ENGAGEMENTS BY Chidi Amuta – In an election season, the briefcases of political salesmen are full of assorted marketing pitches. Not even the most outrageous and unexpected ideas are off limits. Conflicting notions and ideas tumble and clash for headlines in a crowded and confused market place. The public is desperate...
OPINION
Across the sphere, citizens of every nation whether democratic or otherwise hunger for ‘public sphere where the issues of the public interests are appreciated as central, and openly considered, discussed or debated. On their part, the politicians and public office holders also have a great interest in how the...
After about seven years of unfulfilled change, coupled with the prevailing harsh economic situation in the country, a state of depression (or is it a recession) and heightened insecurity, If there is any account that perfectly captures the Nigerian situation under the present administration, it is no other than,...
Introduction The rule of law is defined as the mechanism, process, institution, practice, or norm that supports the equality of all citizens before the law, secures a nonarbitrary form of government, and more generally prevents the arbitrary use of power (Britannica). Two important key phrases can be surmised from...
ENGAGEMENTS BY Chidi Amuta Democracy was never intended to amuse nor was politics meant to offend. The ritual of periodic leadership renewal through elections was instead meant to be a serious business to guarantee the health of the polis. The Athenian and Roman senates were collections of people of knowledge...
Unpacking the main takeaways from President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, starts with the gain from a side event, not the 15th Conference Of Parties to the United Nations Conference on Combating Desertification, UNCCF, which was the main event, considering the significance of what the President set...
Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, has shown that he is the ultimate devil’s incarnate and that shouldn’t be of any surprise to the global community. In the last seven years, the world has been watching him with uncanny sense of pity as the master mourner each time he joins...
Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has come under heavy censure in recent weeks. Not that the multiple awards-winning central banker is new to scathing darts from critics. Indeed, he has always been pelted by outsiders, and in most cases, financial management illiterates who blame him for...
One would want to join President Muhammadu Buhari and millions of Nigerians to celebrate a rare statesman, ace legislator and three-time deputy president of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, as he turns 60. The lawyer and politician is indeed the unsung hero and scion of Nigerian democracy, who, unknown to...
Any economy that has gone down anywhere in the world was revived by lawyers. So, if you want to wake up the country, you hand it over to a lawyer. Buhari was sick for about one hundred and ten days, and he handed over this country to Osinbajo to...
What began as a warning strike on Feb. 14, 2022, by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), is today threatening the fabric of Nigeria’s education sector. ASUU’s first warning strike was for four weeks and the second strike, which began on March 15, was for another four weeks....
At the last count, the number of aspirants for the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was over 20, and this has made predictions of who would clinche the party ticket seem mostly based on calculations that are more intuitive than certain. The justle for the party...
“The security situation in the country may affect voter mobilisation, deployment of personnel and materials to different parts of the country.” – INEC Mr Festus Okoye, a National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in charge of Information and Voter Education, made the above remark in a...
If there is any conversation in recent times that must not be allowed to go with political winds, as it supports the argument that Nigeria’s present political and socioeconomic challenges were created by Nigerians, accelerated by Nigerians and can only be resolved by Nigerians, it is the recent lesson/awareness...
It is a common knowledge that this year’s World Press Freedom Day themed “Journalism under digital siege,” organized annually since 1993, was held on 2-5 May, 2022. Separate from spotlighting the multiple ways in which journalism is endangered by surveillance and digitally-mediated attacks on journalists, and the consequences of...
Mr. Ray Morphy, veteran media practitioner and former Special Adviser to Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State, on Strategy and National Contact, recently morphed into an unseemly mercenary sniper targeting Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. Indeed it is debatable how well the dubious role of an out-of-job...
Introduction The London Underground Victoria Line trains run from Walthamstow in the north of the city to Brixton in the south departing every 2 minutes at 16 stations covering 21km. That’s an average of 60 trains per hour for 19 hours daily and 24 hours during the weekends. 200...
When Robert N. Bellah, an American sociologist and the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, among other things argued that two of the most basic components of a good life are success in one’s work and the joy that comes from serving one’s community, noting...
Rather than seek election under the umbrella of the PDP in 2023, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will do well to visit the United States of America to resolve his lingering corruption allegations which have led Senator Jefferson to jail. The outcome of an investigation against him and his “former” wife...
In the words of Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States Of America (USA), the experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself—always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested in adversity.” In like manner, evidence abound,...