Playing The 1998 Abacha Power Game In 2026

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

It was Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, the French critic, journalist, and novelist, who, in 1849, coined what has become an enduring proverb: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – the more things change, the more they stay the same. In matters of governance and power in Nigeria – military or civilian – nothing can be truer.

*Tinubu, Abacha

As editor of the Sunday Diet newspaper, I was in Maiduguri in April 1998, yes the selfsame Borno State capital that has become a killing field, to cover the national convention of the Grassroots Democratic Movement, GDM. Borno was the home state of Alhaji Gambo Lawan, the national chairman of the GDM, one of the five political associations that included the United Nigeria Congress Party, UNCP; Congress for National Consensus, CNC; Democratic Party of Nigeria, DPN; and the National Centre Party of Nigeria, NCPN, formally approved by the electoral umpire – National Election Commission of Nigeria, NECON – in September 1996 for the politics of that era.

Nigeria: Amidst The Stark Reality Of A Rudderless Country

 By Sulaiman Salawudeen

There comes a time in the life of a people when they must confront unsavoury truths about their own existence and ask themselves whether what they call a country actually really exists beyond and is anything more than just a hollow shell! Nigeria, continuously touted as Giant of Africa, has become a phantom, mere geographical expression without substance, a tragic experiment that has failed its citizens so egregiously that many are compelled to declare: Nigeria is nowhere anymore!

To such, what is seen is just vast expanse of land where millions of people are trapped in survivalist struggles, condemned to navigate daily horrors of insecurity, corruption, and economic strangulation. The very essence of a functioning country has evaporated, amidst the din and flurry of errors that collude to reduce modest hopes to tall dreams, and basic pursuits to unreachable imaginings! 

When Prices Rise In Nigeria, They Rarely Fall

 By Osilama E. Osilama

Nigeria today faces a troubling economic paradox. Prices rise quickly when economic conditions worsen, yet they rarely decline when those conditions improve. This phenomenon—experienced daily by millions of Nigerians has quietly evolved into one of the most dangerous distortions in the country’s economic structure.

Though I am not an economist, it increasingly appears that Nigeria operates what could be described as a “one-way economy,” where prices move easily upward but almost never downward. The implications of this pattern are profound, particularly for the housing sector and the survival of the Nigerian middle class.

If Nigeria must build a fair and functional economy, government must confront the economics of pricing through deliberate policy reforms and, if necessary, a strong executive bill supported by legislation.

Daniel Bwala’s Offence Against Decency

 By Alade Rotimi-John 

Irish born playwright and critic-at-large, Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an intolerable thorn in the flesh of the British establishment for more than half a century. He is popularly quoted as saying that when a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. 

 *Daniel Bwala and Mehdi Hasan

Before a stupefied global audience, Daniel Bwala who doubles as President Tinubu’s Adviser on Policy Communications was  deplorably dull and awful as he outrageously defended his bewildering actions in office as being in the role of performing his duty or in the tour of duty.