Category: OPINION

By Osita Chidoka In 2015, a day before the election that brought President Buhari to office, I made a last-ditch effort to warn Nigerians about the impending doom of electing a man whose leadership credentials were uninspiring and laden with evidence of failure. I published “The Death of the African Big Man” on March 28, 2015, Presidential elections. The article generated virulent attacks from the All Progressives Congress (APC) mob, whose major defining quality was an inability to reason. In the article, I argued that Gen. Buhari did not possess…

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By Ikeddy Isiguzo How do you miss someone who was barely available? Rather, how do you miss someone who showily made a mess of almost everything that came his way, supposedly his idea of serving you? President Muhammadu Buhari failed so woefully, yet he boasts about his achievements by comparing his abysmally woeful performances with non-existent low standards. He was absent, not just physically. There were moments he was physically present, and they made no useful contributions to our lives. While we wish he could leave us alone, he was…

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By Paul Ejime The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), one of Africa’s foremost Regional Economic Communities (RECs) clocked 48 years on 28th May 2023. The late Prof Adebayo Adedeji of Nigeria, who played a pivotal role in the formation of ECOWAS, which earned him the title of “Mr ECOWAS,” had in an interview with this writer at Ijebu-Ode, his hometown in Western Nigeria, recalled that the Treaty of Lagos was one of the few legal unification instruments initialled by an unprecedented number of heads of state at a…

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By Louis Odion, FNGE His bonhomie was unusually absent that night in 2009. He spoke little, his luminous eyes mostly staring at us intensely with an expression difficult to fathom. The “Governor of Example” (BRF) and this writer ended up being the last to leave the putative den of the “Lion of Bourdillon” in Lagos at past midnight. Not until we were outside at the car park of our host’s Ikoyi home (sufficiently beyond his earshot), did the then Governor Babatunde Fashola (the one who had been Jagaban’s Chief of…

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By Poem Nobody goes in defense against a team led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN in any court and hope to have an easy ride, whatever the strength or otherwise of the evidence and witnesses you line up. When it comes in the nature of a presidential election case with holes all over, it becomes more than Herculean. Let us assume that Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a saint without personal encumbrances like his drug-related forfeiture business. Let us assume he Kashim Shettima plies on same route and submitted his…

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By Kola Odetola NO woman likes a clingy, insecure man. But that is what we Yorubas are becoming, a frightened, insecure, and second-rate nation. So fearful that we can’t even accept one of our own because his mother is Igbo. There was a time when the word swagger was synonymous with the Yoruba. Reflecting self assurance and confidence. We exuded belief. The Igbos secretly admired us. They adopted our clothes and music. They flocked to our churches. We accommodated strangers because we were so sure of ourselves, of our standing…

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By Margaret Adeyileka I traveled on board Turkish airlines flight number TK 0626 from Lagos to Istanbul on the 4th of April 2023 en-route to London Heathrow where I spent six days in Istanbul before proceeding to London. The check-in formalities and boarding at Lagos Airport was normal but on arrival in Istanbul I discovered the handlers have damaged my scooter (wheelchair), which is my only means of mobility. I complained to the people in charge at the airport and they did nothing. As a matter of fact, it was…

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