Nigeria’s political landscape never ceases to astonish and amaze. In addition to our habitually surprising electoral outcomes, our politicians are dramatists of immense creativity. They have an uncanny ability to literally convert things into their opposities and still retain public attention and ignite curiosity and sustain interest. They have...
CHIDI AMUTA On Sunday
The Nigerian political opposition is scoring desired attention from the Tinubu’s disappearing antics. In apparent response to the growing outcry of opposition voices and the enlightened citizenry about the President’s prolonged absence in a bad time, the Presidency has just issued a second statement explaining and justifying Tinubu’s mysterious...
For the better part of the last decade and half, Nigeria’s national security status has come to be measured by human casualties. Hardly any day passes without the news headlines featuring stories of gory mass murders and senseless killings. When such news breaks, the question is usually about the...
In recent weeks, we seem to have been wrestling with the very idea of democracy. After all, our political system has passed through the Westminster parliamentary system and over three decades of the Washington type presidential system. There is a prolonged assumption that we are indeed a thriving democracy...
*Adapted and excerpted from a Keynote Address at the 2025 Abia Think Tank Annual Lecture at the Lagos Country Club, Ikeja, on 1st March. Born in a dictatorship and nurtured under a fledgling but untidy democracy, Abia state has had a tortuous encounter with statehood. Its citizens have hardly found...
A giant question mark seems to hang over the Nigerian political landscape. Everybody seems to be asking everyone else this single question: What is going on? Suddenly, all seems quiet and clueless from the choir of government. The affairs of state seem frozen into a humdrum of routine and...
Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo has urged the South East Development Commission (SEDC) to concentrate on one agenda or project at a time to achieve meaningful impact. Soludo made the call when he received the newly appointed members of SEDC, led by the Chief Executive Officer, Dr Emeka Nworgu,...
Even after three decades of his untidy retreat to his Minna hometown, Babangida never forget the ‘public’ debts he owed to Nigerians. He owed Nigerian history an expose on his turbulent leadership . He owed the Nigerian populace an insight into his personal enigma and enduring charisma. He also...
Barely mid way into his four-year tenure, President Tinubu has scored a contradictory political victory. He has succeeded in getting the political barometer of the nation to swing towards preparations for 2027 instead of pressuring him to deliver on the promises he and his party made in 2023. In...
An unwritten paradox has defined the United States up to this moment. It is the only country loved by most of those who have never set foot on its soil. It is also the one nation most despised by many who have not visited it. Loved and hated in...
Almost mid way into the Tinubu presidency, the face of the 2027 opposition to his perpetuation is on display. An untidy opposition is nearly on full display but in a perpetual stampede. Key opposition figures are lashing out at surrogates of the ruling party from different angles in a...
The Nigerian stock market maintained its upward momentum on Thursday, driven by the listing of 19.803 billion ordinary shares of FCMB Plc at 50k per share. This contributed an additional N347 billion gains to the market capitalisation at the close of the session. Notably, the market capitalisation, which opened...
Barely one week into his refurbished presidential tenure, America’s Donald Trump seems poised to set new precedents in the model of the Presidency as the pinnacle of America’s democracy. An elected president of a republic is strutting and pronouncing like an emperor. Ordinarily, an American king would be a...
Our presidential political calendar indicates May 2025 as the mid-term of the current presidential tenure. Every May 29th is some form of birthday for our democracy. Next May is mid-term. Mid-term is wake up time, a rude reminder that time is ticking and that what began as a ceremony of...
The “Jaguda” is a sort of rough -hewn familiar type in Nigerian urban street parlance. He is a general communal presence in such urban neighbourhoods, an outlaw that is often tolerated for his use value in times of trouble. He is a thug owned by the community in case...
Frances’s major military base in Cote d’Ivoire is billed to close down at the end of this month. The long -standing base, Port Bouet, is to be rid of its French troop occupants and is to be renamed General Quattara Thomas d’Aquinn base after an indigenous military figure. No...
The same old “Jingle bells! Jingle bells!! Jingle all the way!!!” is again uniting Christians and non-Christians in the ancient ritual of Christmas. Ordinarily, Christmas has become synonymous with happiness and family reunion. Kith and kin come together. Food and drinks flow in households and the grueling grind of...
President Tinubu may have stumbled on a sustaining logic and viable mission for his political future. Prior to last fortnight, I was among those who were doubting what narrative or political argument could sustain Mr. Tinubu’s interest in a 2027 run. Now, there seems to be something in the...
Of all the ills that afflict a democracy, a stubborn virus in the party system is the most lethal. Where politicians treat the party system as their exclusive preserve, to do as they wish, it is hard for the system to self- correct let alone see that there is...
There is a shrinking feeling about it all. With each off -season election that is conducted and results announced, we feel smaller and more unfree as a polity. Our elections bring about more insecurity; unpopular electoral outcomes require goons and thugs to protect illicit incumbents. And of course a...