Yemi Osinbajo: This Silence Is Deafening

By Itunu Ajayi

The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria did not specifically ascribe a clear cut decision making role to the office of the vice president, so I will not wrap this piece around his office as Nigeria’s vice president. An office that has been described in some quarters as ‘spare tire’, “senior personal assistant to the president with fat salary’’, the description is endless.

*Osinbajo

As such I will not be addressing you much as VP in this piece due to your almost none existing role in the constitution, I will be talking to you as Yemi Osinbajo, a human being who has blood flowing through his veins and one that should have the moral justification and conscience to speak directly to President Buhari and express his displeasure at the killings in the country where it is increasingly difficult for people to travel from one town to the other.

Nigeria: The Usman Yusuf Saga

By Ray Ekpu

The Professor Usman Yusuf saga is obviously sapping the energy and the health of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) of which he is the Executive Secretary. It all started last year when a group called United Youth Alliance Against Corruption (UYAAC) sent a petition dated April 21, 2017 to the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole. In that petition garnished with supporting documents, the group accused Yusuf of fraud, abuse of office and nepotism. The supervising Minister thought, as is the practice in government, that the accused person should be suspended to create room for a fair investigation by the EFCC.

*Professor Usman Yusuf

The recommendation for his suspension received the nod of Professor Yemi Osinbajo who was then acting as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari was at that time receiving medical attention in the United Kingdom. When Buhari returned he overruled the Minister and the Acting President and recalled Professor Yusuf from suspension apparently without the EFCC completing its investigation. The presidency said at the time through the tongue of Mr. Garba Shehu, one of Buhari’s spokesmen, that Yusuf was a victim of ethnic and political conspiracies which was an unmistaken indictment of the Minister of Health, Professor Adewole and the Acting President, Professor Osinbajo. 

Nigeria: Worn Nation, Worn Destiny

By Alade Rotimi-John

Writing about Nigeria in these days of a menacing or threatened enactment of a Hate Speech law can be irksome. The writer may be unable to properly delineate the terrain of a possible infraction of the law even as he attempts to give rein to free speech or truthful exposition. There is also the difficulty of plotting the graph between transcendental truths and the fraying of irritable nerves or temper of persons in authority.

An accustomed tendency to be infatuated or be deprived of judgement regarding the passion to speak the truth about the actual state of affairs in the country is thereby unfortunately hampered or put on hold.

Interrogating The Senseless Impunity Of Buhari Regime

By Simeon Nwakaudu 

Pure and simple, the sack of Lawal Daura is simply a face saving measure by the most tyrannical administration since the nation returned to democracy. Nobody should be deceived, Daura was simply a scapegoat in a failed coup against the country.

*President Buhari 

The courage to hijack the National Assembly was way beyond what a service chief would do without executive directive. The invasion of the National Assembly was a continuation of the Failed APC Federal Government’s horrible soap opera to arm-twist political opponents, using pliant security operatives. The brazen manner the APC Federal Government overthrew the National Assembly Complex embarrassed all black people across the universe and made us a laughing stock.

‘Redemption Songs For Buhari’s Presidency’

By Martins Oloja

In an ancient political plot captured by Shakespeare in his classic, Julius Caesar, a minor character, Artemidorus, prepares what he calls a caveat for Caesar. 

*Buhari

He reads the warning aloud that he (Caesar) may escape an evil plot by his friends and members of his ‘inner circle.’(Reading aloud from the letter) Artemidorus warns in clear terms:

“Caesar, beware of Brutus. Watch Cassius. Don’t go near Casca. Keep an eye on Cinna. Don’t trust Trebonius. Pay attention to Metellus Cimber. Denius Brutus doesn’t love you. You’ve wronged Caius Ligarius. These men all have one intention, and it’s directed against Caesar. If you aren’t immortal, watch those around you. A sense of security opens the door to conspiracy. I pray that the mighty gods defend you! Your friend, Artemidorus.”

Femi Fani-Kayode, Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB And Other Victims Of Oppression

By Jude Ndukwe

 I read with derision the infantile missive of one Churchill Okonkwo which he mischievously titled “FFK Stabbed Nnamdi Kanu, Betrayed IPOB and Kissed Kwankwaso” which was published in Sahara Reporters of August 3, 2018. It is unfortunate that in attempt to score cheap points, use FFK’s famous name to climb to momentary limelight and satisfy his paymasters, Churchill vitiated the seriousness of the struggle of IPOB and reduced it to mere politics out of the need to satisfy his hirers.

*Nnamdi Kanu and Femi Fani-Kayode 

  I would have ignored him but then on a second thought, what does it take to enlighten an ignoramus of Churchill’s status. Let me start by making it clear from the outset that IPOB’s struggle is not hatred for the Fulani, it will amount to reducing the noble struggle of IPOB for freedom and justice to hatred for the Fulani or any other tribe for that matter just like Churchill alluded to in that unfortunate essay of his.

New Worship Centre: Lessons From Deeper Life Bible Church

By Banji Ojewale

“I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich higher learning and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America did I understand the secret of her genius and power”

– Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian and political writer

*Pastor W.F Kumuyi

One of the numerous instructions we took away from the dedication of the new ultramodern Deeper Life Bible Church at Gbagada, Lagos, last week was that society or its institutions do not need supermen, showy billionaires and extra large resources to excel or secure an entry in the record books. All what is required are ordinary men and women driven by uncommon passion to aim for extraordinary goals. No organization rises or transcends on the sheer labour or wealth of its so-called super-rich.

Nigeria’s Arrested Development And Bill Gates Wake-Up Call

By Magnus Onyibe

By now, most Nigerians would be familiar with Bill Gate’s incisive perspective on Nigeria’s development because his speech to the National Economic Council has gone viral. So there is no need repeating the fact that he identified health and education as sectors that Nigerian policy makers have to rejig in the Economic Recovery Growth Plan, ERGP to enable the full realization of our country’s potentials. This is because he noticed that even if the ERGP boasts of being focused on Nigerian people via investment in healthcare and education which are the critical elements of human development, attention seem to be skewed in favor of physical infrastructure to the detriment of sustainable human development from birth.

*Bill Gates

According to Gates, for real development that would make reasonable impact on the polity to take place, both human and physical infrastructure have to be developed pari pasu.

To me, Gates’ perspective is a pretty straight forward analogy of the prospects and impediments to Nigeria’s much anticipated lift off from the poverty trap. But such positive optics of Gates presentation is not shared by Nasir El Rufai who was part of the audience at the forum. He faulted Gates’ presentation and offered a counter view which is that the ERGP is a great document as it is. He is of the view that it only needs to be adopted at the state level for the vision behind it to be accomplished.

Nigeria: VP Yemi Osinbajo Still Didn’t Get It!

By Afam Nkemdiche

The federal government’s economic team, led by the National Economic Council (NEC), has once again received a hard knock for its poor understanding of how to grow a national economy.

Bill Gates; yes, Bill Gates of the Microsoft fame, who came calling a couple of days previously, was reported to have told a special session of the NEC that Nigeria’s ongoing Economic Recovery And Growth Plan (ERGP) is broadly flawed.

*VP Osinbajo

He said for the ERGP to be effective, it must reflect the people’s needs, and it should give priority to human capital development over physical capital, contrary to the present composition of the ERGP. 

He then advised the federal government to review the ERGP – I should interpret that to mean reconstitute the NEC.

President Buhari, It’s Time To Go!

By Emmanuel Ogundele

For those who have watched the direction of President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration for well over two years now, there is no doubting the fact that we have made a wrong choice. Not that there was anything to choose from between a weakling called Goodluck Jonathan who allowed free stealing to go on in his government unabated and, at that time, a serial loser at presidential elections since 1999 called Muhammadu Buhari.

*President Buhari

However, little did we know then that it was a choice between a present disaster and a would-be tragic figure. The facts don’t come out in good time and so people were quick to paint a future devil in a Saint’s colour. While the drive to choose anybody but Jonathan among the political elite which eventually percolated down to the people, was so pressing at that time, it was not a well-thought out choice. For while Nigerians act as if they operate a two-party system, we actually run a multi-party democracy. 

The Slaves Of Nigeria

By Femi Fani-Kayode

Many years ago​,​ ​the irrepressible Hausa leader who hailed from Kano and who was the founder of the radical leftist political party called NEPU, Mallam Aminu Kano, said,​ ​“Until the Fulani Emirs are toppled northern Nigeria will not know peace”.

*Femi Fani-Kayode 

History has proved him right. The feudal structure of the north and its deeply conservative ethos has resulted in nothing but retrogression, poverty, disease, radical Islam, terror and killer herdsmen.

Yet the problem goes much further than the north: it extends to the whole of Nigeria. Worse still it has affected the psyche of the Nigerian people and left them with a very low self-esteem.

We have become victims and casualties of our modern history and little more than miserable serfs in a Fulani-controlled artificial, man-made vassal state which deems non-Fulanis as nothing more than the biblical “hewers of the wood” and “drawers of the water”.

In our very own eyes we are nothing and in our hearts we believe that the Fulani are everything. We bow and tremble before them, we jump when they sneeze or express their displeasure and we smile and commend them when they commit all manner of abominable atrocities and slaughter.