Twelve years after Mambilla was supposed to have been completed with all its transformative promises in power, rail, roads, infrastructure, and jobs (not to mention the missing N30 billion Obasanjo left in the project account), we’re still in a rut, stewing deeper and deeper in the misery of rolling blackouts and collapsing grids
Nigeria: Three Stories, One Message Read More »
I wouldn’t write off the government, however tempting. If Tinubu’s shock therapy has been disjointed, and his economic policies severely criticised by a despairing public, the tax-and-spend remedy by The Financial Times, the West’s standard response to budget deficits – apart from the added trope about transparency and corruption – is hardly the cure in Nigeria’s case for at least two reasons
Does it Still Make Sense to Trust Tinubu? Read More »
Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy and its most populous, has offered a muted, somewhat confused response to the Israeli-Hamas war. The official line, worn for use after decades of lip service and repeated at this year’s UNGA, is a two-state solution. That’s also the official position of the African Union (AU). However, the precarious, almost 50-50 Muslim-Christian population leaves the Nigerian government walking on eggshells in Israeli-Palestinian matters
How Africa is Paying for Pursuit of the Last Hamas Read More »
Many [such] newspapers are harmless because they do not know how or when to strike. They are in themselves unloaded guns. But teach the man behind them how to load and what to shoot at; they become deadly
LEADERSHIP: A Story Still Telling 20 Years After Read More »
In case you missed it, Senator Babafemi Ojudu shared a viral message last week: Asue Ighodalo was a member of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu transition committee after he was elected Lagos State governor in 1999. In another life, Ighodalo, a dyed-in-the-wool Lagos Boy, might have been on Tinubu’s side, as Obaseki once was. What politics can not divide does not exist
Home Run for Oshiomhole Read More »
I guess that Obaseki’s style – not to mention his take-no-prisoner politics, a bad habit he may have inherited from his estranged promoter, Oshiomhole – may have further alienated him and reduced the chances of his candidate, Ighodalo, making significant inroads in the North. Prominent people in PDP who sheltered Obaseki from vagrancy in 2020 against whom he turned his back are waiting to take revenge. Will it be the triumph or perhaps the redemption of the product vendor? Will President Bola Ahmed Tinubu get his vindication four years after Obaseki’s campaign mocked him with, “Edo no bi Lagos?” Or will this be Obaseki’s chance to affirm himself as the new political force in Edo and shut down the production factory of the decorated lousy product vendor once and for all?
Edo Polls and the Famous Product Vendor Read More »
It’s not the business of police officers, the state security service or special advisers to run the government. That’s not their job. They cannot abridge the people’s freedoms in a quest for ascendancy. Those who breach the law in exercising their liberty should not face the justice that reminds us of Hopkins’ England but a process consistent with modern progressive society, one that Tinubu was voted to uphold.
Ghost of the Witchfinder General Read More »
I didn’t plan to go there. And as if to validate my lethargy, days before this visit, there was something in the news that Bayelsa was the leading state in the prevalence of monkeypox. I kept the news to myself to save my family from panic. It was now looking like a suicide mission
The Journey to Yenagoa, After 19 Years Read More »
His government’s two most consequential decisions – announcing the removal of petrol subsidy and attempting to create a more transparent exchange rate system – touched a raw nerve. The biggest beneficiaries, primarily wealthy, powerful, and deadly people across the country, but particularly in the North, are determined to fight his government to a standstill
The Trouble with Tinubu Read More »
I have only anecdotal evidence to support my theory, but the trend elsewhere does not support the view that the deaths of our lawmakers in office are the outcome of spiritual warfare. If religion or culture plays any role at all, it reinforces conditions that not only potentially increase the chances of early deaths but also increase the casualties among the affected population
The Price We Pay When Legislators Die Read More »