By MICHAEL BLANDING – When refugees seek asylum, they leave one country for another. But what happens when they don’t have a country that recognises them in the first place? That’s the problem that Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a professor of the practice at The Fletcher School, has spent nearly...
OPINION
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had to cut short his Eid-el-Kabir celebrations in Lagos as an international duty beckoned. His South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, had sent a special invitation to him to attend his inauguration, following the election and successful coalition talks that ushered Ramaphosa into office for a...
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...
“It is confirmed. She is dead.” Bukky, who directs an NGO...
With an estimated population of over 14 million people, Kano Sate is bigger than many countries in Africa such as Togo (8.4 million) Benin Republic (13.4 million), Lesotho (2.4 million) Gabon (2.4 million), among others. During electioneering campaigns, it is said that the fear of Kano is the...
The Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bala Bello, has been trending for a while. He was accused of being an ethnic bigot, a nepotist and more. For whatever reason, his traducers attributed the recent firing of some staffers of CBN to him as...
Less than a decade ago, the detention centre of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Scheveningen on the outskirts of The Hague could easily have been mistaken for a committee meeting of leaders of the African Union. One of its long-term guests was Laurent Gbagbo, a former president of...
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...
“A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be.” – Frank A. Clark. Tomorrow, Sunday, June 16, is ‘Father’s Day 2024!’ Father’s Day, which began as a largely religious observance and recognized in some way dating...
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...
PROTOCOL My great people of Benue, 2.I am excited to join you today to mark 25 years of uninterrupted civil administration in our dear country – Nigeria. 3.This day affords us the privilege not just to merely mark the passage of time, but to celebrate all our...
TEXT OF PRESIDENT BOLA TINUBU’S NATIONAL BROADCAST ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF UNBROKEN DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA, DEMOCRACY DAY 12TH JUNE 2024 ABUJA My fellow Nigerians, let me begin by congratulating all of us for witnessing the celebration of another Democracy Day today, the 12th day of June 2024....
Barring unforeseen circumstances, the 2026 Ekiti and Osun governorship elections are less than 27 and 28 months respectively. In Osun State, it is believed in the All Progressives Congress (APC) family circle that former Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s tendency worked for the then Candidate, now Governor Ademola Adeleke and the People’s...
By PAUL EJIME – Politically speaking, India is the World’s largest democracy with a voter population of 969 million from more than 1.4 billion inhabitants. It towers above South Africa, which has less than 62 million people, and about 28 million registered voters. The Asian giant is also the...
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...
“Don’t be afraid to celebrate a promise when kept. In doing so, you are embracing the potential for a better world.” – Unknown Keeping promises is one of the hallmarks of a true leader; it indicates a strong sense of responsibility, and portrays him or her as a person that can...
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...
Senegal will host a conference on Saturday, 1 June under the theme “The Alliance of Sahel States, a new platform for Senegal’s regional integration,” a development that could have potential implications on the unity and cohesion among ECOWAS member States, according to diplomatic sources. In an ironic but provocative...