Oprah, Obama And The Story Of Black America: Alain Locke's 'The New Negro' Revisited

By Dianam P. Dianam

The twentieth century drew to a close with America's erstwhile Queen of Daytime Television Oprah Winfrey clutching a coveted trophy - proclaimed "Woman of the Century" (by Newsweek magazine) and "arguably the world's most powerful woman" (by Time.com and CNN). As though in a relay toward glorification of their ethnic stock, another African-American, Barack Obama, assumed office as President of the United States in the opening decade of the 21st century.

Is Buhari Poorer Four Years After?

By Banji Ojewale

A new race of men is springing up to govern the nation; they are the hunters after popularity, men ambitious…the demagogues, whose principles hang laxly upon them, who follow not so much what is right as what leads to a temporary vulgar applause. 

– Joseph Story (1779-1845), American Judge

*President Buhari 

President Muhammadu Buhari has offered the ‘ideal’ measuring rod to assess him and other public officers while serving the people or when out of office. We don’t need to consult any arcane research or some tongue-twisting grammatical construction to guide us to determine whether outgoing executives have fared well or underperformed. 

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye's Peep Into Nigeria's Looting Culture

By DAN AMOR

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is not only a quintessential Nigerian writer and journalist, he is, undoubtedly, one of the most formidable literary and social critics in the country today. Ejinkeonye, whose birthday is today (May 27), is not only a wordsmith of note whose diction, and images capture the experiences and nebulous fancies of the Nigerian condition, he is also one of Africa's most celebrated newspaper columnists and public affairs analysts.

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Ganduje, Sanusi And Other Monarchs

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

With a hasty dismissal of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as victims of self-induced embroilment in a power tussle, we are denied vital lessons for national development. Again, there is the cynicism that Ganduje who is allegedly steeped in corruption, fecklessness and vendetta lacks the altruism that should underpin his dismantling of the Sanusi monarchy. But until Sanusi secures judicial validation, his royal influence remains vitiated as his centuries-old Kano emirate is split into five. 

*Gov Ganduje and Emir Sanusi

We must appropriate the development in Kano State as an opportunity to assess once again the relevance of the traditional institution to contemporary existence. In Nigeria, like some other parts of the world, communities at inchoate stages of development where they lacked defined institutions for cohesion might have had a need for traditional rulers. But with the development of great institutions for self-regulation, Nigeria does not need the traditional institution.

Bulkachuwa: Red Rag To A Bull

By Banji Ojewale

We are not in Spain. But there, it is claimed that bulls are enraged when red flags flutter before them.   The matador, the man who fights and kills a bull in a sport, gets the beast into the game by waving the red cloth. The indifferent, motionless animal only charges at his opponent when it sights his muleta, the stick with a crimson swathe employed in the final third of the bullfight…We know what follows:  savagery, slaughter and sanguinary cheers from the spectators.

*Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa 

In Nigeria, we appear to be in for a bullfight over the Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa affair. She is the President of the Appeal Court, who has been asked to head the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal looking into the suit of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar. They are challenging the victory of Muhammadu Buhari in the poll of February 2019. 

Nigeria: President Buhari And The Untouchable Bandits

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

If the senate really needed unimpeachable answers to the nation’s security questions, it only demonstrated another case of its accustomed dilettantism when it summoned the acting Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu.

*Buhari 

Latching on to the platitude that the knowledge of state security matters should be the privilege of only the few in the inner sanctum of government, the senate did not publicise the outcomes of its over two hours’ meeting with Adamu. Yet, unauthorised sources have divulged what transpired at the meeting. The IGP, not unexpectedly, at the meeting blamed his inability to tackle the insecurity on paucity of funds, personnel and weapons.

Imo: Will Emeka Ihedioha Be Different?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Since Mr. Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerged the winner of the governorship election held recently in Imo State, all sorts of people who are able to get themselves interviewed by reporters have been filling our ears with rambling tales about how a new “messiah” had emerged to liberate Imo people from the hands of their “oppressors” and “exploiters” and usher them into a glorious era of limitless happiness.

Emeka Ihedioha 

As a citizen of Imo State who has closely observed several governors enter and leave the Imo Government House, I find the whole absurd drama so revolting.

If only Mr. Ihedioha would spare some moments and reflect, he would realize that there is nothing new about the drab performance that these characters are staging today; nor is it peculiar to Imo State.

Why Public Office Holders Can't Enjoy Privacy

By Banji Ojewale

I do not believe that a society can sustain its democratic claims if it allows its public office holders to run two lives: an open public life and another jealously sheathed private one. At work, he or she is immersed in files, open for scrutiny, even if their over embroidered agbada or sky-touching gele wouldn’t permit a full and close watch. But at home, in their closet, they are liberated from any restraint. They at liberty to trash the discipline of service and accountability. 

Buhari

 That is equal to performing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the eponymous protagonists of the book by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s one person leading two different lives. Jekyll takes a drug that breaks him into two separate personalities, one good and the other evil. Dr. Jekyll is the amiable character, while Mr. Hyde exhibits the pernicious traits. Yet it’s one person at work.

27 Years In The Hangman’s Noose

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

One of the enduring tropes of human comeback and survival is associated with Fyodor Dostoevsky who gained reprieve from execution at the last minute. 

Yet, the glistering success of the Russian writer in his post-near-death epoch would not have effectively obviated the ordeal of the pall of an imminent death that hung over him before his sudden freedom.

*Clinton Kanu 

But quite unlike Dostoevsky, that tragic hiatus was not short-lived in the case of a Nigerian citizen Clinton Kanu. In 1992, at the age of 29 when he brimmed with the hope of conquering the world, Kanu was sentenced to death for murder. Kanu’s ordeal began when his in-laws were accused of stealing a generator and fluorescent tubes.