By Adekunle Adekoya
“Politics is the only profession where you can lie, cheat, and steal, and still be respected.” — Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Today, I am helplessly wallowing in self-pity and pity for my fellow compatriots as I ponder the state of affairs in our dear country. We don’t have another country, do we? Why are our politicians hell-bent on destroying this country as they pursue self-interest instead of the common good?
By Ochereome Nnanna
It would have been funny if it were not so DANGEROUS! When Muhammadu Buhari was in power, there was ethnic profiling of the Igbo people in the North. Some sponsored “youth coalitions” gave Ndi Igbo quit notice in 2017 because of Biafra agitations in the South-East, which arose from Buhari’s 97%/5% formula of Igbo exclusion.
Buhari and Bola Ahmed Tinubu
co-founded the All Progressives Congress, APC, which has never enjoyed Igbo
support.
Ndi Igbo constitute by far the second largest ethnic group in Lagos after the Yoruba indigenous residents. They control the commercial sector of Africa’s sixth largest economy, especially the markets and a sizeable slice of property ownership. They contribute a hefty chunk of the internal revenue that sets Lagos apart compared to the rest of the 36 states. Under a normal political atmosphere, the Igbo population in Lagos should be courted because of their electoral and economic values.
By Dan Onwukwe
Often
missing from debates on why a governing party after years or decades in
power suddenly failed to win majority seats in parliament or lost outrightly.
History of politics offers an array of arguments why this happens in many
democracies. It’s about not learning the lessons in power, the hard way.
*Tinubu and
Ramaphosa
Learning
the lessons the hard way begins when that gripping listlessness sets in, when
political power begins to slip away from a governing party. The endgame begins
the very moment the party leadership feels over-confident, and those who
surround the President feel their man has got enough power, and don’t need
anybody anymore.
By Ezinwanne Onwuka
I am smitten with nostalgia when I remember the ‘good old days’. The days when N5,000 could buy a big fowl that would feed a family of six. How much did you buy a fowl last Christmas?
Oh! How could I have forgotten that Nigeria’s economy dealt with the majority of us last year so much so that we had no option but to be grateful for life and good health, and watch the clock tick away the minutes?
By Dan Onwukwe
Very so often, news about Nigeria and its leaders, is profoundly concerning. Worrisome. Whenever Tinubu presidency is over, I suggest that it should be taught as history lesson in schools – on how not to govern a country on the basis of propaganda and tapestry of lies. Governance is a serious, honest, human enterprise. It should not be the opposite. Amid a blizzard of shocking revelations of bizarre profligacy in less than seven months in power, it shows some clear, but disturbing issues about power and leadership in Nigeria. First, nothing that happens to a country that is not like their leaders.
*Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, Akpabio, Mrs Akpabio and others during Akpabio 61st birthday celebrations
Secondly, power is like a bikini: it reveals more than it can hide. In other words, what leaders do when they are trying to get power is not necessarily what they do after they have it. This is Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress revealed. It’s an unravelling story that will perhaps get worse with the passage of time. This is a government of contradiction.
By Olu Fasan
The first test of any government is its ability to manage the economy. For without a strong economy, a government can’t improve people’s lives; it can’t generate jobs, reduce poverty or tackle insecurity. Hence, a former British prime minister said: “The economy is the start and end of everything”, and an American political strategist coined the phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
However, this universal truth eludes Nigeria’s new president, Bola Tinubu. His overall economic orientation, dubbed ‘Tinubunomics’, smacks of economic illiteracy. My focus here is not ‘Tinubunomics’ itself, a subject for another column, but Tinubu’s attitude to inflation, the worst economic evil.
By Chidi Odinkalu
On a Friday in July 2005, Bayo Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, quietly absconded from work in an office in Victoria Island, Lagos, from where he functioned then as the president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA. The next working day, a Monday, he turned up in Abuja as President Olusegun Obasanjo’s fourth Attorney-General in five years.
Less than three months after assuming office as Attorney-General of the Federation, on October 6, 2005, Mr. Ojo filed a five-count charge before the Federal High Court against Alhaji Mujahid Asari Dokubo, at the time the self-proclaimed leader of the Niger Delta Peoples’ Volunteer Force, NDPVF. Asari was also a leading member of the Pro-National Conference Organisation, PRONACO. The crimes charged included two counts of treasonable felony, two counts of running an unlawful society, and one count of publishing “a rumour…. which is likely to cause fear and alarm”.
By Dele Sobowale
“Blessed are they that expect nothing; for they
shall never be disappointed” – Pessimist motto.
Hope renewed is becoming increasingly dream deferred. When President Tinubu announced during the inaugural address that “subsidy is gone”; and followed that with partial harmonization of exchange rates, the “hit the ground running” brigade went berserk with jubilation.
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Some people believe that Nigeria, our dear country, is a criminal enterprise. Those who perceive the political ideology construct – patriotism – from the prism of the three wise monkeys, a Japanese pictorial maxim which embodies the proverbial principle of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” aver that such a portrayal is harsh.
But in reality, the ‘see no evil crowd’ are only parodying the mendacity of the three monkeys in the Japanese folklore – Mizaru, who pretends to see no evil by simply covering his eyes; Kikazaru, who hears no evil, covering his ears; and Iwazaru, who claims to speak no evil by covering his mouth.
By Emeka Obasi
Change was promised, expectations were high. It appeared many were shortchanged in an unending experiment that led to nowhere. The All Progressives Congress ( APC) enjoyed a free run until Peter Obi mounted the Soap Box through Labour Party.
To be fair to APC, there was no opposition because the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) died after May 29, 2015. For a mega party that boasted of ruling for 60 interrupted years, death came so quickly that many wondered if the party was for real in the first place.
