Our Senate Is A White Elephant

 By Ugoji Egbujo

Our Senate is a luxury. Akpabio, the Senate President, can’t choose his words carefully. Recently, he reminded a female senator that the Senate is not a nightclub. He was rebuking her for not obtaining his permission before speaking. In his flippancy and uncouthness, idleness could be gleaned. 

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Senator Akpabio received a letter from Ganduje, APC chairmen, and read it in plenary. Then, robotically, he revved the engines of the Senate and dumped Ndume. That sequence would have been fitting in a one-party communist state like China. Ndume’s sin was that he criticized the president. 

Nigeria: Let’s Fight Insecurity The Same Way We Fought COVID-19 (1)

 By Magnus Onyibe

 In the very popular Bob Marley song: Redemption Song. The lyrics goes thus; “how long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look? “

If you substitute the word ‘prophets’ for ‘masses’ in the music maestro’s scintillatingly and solemnly rendered lamentation song, he might have been singing about Nigeria of today, even though the music was sang and released in June 1980-some forty years ago.

*Buhari receiving Covid 19 vaccines  

And the reason the lyrics of the song would resonate in Nigeria today is owed to the reality of the fact that a similar circumstance of life at its most horrific level- slavery and colonialism that prompted Marley to sing his song of agony is here with us in Nigeria, the land of our birth which has been transformed into a killing field. Unlike white oppression that Marley was wailing about, the misery is not being brought upon us by external forces.

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.

Nigeria: Emerging Dangers Ahead Of 2019

By Ariyo-Dare Atoye

Against the backdrop of rising political threats in the polity, Nigeria may be in for yet another rough, vexatious and grueling prelude to another ritual of elections in 2019. The signs are no less ominous: from the destruction of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) secretariat in Borno State to the shamefully organised threats that forced a two-time governor of Kano, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, to suspend his visit to the state for his scheduled series of political rallies.

*Buhari

Palpable tension is gradually building up and at the centre of it all, is the ruling All Progressives Congress.  At a rally held by the APC faction of Kano Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje in the state on Tuesday, January 30, 2018, hundreds of youth were seen brandishing various kinds of weapons.  

The State Of The Nation

By Olusegun Adeniyi

Following a recent column which apparently did not appeal to a particular reader, he sent me a tweet that when next I have no important message to convey, I should just simply not write. Today is one of such days and I have decided to follow his advice. The point really is, even if I choose to write, what is there to write about that would be appealing to readers? For instance, the same friend who suggested yesterday that I could write on the crisis within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)–whose national secretariat called “Wadata Plaza” has been turned to “Wahala Plaza”–also warned me to be careful now that the party is being invaded almost on a daily basis by some Boko Haram Avengers!

*Olusegun Adeniyi

However, even when I have elected not to write about the issue, I still consider it amazing that some PDP governors, in their cold calculations to hijack the party, would be naïve enough to believe they could use and dump a tested politician like the former Borno State Governor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. While they told Nigerians that Sheriff was brought in to complete the tenure of Alhaji Ahmed Adamu Muazu which ended three months ago, Sheriff now says the deal he had with them (when they came to “beg him”) was to chair the party till 2018!

Nevertheless, it is interesting that the Senator Ahmed Markafi-led PDP national caretaker committee would alledge, as it did yesterday, that Sheriff was being sponsored by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to scuttle PDP’s chance in the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State. After storming the PDP secretariat on Monday with thousands of his supporters with a “court order” he has refused to produce, Sheriff specifically announced plans for the Edo gubernatorial election and appointed a committee for that purpose. While PDP leaders are now pointing accusing fingers at the APC for the crisis, the pertinent question is: Were they not warned?

In February this year, the Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said the emergence of Sheriff as PDP National Chairman was a good omen for the APC. “We are happy because we believe in the long run he would work for us…Looking at the antecedents, the history of the chairman himself, we all know he is a cross carpeter. He is always on the move in changing from one party to the other. Even when he was in All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) for eight years, he was working for the PDP. Even APC started with him, and then he went back to PDP and we were happy. I am sure in the long run he would work for us,” said Gandoje just four months ago so why should I be concerned about a problem foretold?

Okay, I know there are readers out there who may remind me that if indeed I want to write it doesn’t have to be about the PDP crisis, especially since Osun State is again in the news, this time over the controversial wearing of Hijab by female Muslim students during school hours. To be sure, I am following the sordid drama as some Christian leaders goad their wards to also begin to wear “coats of many colour” to school–garments for Boys Brigade, Girls Guide, Choristers and others. I have seen interesting photographs of what Osun schools have been turned into but I cannot write on the issue now because I am still waiting to hear from Sat Guru Maharaji who is yet to give instructions on how children of his adherents in the state must now dress to school. And then worshippers of Ogun, Sango, Obatala etc must also be bracing up with their own apparels.