By Dan Onwukwe
Do you know why Bola Tinubu is always pushing the envelope on presidential powers and ignoring calls to end pervasive hardship in the country?
By Dr Ugoji Egbujo
Born in 1960, Nuhu Ribadu, perhaps, had independence in his genes. Son of a first republic parliamentarian from Yola, Nuhu came with a good spoon in his mouth.
By Muyiwa Adetiba
A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday Vanguard lamented the mass exodus of the country’s medical doctors in its front page story. The article talked of a medical workforce so depleted that retired doctors had to be coerced back to save our hospitals and offer a semblance of professional service to the people. These days, almost every young intern dreams of going abroad to continue their career.
I can testify to this in a small, miniscule way. Three young doctors, in as many years, have stayed in our home to facilitate their internship on the island. Each one of them saw staying and practicing in Nigeria as a dead end and merely used the year of internship to put finishing touches to their traveling arrangements.
By Obi Nwakanma
Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the British Conservative Party was born to Nigerian parents with Yoruba ancestry. Her father, the now late Dr. Femi Adegoke was a Medical doctor and Yoruba Nationalist activist in Lagos, and her mother, Feyi Adegoke was a Professor of Physiology at the University of Lagos.
Kemi was born in January 1980, according those who know her family well, in a London hospital. This, only because her mother had complications with her pregnancy, and had to be delivered of her baby under specialist care in a small Wembley Hospital. I doubt this very much. In 1980, Nigeria had very distinguished, world class neonatal specialists at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). Medical Services were still relatively decent.
By Tony Eluemunor
“I prefer to be accused of nastiness than to join in
the national pastime of consigning events of a few years ago into prehistory”.
Chinua Achebe wrote that in the preface of his book of essays, Morning Yet On Creation Day, to explain why he had to include essays on the Biafran war in that book instead of pretending that the war never took place. Here and now, I second that “motion”.
Tatalo Alamu, in his offering titled Ninety Bouquets For Jack Gowon published in the Nation newspaper of November 3, 2024, poured encomiums on Gen. Yakubu Gowon, “as an exemplary Nigerian patriot, a soldier-statesman and shining moral exemplar for many of his compatriots”.
By Tonnie Iredia
No one disputes the fact that many problems currently confronting Nigeria’s judiciary are caused by a few bad eggs in the system as it is in many other organizations. If those few bad eggs are not quickly expelled or aggressively beaten into line, the cancer they have attracted into that arm of government in the last couple of years will soon quickly spread all through the system.
What this suggests is that the greatest problem facing the Nigerian judiciary today is not the continuing recklessness of the so-called bad eggs but the apparent lack of courage and sincerity of those at the top to hold the bull by its horn and call everyone to order. The implication of this is that the posture of the National Judicial Council NJC which is empowered to regulate the judiciary is inadvertently increasing the bad eggs.
By Kola Johnson
Precisely 29 years on Monday, that historic moment, November 11, 1995, when Nigerian politicians converged at Eko Hotel for the colorful summit of all Nigerian politicians – a historic first mammoth gathering of all Nigerian politicians cutting across diverse party shades and affiliations – after the June 12 annulment of the 1993 election, of which the Billionaire business mogul, MKO Abiola was the popularly acclaimed winner – optimism ballooned to euphoric heights.
It was an occasion that commanded all the trappings of a big event, parading notable and immensely influential movers and shakers in the Nigerian political hemisphere, in the likes of Alex Ekwueme, Bola Ige, Olu Falae, Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, Abubakar Rimi, among others, just as it also furnished for me, a congenial milieu for a direct interactive interface with the likes of Iyorchia Ayu, Isiaka Adeleke, Lema Jibril, Ojo Madueke, Senator Ayo Fasanmi, Yemi Farounbi, and ex-Governor Michael Otedola, whom I had been privileged to meet before, at Airport Hotel, in December 1988, during the Gala Nite celebration of Epe Lions Club.
By Adekunle Adekoya
Earlier in the week, at the 70th birthday celebrations of Pastor Tunde Bakare, President Bola Tinubu and the governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, spoke for the umpteenth time on the excruciating economic and social pains Nigerians are going through.
President Tinubu was represented by Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume. Akume said at the occasion: “The President acknowledges that times are hard, but at the end of it all, there is always light. And solutions to complex problems can never be as instant as coffee, but we are on the right track.”
By Olu Fasan
There are two views of human behaviour. One is that people are primarily motivated by self-interest – what’s in it for me? The other is that people are primarily influenced by deeply ingrained moral values – what’s right and wrong? The first view comes from the rational choice or game-theoretic school, the second belongs to what scholars call constructivism.
Now, Europeans are generally believed to privilege high principles over narrow self-interest. By contrast, Americans have long been seen as mostly self-interested, individualistic people, to whom moral values are secondary considerations. That caricature of the Americans played out powerfully last week when they overwhelmingly returned to power Donald Trump, president from January 20, 2017 – January 20, 2021, notwithstanding his deeply flawed character and untoward past behaviour!
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
On December 2, 2024, Nigerians will converge at the main auditorium of the National Universities Commission for the public presentation of Senator Chris Anyanwu’s autobiography, Bold Leap.
To be sure, this is her third book. She wrote
the first, The Law Makers, Federal Republic of Nigeria, while she was NTA
correspondent at the National Assembly in the Second Republic. The second, The
Days of Terror, came after her release from General Sani Abacha’s gulag
in 1998.
But Bold Leap is significantly different and, no doubt, will stir up the hornets’ nest for the very reason that she pulled no punches in the 612-page tome.
By Dan Onwukwe
It was a horrifying three-month tale of the bizarre and torment in a custody reserved for criminals. It was like nothing they had experienced in their lifetime, sometimes without food for three days and no sunlight.
By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The deadly kwashiorkor disease that was so much associated with the Biafra war has made a return to peacetime Nigeria. It was not a pretty sight seeing malnourished children with distended stomachs, nylon-like skins and dopey eyes during that evil war.
By Ochereome Nnanna
In Mass Communication education, we are taught that the newsman or mass media practitioner, is an impartial reporter of newsworthy events. In a democratic society, media is a social trust and arbiter between the people and the government.
In Nigeria and other democracies, the media is given a constitutional role to uphold freedom of information and hold government accountable. Indeed, the media is often given the lofty moniker of “Fourth Estate”. There are informed reasons for all this. Media is expected to perform its functions accurately, objectively and completely, eschewing bias, malice and deliberately misleading their publics for private gain.
By Chidi Odinkalu
The unraveling of the regime of General Yakubu Gowon shortly after the end of Nigeria’s civil war in the decade of the 1970s began as a tale of two Josephs. One was Joseph Dechi Gomwalk, Gowon’s in-law and governor of his home state. The other was Joseph Sarwuan Tarka, one of Gowon’s trusted Ministers. It made for a riveting political spectacle whose legacies have proved durable.
In 1974, General Gowon, who had led Nigeria through a 30-month-long civil war, was into his eighth year as military head of state. It was four years after the end of the civil war and the country comprised 12 states. Although he grew up in Zaria, Gowon was Angas, a minority ethnic group in what was then known as Benue-Plateau State, whose military governor was Police Commissioner Joseph Gomwalk. He was also related to Gowon by marriage.
By Tonnie Iredia
The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, says it is set to conduct a governorship election in Ondo state as scheduled for next Saturday November 16, 2024. The commission has also given firm assurances that all would be well. Whether or not people believe the electoral body is not easy to tell.
By Dele Sobowale
“A society can be judged by the way it treats its children” – Nelson Mandela, 1913-2013.
Few Nigerians now harbour any hope that this country would produce a Mandela among its present crop of old politicians. And, if the young member of the House of Representatives, from Abia State, exhibiting delirium of power, as well as all the young Ministers, just sacked, represent the next generation of power seekers, then, we might have to wait until those in nursery school grow up.
By Dele Sobowale
I am delighted to announce here today that just three days ago, the African Development Bank board of directors approved $100 million for the establishment of the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank for Nigeria.” — Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank for Africa, AIDB, Friday, October 18, 2024
All the people present at the event, when the AfDB fulfilled a promise made in June last year, must have given a thunderous ovation. To some extent, there is a need to cheer that a global bank is still willing to invest in Nigeria’s future. All is not gloomy; there is still some hope.
Book Reviewer: Cosmas Omegoh
Even in death, fingers keep pursuing General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the leader of the defunct Biafra Republic. And that is largely because of the pivotal role he played during the 30-month Nigeria/Biafra war (1967- 1970).
Even more than five decades after the war ended and a decade after Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Ezeigbo Gburugburu's death, anything and everything said about him is adjudged emotive and emotional by many, including those who have no cause to be so. That is why this factory-fresh book, Ojukwu: Exile, Diplomacy And Survival, written by Kanayo Esinulo, the General’s aide in exile is sure to be of immense interest.
By Adekunle Adekoya
For some time now, the detention and arraignment of under-age protesters by the Police dominated conversations at home and abroad.
In August, a nationwide protest against the harsh economic policies preferred by the federal administration led by President Bola Tinubu began, tagged #EndBadGovernance. Largely driven by social media conversations, organisers sought to mobilise the populace to register their displeasure with the way things have turned and are still turning for them. So, August 1-10 was billed as protest days. Before the day, government machinery went into overdrive, with massive resources committed to ensuring that the protests did not hold.
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
On Wednesday, November 6, Donald Trump, the 45th U.S. President, pulled off what, to all intents and purposes, is an extraordinary political comeback – an exceptional feat that has catapulted him once again to the enviable position of the president-in-waiting. On January 20, 2025, he will take another oath of office as the 47th U.S. President.
When Americans went to the polls on Tuesday, November 5, to elect President Joe Biden’s successor, the odds weighed against Trump. Here is a president who was impeached twice during his presidency, refused to accept electoral defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol before vacating the White House and was subsequently convicted of felony charges.
