Two and a half months from a general election, political surrogates have become Nigeria’s hommes du jour. These are people trusted to represent or advocate the positions and platforms of principals running for office. They inhabit many spaces and perform in many theatres. Political surrogates are not supposed to...
COLUMNIST
There is a difference between defending a government and showing that the government has done what it claims. There is also a difference between holding a public official accountable and hating him. Suleman Abubakar’s response to my commentaries on the perennial flooding of Benin City blurs those distinctions, turning...
Politics in a democracy is essentially a talkative business. The quest for power requires an unusual gift of the garb. Those who seek a life of dignified quiet had better find another occupation. In other words, a politician is a salesman that finds a merchandise everywhere there are people....
President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Yusuf Bichi, the immediate past Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), as Chairman of the Governing Board of the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS), Lower Usuma Dam, Abuja. Bichi’s appointment was approved by President Tinubu based on the...
A government that asks its citizens to endure the pain of economic reform must demonstrate a corresponding willingness to examine the cost of governing them. Sacrifice becomes difficult to defend when households are compelled to adjust while the machinery of the state appears exempt from the same discipline. This...
The dramatic tradition of present day Nigerian politicians is to be located in the murky zone of tragi -comedy, farce and cruel irony. Because we are dealing with the erosion of a whole national ethos, even those tempted to laugh at our political comedy end up weeping for Nigeria...
Since 2011 when the administration of Governor Adams Oshiomhole embarked on the bold effort to curtail the perennial flooding in Benin metropolis through the Benin City Stormwater Project, it has continued to generate controversy. Whereas the motivation behind the project derived from the single request made to Oshiomhole by...
Nothing indicates that the 2027 general elections is barely 90 days away. Both the ruling APC and its major opponents seem stuck in an ideas quagmire. The only central national issue seems to be the the prices of petroleum products. It is all about the removal of petroleum subsidy...
Flooding in Benin City is an existential, perennial problem. It does not discriminate. It ravages every nook and cranny of the state capital whenever there is a downpour. A colleague who works in Benin lamented last week that flood has taken over even the Government Reserved Area, GRA, where...
President Tinubu delivered a mostly predictable Independence Day address to the nation. In one respect, the speech was somewhat different. It sang about the new statistics of economic recovery that Western media and domestic economics elite have recently been rehashing. The external reserve has climbed to the neighbourhood of...
Joseph Tegbe arrived at the Ministry of Power with an unusual combination of credentials. A first-class degree in civil engineering. More than three decades in consulting and public-sector reform. A professional life spent largely in finance, taxation, institutional transformation and advisory services. That makes for an impressive CV. It...
In support of the Federal Government’s quest for affordable house rent for workers There is perhaps no more revealing measure of the health of a society than the answer to a simple question: Can a man who works honestly afford to put a roof over the heads of his...
Nigeria’s democracy and its federalist architecture face two critical challenges. First is how to elect governors that are sufficiently literate and enlightened to understand the rudiments and responsibilities of governance. The second and perhaps more important challenge is how to get state governors to understand that democracy is only...
It is perhaps the most cursed portfolio in the Nigerian cabinet: Minister of Power. From Chief Bola Ige who famously promised to fix power in six months and could not, through the $16 billion power probe under President Olusegun Obasanjo that fixed nothing, to Adebayo Adelabu who in 2024...
There are moments in the life of a nation when an economic policy ceases to be a matter for government papers, economists and policy conferences and becomes painfully personal. For millions of Nigerians, the removal of fuel subsidy is one such moment. It is no longer merely about what...
Chidi Amuta In Nigeria today, the market of memoirs is now a field jammed with a buffet of titles by political mammals. And politicians in these parts have a penchant for poisoning most things they come into contact with. Anything hugged by Nigerian politics never remains the same. It...
By Sufuyan Ojeifo When Benue decided to go back to the altar for a governor, it was not out of lack of politicians. It was out of fatigue with politicians. The choice of Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia in 2023 was both redeeming and redemptive. It was redemptive for a...
Sometimes, a controversy that appears to be about one thing is really about something else. Former Anambra State governor and 2027 presidential candidate of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, may have set out for Benue last week with the relatively simple intention of commiserating with victims of...
In the stormy wellspring of a torrential national discourse, something useful has emerged. Suddenly, the written word as the expression of national memory has emerged in a flurry of memoirs. We are in the season of memoirs and recollections. Selective remembering in writing has since emerged as a distinctive...
Campaigns for the 2027 general elections are off to a predictably shameful start. Those who expected novelty are in shock. Others who expected depth of insight may yet embrace disappointment. The lead contestants for the office of president are already sounding like cracked vinyl records in an annoying echo...