The Case For Renaming My State Capital (Port Harcourt)

 By Donu Kogbara

This thought-provoking and slightly edited article, which first appeared in a publication called NewAfrican, was written by my friend and former BBC boss Onyekachi Wambu, a distinguished London-based author and filmmaker.

Why do we continue to cling to the colonial names bestowed on our towns and cities? We do this even when the officials after whom these names given later disgraced themselves. The issue around Port Harcourt is a classic test case.

What would you do if one of your most important cities was named after a paedophile? Change the name, surely, or continue wearing it as a sordid badge of honour?

Is Rivers State Wike’s Cattle Ranch?

 By Ugoji Egbujo

Wike is boastful. The temptation is to take his claims with a pinch of salt. But unlike other loud and garrulous politicians, friends and foes alike say it is perilous to ignore Wike’s rants, even when he sounds inebriated. Who would have believed he was bred by a pastor? He is brash and ferocious. And outstandingly cunning. 

*Wike 

On television a few days ago, Wike claimed that the G5—a flock of former governors he shepherds—made Tinubu president. This latest chest-beating was provoked by governors of the ruling party, who all but labelled him a political chameleon: hiding under a rainbow flag to trumpet support for Tinubu while sabotaging the larger APC in furtherance of his personal ambitions.

Peter Obi: Let's Begin To Give Dignity To Human Lives In Our Land

 The death of 37 persons in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Minna, Niger State, is a deeply troubling tragedy that demands urgent answers. 

These were persons who had been arrested as suspects. Whatever offence they were suspected of committing, they were still human beings, and the responsibility of the State was to keep them alive, safe, and treated humanely while due process took its course.

Peter Obi: On The Anambra Debt Question

*Peter Obi and Charles Soludo 
I have remained silent over the past few days because I have been grieving the loss of my very dear elder brother and friend, Chief Okey Ezeibe. However, the time has come for me to address some of the matters that have occupied public discussion in recent days.

I respectfully urge everyone to concentrate on the existential challenges confronting Nigeria and the hardships endured by its citizens, rather than on the needless distractions that have become widespread in our politics.

Lagos Pollution Is Becoming A Public Health Crisis

 By Bertram Nwannekanma

For millions of Lagos residents, pollution is something they encounter every day without necessarily seeing it.

It is in the exhaust fumes that hang over a busy road during rush hour. It is in the smoke from a generator powering a shop, office or home. It rises from refuse being burnt in a neighbourhood. It comes from construction sites, industrial facilities and poorly maintained vehicles. And unlike a dirty canal or overflowing dumpsite, there is often nowhere to point to and say: this is the pollution.
Yet Lagos residents breathe it all the same.

Rising Fuel Prices And Insensitivity To The Peoples’ Plight

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Again, I am still on the matter of rising prices of fuel energy, particularly petrol, which is heading towards N1,500, automotive gas oil, AGO or diesel, which is heading towards N2,000, and cooking gas, which is selling at above N22,000 for a 12.5 kilogramme cylinder. That sold for N3,500 BC, Before Change in 2015.

It is trite to begin to repeat how the rising prices of these fuels have inflicted a cost of living crisis on all of us. There are very few Nigerians left who are able to save for the rainy day; almost all of us spend everything we earn on food, transportation, and accommodation.

Why Is There No National Outrage?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

What will ever provoke a national outrage? Why is it that nothing shocks Nigerians anymore even when those in power throw the kitchen sink at them? At what point will Nigerians say enough to insults from their so-called leaders?

*Tinubu and Wike

Why is it that our patience has become so elastic that no matter how outrageous the conduct of political actors Nigerians take everything in their stride and move on? Is this hypnotism? Why is it that top government officials are increasingly becoming reckless in their actions and words?

Steve Obidi: Poetry Lines In Search Of The Truth (Book Review)

 Book: Eternal Truth (Poems: Timeless Wisdom for Purposeful Living)

Author: Steve Obidi

Pagination: 122

Publishers: Kraft Books Limited, Ibadan, Nigeria

Reviewer: Banji Ojewale

Russian-American poet and essayist, Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996), won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, going on to become, in 1991, the United States Poet Laureate, which classed him ‘’among the most influential Christian poets of the 20^th Century.’’

Tragedy In Custody: The Deaths Of Young Miners In Niger State

By Owolola Adebola

In the early hours of 17 September 2026, a grim discovery was made in Minna, capital of Nigeria’s mineral-rich Niger State. Thirty-seven young men and boys, arrested days earlier on suspicion of illegal mining, were found dead in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). Many of the deceased were teenagers, some as young as 14 or 15.

The circumstances remain contested and opaque, sparking public outrage, protests and urgent calls for an independent investigation. The suspects had been rounded up on 15 and 16 September during enforcement operations in the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto areas of Minna. Artisanal mining for gold and other minerals is widespread in the state, drawing thousands of young people seeking livelihoods amid economic hardship.

Besieged Borgu And Their Jagaban

 By Ugoji Egbujo

In 2006, when the Borgu Emirate chose Tinubu, it could not have known it was choosing a future commander-in-chief as its chief warrior. Twenty years later, the jackpot looks like rotten luck: no better than a dud cheque. Achebe said a man cannot live by the riverbank and wash with spittle. If only Borgu could suffer lack and not terror.

*Tinubu

Nigerians love titles. Illiterate pastors become Doctors. Politicians are the most afflicted. When they are not lions and tigers — even the most cowardly among them — they are sun and moon, providers for the poor they are accused of looting blind. If only people lived true to the titles they brandish. Borgu must have seen something in Tinubu. Now it must endure the  rude awakening.

Policing For Personal Profit

 By Suleiman A. Suleiman

The tragic death of 37 artisanal miners under the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, more popularly known as Civil Defence, in Minna last week reveals, yet again, the kind of structural violence against ordinary Nigerians perpetrated by the state itself. The circumstances of the mass arrest and detention in unsafe and inhumane conditions in which the young artisanal miners died were horrific, to say the least, and entirely avoidable.

Yet these things happen in countless similar circumstances across Nigeria, if only in discrete numbers, and further illustrate the transactional dimension that underlies the policing functions carried out by various bodies like the Nigeria Police, the Road Safety Corps, the Civil Defence Corps, the Nigeria Correctional Service, etc. 

ELECTIONS: Nigeria Is Still Pursuing Shadows

 By Tonnie Iredia

In less than 4 months from now, Nigeria will hold its 2027 general elections; yet, not many would believe the assurances by the electoral body that the process will be free and fair. 

No one can blame the doubting Thomases because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is notorious for not keeping its word. Just before the last general elections in 2023, INEC told the nation that it would premise its operations on modern technology: indicating specifically that there would be both manual and electronic collation of votes etc. 

When The State Turns The Law Against Dissent Under Tinubu’s Watch

By Kolawole Olaniyan  

It is happening again. Under President Bola Tinubu, Nigerians are facing an increasingly repressive political and legal environment. Like the Muhammadu Buhari government before it, the Tinubu administration is making an utter mockery of Nigeria’s constitutional and international obligations to respect human rights and uphold the rule of law. 

*Tinubu

There is something deeply troubling about a country in which the security agency created to protect the state and its people increasingly finds itself in court seeking to restrain citizens from speaking, organising, and criticising those in power. Nigeria has been here before. 

But under Tinubu, threats, harassment, and intimidation of human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and civil society organisations are being compounded by the growing weaponisation of the criminal justice system, particularly by the Department of State Services (DSS), to silence peaceful dissent and intimidate critics.

As Nigerians Battle Compounded Hardship On A Daily Basis

 By Adekunle Adekoya

The last one week has been quite impactful on Nigerians. Just as everyone was figuring how to continue managing fast-disappearing resources as prices of just about everything resumed an upward climb, the price of fuel energy took off from its precarious perch in the stratosphere, and headed for outer space.

*Tinubu

Most of us Nigerians woke up to see filling stations selling petrol at above N1,350 last Monday. Ostensibly, the latest surge in the price of petrol was triggered by tensions in the Middle East, with crude oil selling well above $100 per barrel. What is worse, the price of cooking gas, used by millions of households all over the country jumped well above N1,300 per kilogramme, and in most of Lagos suburbs with bad roads, one kilogramme of gas is selling at about N1,500.

Peter Obi And Soludo's Dud LIES

By Dr Olusola Adegbite 

The government of Anambra state, under the leadership of Prof. Charles Soludo, claims that as of when Mr. Peter Obi left office on 17th March 2014, his administration had taken a total of eight (8) different external borrowings for things such as malaria, erosion control, education, healthcare, etc.

They claimed that the loan amount in US Dollars as at the day signed was $123, 771, 179. 30 million and that according to the Debt Management Office (DMO) report of 30th June, 2026, the remaining balance of the Obi-era loans stood at $92, 353, 182 i.e., 127.4 billion naira, an amount which they now service with hundreds of millions of naira monthly.

Since the above claim was made, Tinubu supporters and sympathisers have found a new sense of joy and ecstasy, as if to say “if our principal is a drug lord, at least yours too is a debtor”.

It however turns out that authentic data from the DMO’s website tells a different story. As against the claim of the Soludo government, the DMO website reveals that as at 31st December 2013, the total external debt stock of Anambra state stood at $30, 323, 574. 40. 

Alleged Unpaid Debts By Anambra Govt: Exploding Soludo's Fairy Tales

 By Mudi Mudi

I have taken some time to research on the loan descriptions as released by the Anambra State Government which they claim Peter Obi as Governor signed off and my findings are as follows:

1. The Nigeria Malaria Control Booster Project (MCBP) 2007:

This was financed through a US$180 million IDA credit from the World Bank to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not a loan independently taken by the Anambra State Government. The World Bank records say the original IDA credit was approved in December 2006 and became effective on May 15, 2007.

Anambra was one of the seven participating states, along with Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano and Rivers.

VERDICT: FG was the borrower not Anambra State Government.

Debunking The Phantom Debts And Ecological Loan Fallacy

By Peter Obi

My attention has been drawn to trending claims by the Anambra State Government that my administration left behind inherited debts, including a ₦2 billion ecological loan, contractor liabilities, and unpaid salaries, gratuities, and pensions. This is completely false.

*Obi and Soludo 

We systematically liquidated historical gratuities and arrears dating back several years, amounting to over ₦35 billion. At the point of handover, the state owed nothing in salaries, gratuities, or pensions, nor did we owe anything to any contractor for projects duly executed and certified.

Peter Obi: No Objection To Legitimate Scrutiny Of My Certificates

 My attention has been drawn to reports circulating on social media concerning a legal action by an individual or group seeking Certified True Copies (CTCs) of my Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, awarded to me in 1984 by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), as well as other academic records and credentials relating to my admission into the University.

*Peter Obi and Mrs. Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu

I wish to state clearly that I have absolutely no objection to the release of these records.

I respectfully request that the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, within the limits permitted by law, make available, upon legitimate request, my academic certificates, records, and other official documents relating to my admission and studies at the University. 

I equally have no objection to other educational institutions, within and outside Nigeria, which I attended, making my academic records available in accordance with applicable laws and procedures. 

Peter Obi: No Nation Can Rise Above The Character, Competence And Commitment Of Its Leadership

 

*Peter Obi with Nigerian professionals in Washington D.C.

Yesterday, while in Washington, D.C., I had the privilege of meeting with a group of young Nigerian professionals — medical doctors and other healthcare professionals, educators, lawyers, engineers, technology experts, entrepreneurs and business leaders. 

It was an engaging and encouraging conversation about Nigeria, the challenges before us, and the kind of country we must work together to build.

Our discussions centered largely on good governance and the urgent reforms Nigeria needs today. 

I reminded them that, important as our economic, political, and institutional reforms are, the most important reform Nigeria needs is the reform of leadership itself.

Peter Obi: Our National Tragedies Are Resources For National Transformation

 

*Obi

I have received many calls and text messages from patriotic Nigerians who were annoyed that an Arise News anchor wanted me to answer questions about the 1966 coups, which were national tragedies. 

I reassured those patriots that, as a presidential candidate, I am ready and able to answer any questions about anything relating to Nigeria. I have a commitment to serve the people, not to hide from them. 

As I travel across Nigeria and listen to Nigerians of all ethnic and religious identities, I have had opportunities to reflect on the many tragedies we have experienced in Nigeria, including the 1966 coups, the civil war, and the various mass violence that have plagued different parts of the country.