In 1989, the call of duty and pull of family necessitated that I travel from my London partial base to New York. I was checked in on a British Airways flight from London to New York. We were set to leave Heathrow shortly after the usual...
COLUMNIST
It’s surprising to note that open grazing is not practiced in any of the top twenty countries in the world that breed cow or export beef. Equally surprising is that Nigeria is also not one of these top twenty nations that export cow meat or breed cows. However,...
On the June 12 Democracy Day event on The Platform, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the governor of Anambra State, gave a masterful speech. It was about how democracy could have helped development in Nigeria if things had been better managed in the past decade. After 25 years of continuous...
Nigerian politicians have perfected the art of reducing almost everything to situational comedy. They just put us through a fortnight of celebrations on the altar of democracy. That is about the only word that unites them in their diversity of costumes and intentions. It was a...
The quantum of reservations and growing public disapproval of the Tinubu government has little or nothing to do with ideology. I am pretty sure that if anyone ever accuses Mr. Tinubu of being anything resembling ideological, he could draw a pistol. Yet his unrelenting dismal job approval...
One is reminded of carved-up Christmas turkeys when considering Nigeria and how both foreigners and its citizens plunder its resources. An Igbo proverb that refers to the guidelines for cultivating newly discovered farmland that belongs to no one in the community is “Okata okolu” (farm as you may)....
It was like a joke at first. Nigeria’s national anthem was being reversed to the previous one by a law passed by the National Assembly. The president is believed to be the inspiration for this somewhat pointless action taken by the national parliament, the logic for which has...
It was barely weeks ago when Professor Chukwuma Soludo’s term as Anambra State’s governor turned two. The government listed 100 noteworthy accomplishments that cut across all areas of growth, sound governance, and the provision of democratic dividends when it was celebrated on March 17 in Awka. No aspect...
A carefully choreographed political diversion has just carried the day. In the absence of any tangible results for his first year in office, Mr. Tinubu’s fertile political imagination came up with a potent diversion. A quick ruse of reverting to the old national anthem was the hit...
There is a sense in which both Nigerians and Mr. Tinubu share a place in purgatory in the last one year. Both leader and people are dwelling a house of incendiary troubles in waiting for admission into either hell or heaven. To that extent, we all have been...
The drama of political bad manners in Rivers State is about to enter the ‘last corner’. Incumbent governor Mr. Siminalayi Fubara has dealt a survival kick after being pushed to the wall for most of his one year tenure. In quick succession, he has turned the table...
Putin is nearby. Precisely, Russia’s ambitious global influencer of illiberal order has docked next door. In Niger Republic to be exact. At the end of April, the military junta in Niger kicked out the American military advisers and tiny troop contingent from their country. Earlier, they had forced...
In the vast expanse of the digital realm, Google looms large, an omnipresent force shaping the way we navigate, search, and conduct business online. From its humble beginnings as a search engine to its current status as a multifaceted tech behemoth, Google has entrenched itself deeply into the...
On many fronts, America is showcasing the many burdens and benefits of democracy. Most Washington politicians are united in their support for Israel. But out on the streets, many Americans are opposed to Israel’s raging genocidal onslaught on Gaza and other Palestinian enclaves. While Congress had little trouble...
Money is perhaps a homeless vagrant. It has no nationality or permanent homestead in real terms. It goes and stays only where its masters are wise, prudent and far sighted. But in a world dominated by nations and their interests, real money is first a national...
On the technical matters of electricity supply and consumption rates, I am just a layman. I fare even worse when it comes to engaging professional technocrats and technicians on the arithmetic of pricing public goods and services. On goods that ought to be available to all...
Within the diverse pantheon of African rulership, something curious is emerging. In many ways, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is fast emerging as a model of the transformation of democracy into authoritarianism in Africa. While Museveni has retained his nationalist streak in the fight against the global...
Nigeria’s endemic insecurity took a different turn last week. Sixteen active duty soldiers were ambushed and killed by presumed youth militants in the Okuama area of Delta State. Not only were the soldiers killed, their remains were reportedly treated with barbaric disrespect and indignity. The most significant...
Nigeria’s now perennial insecurity has been damaged by political laziness. Every two- penny politician has developed a habit of weaponizing insecurity as political language. In the process, very little effort or rigour is devoted to the reality of what we are dealing with. Even those who are paid...
Among the pantheon of today’s political godlings, perhaps Senate President Mr. Godswill Akpabio is the epitome of the spirit of the times. An embodiment of power and delusion, Akpabio’s pronouncements on the state of the nation resonate with echoes of emptiness and grand hallucinations. The impression is...