By Dan Onwukwe
Do you know why Bola Tinubu is always pushing the envelope on presidential powers and ignoring calls to end pervasive hardship in the country?
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
In his 1961 book, The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Julius Esslin, a Hungarian-born British journalist and professor of drama, lamented what he called absurdism, “the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose.”
Esslin, who died in London,
United Kingdom on February 24, 2002, aged 83 years, couldn’t have had the
oil-rich state of Rivers, Nigeria, in mind when he wrote his famed book 63
years ago.
But nothing captures the state of affairs in Rivers State today more profoundly than Esslin’s “theatre of the absurd”.
By Dan Onwukwe
Can the news get any uglier for President Bola Tinubu than it is already? It’s not yet half-time, but as Tinubu, wherever he is in Paris, France right now, he may be pondering anxiously where his government has taken Nigerians in just eight months of his presidency, an office he so desperately wanted, and got in most unquestionable fashion. He must also be thinking how much harder it is being the President of Nigeria.
Truth is, there’s big trouble everywhere. Even in Abuja, his official residence, insecurity has squeezed everyone to a corner. Kidnappers are daily on the prowl, taking their victims at ease, and demanding hefty ransom. First Lady, Remi Tinubu had recently suggested intense, fervent prayers as the answer to the problem of terrorism in the land.
By Dan Onwukwe
Nothing is normal any more in Nigeria. In both scale and scope, the ominous signs are everywhere for any discerning mind to see. The message is simple: What leaders do while they are trying to get political power is not necessarily what they do after they have it. That, in itself, is lesson in power. Whatever former President Muhammadu Buhari made worse for Nigeria and its citizens, Tinubu presidency is striving to make breathtakingly much worse in scope.
By Dan Onwukwe
Every election campaign has its cadence and rhythm, style and sparkle that sets it apart from previous ones. Similarly, it throws up unique individuals that have strength of character and conviction that the rest of us look up, especially in turbulent times. In all sincerity, looking back at the February 25 Presidential election, Mr Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, is an exemplar, a role model for anyone still searching for a solid philosophy that should guide and drive his ambition in life. It’s even more so for our new generation of politicians, the youth, in particular.
It’s not for nothing that when Obi declared his ambition to contest for the presidency, the country was aglitter. The youths who have been yearning for new ways of doing things, became very excited. Peter Obi, it seems, woke them up from slumber.
By Dan Onwukwe
First, a confession: The above headline is not original to me. It’s that of a young American political scientist, Brian Paul Klass. Brian is a contributing editor at The Atlantic, America’s flagship monthly magazine. He is the author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and how it Changes Us. He’s the co-author of How to Rig an Election. His research interests include: Authoritarianism , Democracy, US politics, Political violence, and more.
Lessons in power will continue to elicit intellectual conversation. It’s not for nothing. It’s so because what leaders do while they are trying to get power is not necessarily, to borrow the words of historian Robert A. Caro, “what they do after they have it”. It’s, therefore, not unkind to say that it has been the misfortune of Nigeria to watch worse people rise to power and use that power to bend people to their will and impoverish the citizens.
By Dan Onwukwe
You needed to have been at the Boundary market, Ajegunle, Lagos state, last weekend. There were tears of joy when the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, went to campaign there. It was part of his open campaign in selected markets across the country. Remember he has always told us that he is trader.
It wasn’t the chant of his name, “Obi, Obi, Obi number One”… that touched the hearts of the enthusiastic crowd at the Ajegunle market. It was, indeed the crowd of excited women with their kids jostling like that woman with the issue of blood in the scriptures who desperately wanted to touch only the hem of the garment of Jesus Christ and be healed. (Matthew 9:20-21, KJV). Obi obliged them, carrying one baby after the other. It’s the audacity of hope, amid despair.
By Alade Rotimi-John
Youth by nature believe they are naturally endowed to take over from the generation preceding theirs. Their impassioned attacks for change often put them on a collision course with their elders even as they tend to oppose all forms of paternalism.
Many of them visibly participate in affairs and events of the moment, applauding what they consider to be right and denouncing what they perceive as wrong. They are immensely appreciative of the pedagogical value of their alter ego teachers or instructors. They imagine that the real authority for their consciousness is located in the unyielding principles imparted to them by their bolus magista who often give them a fund of unclassified and, sometimes, unrelated knowledge for projected ideological combat.
By Chiedu Uche Okoye
Why is Nigeria, a country endowed with humungous human and material resources, still trapped in the cocoon of economic and technological quagmire and backwardness? Why has she continued to bring up the rear on the global ladder of countries’ development? The answer to the above question is not far-fetched. The military incursions into our politics had dealt a severe and devastating blow to our democratic growth and national development. And we have not got it right, politically since Nigeria became a sovereign country in 1960.
The departing British imperialists laid the foundation for the egregious culture of imposition of national leaders on the populace in Nigeria. They surreptitiously helped Alhaji Tafawa Balewa to become our Prime Minister in 1960. Was Tafawa Balewa better than Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who were intellectual giants and political juggernauts? Not surprisingly, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa failed to unite the Peoples of Nigeria and set the country on the path of sustainable economic growth and irreversible technological development.
