Category: OPINION

Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki (left) and Nigeria’s Finance Minister Mrs Zainab Ahmed “Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth” – Confucius. After Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo finished and won the state’s gubernatorial battle in 2020, every other battle will be almost always surmountable, call it “akamu” case if you like as it is said in Nigeria. The switched-party governor is a product of “rofo rofo” fight. Fighting and subduing a relentless godfather and perpetual combatant as Comrade Adams Oshiohmole, Obaseki won’t even…

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By Emeka Alex Duru In August last year, development economist and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Obadiah Mailafia, provided a lead that could have been explored to get to the roots of the insurgency in the country. But the chance was fluffed. In a programme on Nigeria Info 95.1FM, Abuja on August 10, Mailafia said that repentant insurgents had informed him that a governor from the North was their commander. The statement caused a stir among Nigerians. But in a bid to downplay the disclosure, the Department of…

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By Femi Fani-Kayode The greatest thing Nigerians accomplished in the last thirty years was electing Muhammadu Buhari as president. If he had lived and died without being president, no one would push back when politicians fall over themselves to deliver tributes and call him the greatest president that Nigeria never had. After six years of Buhari’s administration and with only two more years to go, all is settled about the rhymes and stanzas of Buhari’s elegy. Some thirty years from now, people will stone anyone who attaches “greatest” to any…

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By Tony Eluemunor They say if you have a fight in you, don’t waste it on a paper tiger; save it for the dragon. Unfortunately, the two “messiahs” Nigeria has had, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari, fought paper tigers, leaving the lions, real sabre-tigers, bears, crocodiles, and black mambas to roam freely and continue their unchecked devastation of Nigeria. Messiahs? I pray that after our two experiences with messiahs, not only self-proclaimed but so tagged by a large proportion of the populace, Nigeria should kill and bury…

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By Nick Agule After the police killed George Floyd about 11 months ago, the following was the cause of his death as issued in a statement by the Minneapolis Police Department: “Two officers arrived and located the suspect, a male believed to be in his 40s, in his car. He was ordered to step from his car. After he got out, he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance. He was…

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By Mahmud Sani Adam I read a piece by Bala Ibrahim, a senior colleague in the pen profession and former staff of the Hausa Service of the BBC, which appears in an online news medium and other social media platforms. The piece, titled: “Ganduje: Gradually going gaga?” looks like an attempte to twaddle a case of an investigation by the Kano state Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission (PCACC) as well as some cases that are said to be before competent courts of law involving Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano…

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By Donald Ekpo “For as long as the old Eastern Region remain in disarray and not united, self-determination of the region will remain impossible.” – An anonymous retired Nigerian Army Chief. The word “South-South,” even though it may sound absurd, is a name we have come to accept as a people. We can’t say exactly how we came about to be identified with the name neither can we say exactly when we were given the name, but we just know it is our name. While growing up back in the…

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By Sonnie Ekwowusi A lawyer friend has just returned from his trip abroad. Something happened to him over there, which I think is worth sharing with you here today. He was in a roundtable ‘social- distance’ meeting with distinguished attendants from other countries. When it was his turn to introduce himself, he masterfully did so, and even added a caveat that he was a Nigerian. On learning he was a Nigerian, all the meeting attendants spontaneously hummed and booed him in unison in a way that suggested that they loathed…

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By Abraham Apereseimokomo Alfred The above topical subject, in recent times, no doubt, has attracted several illuminating debates, agitations, resolve, submissions and discourses, interestingly in different fora of the public space by an army of very cerebral stakeholders and leaders of thought from a neglected region endowed with the flora and fauna of an amazingly rich environment called the Niger Delta in the Nigerian state since independence. This paper is very robust and will unearth the alarming degree of ecological damage in the region, nefariously perpetuated by the multinational oil…

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Former EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu who was disgraced out of office by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari By M.O. Ubani Esq About four years ago or thereabout a woman by name Dr Mrs Ngozi Olejeme sought my legal representation over an allegation that she converted about N69 billion of Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) to herself while she held sway as the chairman during the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan.  She was declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after she refused to honour their invitation because she was abroad…

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