launched the ghastly policy, it […]
Continue ReadingThree weeks ago, maybe even four, I got a message from my mobile phone company asking me to re-register my line and link it to the national identification number, aka NIN, else I would be barred. I murmured to myself: “Here we go again!” How many times will I link my line to NIN? I […]
Continue ReadingIt is in order to say President Bola Tinubu is actually showing some balls with many decisions he has taken since he assumed power, although the jury is still out on the reforms. Last Monday, he “ordered” (we Nigerian journalists are madly in love with that word, aren’t we?) the implementation of the Oronsaye Report. […]
Continue ReadingOn Wednesday, Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa of the federal high court, Lagos, ordered federal government to fix the prices of milk, flour, salt, sugar, bicycles, motorcycles, motor vehicles, and their spare parts. This looks like a judicial attempt to address the biting inflation and the harsh economic climate caused in the main by naira devaluation. My […]
Continue ReadingPolitics has probably one million definitions but, for the purpose of this article, I mean the art of winning, keeping or jostling for state power. There is nothing wrong with politics, even though the conduct of many politicians tends to give it a bad name and you always hear a lot of decent people vowing […]
Continue ReadingNigeria is the world’s poverty capital. Most Nigerians live on less than $2 a day. Nigeria’s economy is powered by only 4,000MW of power. Even Republic of Benin has better road infrastructure than Nigeria. Over 70 percent of Nigerians are unemployed. Nigeria has a housing deficit of 28 million. Some 16 million Nigerian children are […]
Continue ReadingLet me guess: because there was a widespread belief that President Bola Tinubu would run a corrupt, laissez-faire administration, some of his appointees decided to hit the ground running by spending public funds with impunity and audacity — and gleefully spitting on due process. There is corruption and there is impunity. And then, there is […]
Continue ReadingOn the day Nigeria played Italy at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, I was inside a public bus. When I left our office in Ajao Estate, Lagos state, for a Bible study meeting in my church at Surulere, the Super Eagles were leading 1-0 via an early goal by Emmanuel Amuneke […]
Continue ReadingAs 2023 comes to an end today, I promise you that some of the stranger-than-fiction events that shaped the year will not fade away with it. Some will be etched in our memories forever. As a custom in Nigeria, general election years are always filled with doomsday predictions and expectations. “This is the year that […]
Continue ReadingSomeone recently said on social media, and I agree in toto, that the exchange rate has the biggest impact on the costs of goods and services in Nigeria — far more than the price of petrol. I somehow never dwelt on this fact, even though it is bleeding obvious that movements in exchange rates have […]
Continue ReadingThree things are certain in life: death, taxes and face-offs between godfathers and godsons in Nigerian politics. The open war between Chief Nyesom Wike, former governor of Rivers state, and Mr Siminalayi Fubara, whom he handpicked as his successor, is the latest in the catalogue of godfathers vs godsons which, I reckon, is as old […]
Continue ReadingPlus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Pardon my French. I was saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” When the All Progressives Congress (APC) wowed Nigerians with the slogan of “change” ahead of the 2015 elections, I was as sceptical as I could be, knowing well that it was […]
Continue ReadingLet me say I took former President Olusegun Obasanjo lightly when he told me that “liberal democracy is not working in Africa” in an interview a while ago. I did not read much into it. I even thought he was still recovering from what hit him in the presidential election (won by his old enemy) […]
Continue ReadingAs I was saying, the 2023 presidential election was won and lost fundamentally because of the fractured opposition, even though you are free to add one million other reasons to that. Confronting a monster like the All Progressives Congress (APC) was already an uphill battle for a united Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the biggest opposition […]
Continue ReadingLong ago, I read the story of a young boy whose mum gave two 10 kobo coins on a Sunday morning. “This 10 kobo is for offering. The other one is for sweets after service,” the mum instructed him. The boy kept the coins in his breast pocket. On his way to church, one of […]
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