Category: OPINION

By Edward Musa Should Peter Obi and the Labour Party worry at the apparent copycatting of his policies and programmes by the tremulous and doddering government of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu? No, they should not, people who rely on others’ work as their sole source of inspiration won’t last in the long run, and worrying about them takes away from focusing on you. The worry really should be on the muddling up of these programmes because of the shallow understanding of what it entails,…

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By Austin Okechukwu Chijioke For a very long time to come, the words of Helen Keller will re-echo in our subconscious. For emphasis, Helen Keller taught mankind to work together to achieve a lot other than going solo, which renders our productivity insignificant. Other social philosophers have significantly added their voices on the need to create a synergy that works for the betterment of humans. In his contribution, Kay averred as follows”… If you want to go far, walk together, if you want to walk fast, walk alone”. The import…

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By Erasmus Ikhide In 2016, Alhaji Aliko Dangote got $2b dollars allocation from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by processing form ‘A’ for intangible goods. He got the dollars at the cheapest rate, moved it out of the country to buy equipments to establish factories in other African countries, and there was no earthquakes under his feet. The smart man simply round-tripped with the dollars and made several more billion dollars from it and averted his gaze cheerfully. Those at the apex bank in charge of business racketeering got their…

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By Ikechukwu Amaechi Hadi Sirika won’t get the Diezani treatment. Unlike Diezani whose party lost power in 2015 mainly because of Goodluck Jonathan’s naivety, APC and its hardened apparatchik triumphed in 2023 and the fraud, impunity and hypocrisy will only get worse. Some people believe that Nigeria, our dear country, is a criminal enterprise. I agree. But those who perceive the political ideology construct – patriotism – from the prism of the three wise monkeys, a Japanese pictorial maxim, which embodies the proverbial principle of “see no evil, hear no…

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By Mike Ozekhome, SAN I am a very sad man as I write this. I am completely devastated by the ugly news of the rather sudden death of my elder brother, friend, kinsman, soul mate and confidant, High Chief Raymond Aleogho Ayaoghena Dokpesi. Dokpesi had called me on WhatsApp at about 1.30am this morning [9th May 2023). He called me to discuss friendship, brotherhood and take advice on sundry legal matters. He exuded his usual happiness, vibrancy, and gusto, notwithstanding that he has had some health challenges for some time.…

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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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