You Have Stayed Long Enough On This Mountain

 By Sola Ebiseni  

True as Solomon said: “The race of men under the sun is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…but time and chance happen to them all.” Yet that was conventional wisdom before the days of John the Baptist from whence and until now, even the kingdom of heaven and greater so for the earth, suffers violence and only men of violence take it by force -a declaration by He who is unquestionable. 

Whether by chance, as preached by Solomon who had everything, fighting no war like David his father, but nevertheless got a blank cheque from God after sacrificing his assets which today would make him a billionaire, or by Christ whose sacrifice is his precious life, no glory comes without taking a step. 

Nigeria: Ethnic Profiling And 2023 Campaigns

 By Emeka Alex Duru  

Weeks to the official flag-off of the 2023 presidential campaigns, signs of what to come are becoming clearer. And disturbing! Nigerians may be in for a rough deal, perhaps, worse than they are having, if the morning, as they say, determines the day. Mudslinging and ethnic recriminations may dominate public engagements, in place of issue-based campaigns. 

Presidential campaigns are carnivals of sorts. They are occasions for glamour, demonstration of eloquence and style. But besides the side shows, they are moments of stock-taking, reflections and defining the future of the country. That is why presidential debates and manifesto nights are usually taken seriously in advanced democracies.

 

They are avenues for the candidates to advertise themselves and market their parties to the people and tell them what to expect from them if voted to power. Whatever declarations made by the standard-bearers on such events, are taken as yardsticks upon which they would be assessed while in office. For the incumbent, they provide opportunities to brandish their achievements, while the opposition, cash in on the window to expose the lapses of the party in power and project itself as the alternative.

 

An incidence in the 1980 American presidential election offers a good illustration on this. In the final week of campaign between the candidate of ruling Democratic Party, President Jimmy Carter and Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan, the two were put on debate. In course of the exercise, Reagan posed what has become one of the most important campaign questions of all time: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Carter’s answer was a resounding “NO”. That response was what the voters needed to deny him re-election but America as country won in the long run. That is the beauty of presidential campaign.

 

As the Independent National Electoral Commission gets set to lift the seal on the campaigns, you would expect the presidential candidates of the leading political parties in the country and their foot soldiers to be addressing their minds to such important questions. The presidency is the hardest job in the world, says American essayist, John Dickerson, in his piece on the White House. He prescribes that when the national fabric rends, the president will administer needle and thread, or at least reach for the sewing box of unity. This is a big lesson for those aspiring for the office.

But that is not what we are getting here, so far. It is rather campaigns of calumny and regurgitation of primordial sentiments. Resort to ethnicity is more dominant. In place of interrogating and analysisng the contents of pronouncements by the presidential candidates, their persons and pedigrees, issues of regions of birth are being played up, obviously to divide the people.

 

In Lagos for instance, the campaigns are drifting from the challenges facing the country to such fleeting topic as the ownership of the city. In the process, drinking joint banters or off-hand jibes by loose minds, are being cited as reasons to profile others and accuse them of attempting to take over the state. Since the emergence of the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and the momentum he has been generating especially among the youths and down trodden Nigerians, there have been waves of insinuations on the Igbo for “plotting to covet Lagos state”. Suddenly, the allegation of the Igbo purporting that “Lagos is no man’s land” has been on the rise and penetrating. Supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Tinubu, are firing relentlessly on this.

 

But that is a ruse. There is no space that can be described as “no man’s land”. Every entity has an indigenous population with certain claims of ownership or autochthony. Lagos cannot be an exception. Regardless the length of residence of an Igbo or any other non-indigene in Lagos, he/she remains a visitor.

 

Next to this is the lazy recollection of subjective narratives of the First Republic politics featuring the hackneyed mistrust between Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for which some Igbo and Yoruba seem sworn not to accept one another. The idea behind raking up these baseless topics is to further drive the wedge between the people from the two regions. The agenda may appear simple on the surface. But most genocides and ethnic cleansings in history, had started by casual profiling of the victims. That is the reason why these reckless expressions of sordid sentiments, should not be taken lightly 

 

Importantly, they are not issues that should bother Nigerians, presently. The candidates need to tell us how they intend to tackle the challenges facing the country. These are matters of failed governance, infrastructure collapse, insecurity, youth unemployment, depreciating value of the national currency, endemic strikes in the institutions of higher learning and restiveness in the component units of the country.

 

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), just released a data the other day, which puts Nigeria as having about 20 million out-of-school children. The rate before was between 10.5 and 13.5 million. But with insecurity and kidnapping of school children, some parents are scared of sending their wards to school in some parts of the country. The present estimate is worrisome.

 

Elsewhere, though there seems a disagreement on an earlier report by a global terrorism research/analysis group, Jihad Analytics (JA), which placed Nigeria as the second most terrorised/attacked country, and that of fact-check which quotes the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) as saying that the country is sixth in the league, the fact is that the climate of insecurity remains high, here. Farmers can no longer access their farms, resulting to food insecurity in the land. In other indices of development, we are not faring better. Nigeria remains the Poverty capital of the world since 2018.

 

Nigeria tops the list of fragile, failing states and now the most stressful country to live in, according to the stress level index. For seven months running, students in public universities have been out of school due to the face-off between their teachers under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Federal government over unfulfilled agreements.

 

Some Nigerians abducted in the Abuja-Kaduna-bound train on March 28, are still held by their captors, while the government looks the other way.

These are the issues that should matter in the 2023 debate. The task ahead is enormous and not the trivial issues of the Igbo or any group trying to take over Lagos or indeed any state in the country for that matter. Nigerians do not have the time for such idle talk.

*Duru is a commentator on public issues                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Cemetery Of Corruption Called Nigerian History

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

There is talk here and there of bringing back History with a capital “H” in the Nigerian school curriculum. It is cool by me to do a short history course with the ruling party, APC, and President Muhammadu Buhari. Necessary lessons need to be learnt before the elections that will lead into the next dispensation of Nigeria’s much touted democracy.

To start back in time, Nigeria’s first coup as arranged by Emmanuel Arinze Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Adewale Ademoyega, etc. did raise the issue of corruption as a major prong of why they struck to sack the First Republic.

The entire coup attempt got mired in the corruption of ethnic politics until there was the bloodier counter-coup in which the revenge squad wanted secession, code-named “araba”, until the British colonial masters advised against herding into arid nothingness. Of course, the Nigeria-Biafra war supervened, and after the war, the youthful Head of State Yakubu Gowon proclaimed “No Victor, No Vanquished” and “Rehabilitation-Reconciliation-Reconstruction” that became more fictional than Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

2023 Presidential Election: Can We Get It Right?

 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.

Everyone’s Obituary Is Inevitable

 Chuks Iloegbunam tells Sam Omatseye to cleanse his journalism 

*Peter Obi

 Some have called you foolish, dear Sam Omatseye. Others insist that you are plain stupid. There are those who hold you to be beneath contempt. Their howls of execration upon you are in reaction to your August 1, 2022 article entitled Obi-tuary. For me, however, you are a dear friend. Our friendship started in the 1980s at Newswatch magazine where both of us practiced journalism before you travelled to the United States for further studies.

 

It continued upon your return and strengthened to the point that, sometimes, you get the producers of your TV Continental programme to connect me to field questions live. Besides, living in different states, we often chat by telephone. I demonstrated our amity again last May when I was in Nigeria’s commercial capital for the Lagos International Book Fair. I phoned you and, within the hour, you were at my stand where we spent quality time reminiscing about the good old days and prognosticating on the future of our dear fatherland.

 

Armed with this handle of friendship, I have just the one advice for you: Be careful. It is in elaboration of this counsel that I write all that you read hereon. Please look back to the time of the Nigeria-Biafra war of 1967 to 1970. You will find that, military or civilian, none of the political actors of that era is still in a position to fight elections today. The final curtain long fell for most of them. Of the lot that remains, some have become vegetables, or are propped up with a suffusion of drugs or would not find their way to the loo unless hired attendants or swearing relatives point it out. Together with the handful that is still blessed with something close to robust health, they have one thing in common. They are seated, restless or restive, in various existential departure halls, clutching fitfully at their boarding passes and waiting for that inevitable voice that cannot be disobeyed, to announce their flights into past tense. 

I Am A Nigerian Voter! I Am Available For Sale To Highest Bidder!

 By Dare Babarinsa

During our one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), between 1981 and ‘82 in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun State, our monthly stipend was N200: 00. Yes N200: 00, which today, cannot buy a standard loaf of bread.

At that time, it was a princely sum as the national minimum wage was N100: 00. After collecting a one-month salary, I approached my cousin, Mr Ayo Olaoye, then a manager with the CFAO, who helped me to buy a giant double-cabin Frigidaire standing refrigerator for N200.00.

Today, N200.00 cannot buy a single vote in Ekiti State, once the intellectual powerhouse of the Yoruba people of the South-west. You will need N10, 000.00 for that, or at least 20 loaves of bread. With that princely sum too, the collector of money-for-vote would be expected to make a pot of soup that is going to last him or her till the next governorship election in four years time.

I don’t know whether it is the electorate that is forcing the politicians to pay to vote, or it is the politicians that have reduced the electorate to the level where they now need to get a pot of soup from the politician before they cast their vote in his/her favour. Or in exchange for power, the politician gives one loaf of bread per week for four years. What a bargain!

Tinubu’s Muslim/Muslim Ticket Obsession

 By Ochereome Nnanna

The chances are that, by the time you read this article, the major presidential candidates – Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC; and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, would have announced their running mates.

*Bola Tinubu

Of the lot, Tinubu’s matter matters the most. From the distant past when he started developing interest in becoming the president of Nigeria, he has always postulated that a Muslim/Muslim ticket “can work; competence is all that matters”.

If “competence” is all that matters, why not just pick a fellow Yoruba; they also have their share of competent people. Why look for something in Sokoto when you can simply pick it from your Sokoto pocket? But hey, I perfectly understand his situation.

Nigeria: The Conversation We Don’t Want To Have About Biafra!

 By David Hundeyin

Fourteen years ago, when I was a 19-year-old fresher at the University of Hull, I met Ify. She was at that time, probably the most beautiful girl I had ever set my eyes on. I immediately tripped, hit my head and went into an infatuation coma.

Ify was the quintessential social butterfly – witty, friendly, distinctly intelligent and culturally Nigerian, with a few notable modifications like her South London accent and a slight tomboy streak.

*Biafran children... 

I think my eyeballs actually turned into heart emojis every time I saw her, and within a week of starting university, my mission in life was to get Ify to be my girlfriend. The problem was, it didn’t matter how much time and attention I dedicated to her – Ify was not interested in me.

We were very good friends, but as time went on, it became clear to my great dismay that she and I as an item, was just never going to happen. Eventually, I gave up on Ify and retired to lick my metaphorical wounds, completely assured in my 19-year-old wisdom that I would never love again.

Same Country, Different Worlds

Nigeria: The Burden Of Untrained Leaders

 By David Osiri

“E go better” is a common phrase used in Nigeria to affirm our inner aspiration of a better future. Popular artistes turned it into songs. We say it when we want to reassure ourselves of a better tomorrow, hoping that the nation will live up to its potential one day.

*Nigerian leaders

The wise are beginning to realize that hope is not enough, a byproduct of faith. Faith is a risk, and we need to put it in the right leaders who can lead the nation into a prosperous future. We need leaders who are trained and prepared for a moment like this. We need to identify such people to escape the burden of untrained leaders that has beguiled Nigeria and Africa at large.

A little disclosure before I proceed: this article might read like leadership 101. Learning new things without mastering the fundamentals is like building a house on a sinking foundation. If the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do? A nation’s destiny and its people depend on its leadership; therefore, it is serious. And in critical moments like one where our nation has found itself today, we cannot afford to hand the steering of our wheels to an untrained leader.

Pastor Tunde Bakare And The Lies Of A Failed State

 By Chuks Iloegbunam 

Pastor Tunde Bakare of The Citadel Global Community Church recently spoke through his hat while preaching a sermon. He told his congregation that, during the January 15, 1966 military action that toppled the First Republic, the soldiers that took Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa removed his turban, poured wine on his head and force-fed him with the alcohol. For abominating him, Balewa, just before he was shot, pronounced a curse on Ndigbo, to the effect that no one from the ethnic group will ever bear rule over Nigeria. Mr. Bakare’s story, fanciful as it sounds, is a pack of lies. This article, therefore, is to educate Mr. Bakare and others of his misguided persuasion with the truth, of which Jesus, the Christ said in John 8: 32: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” 

*Awolowo, Azikiwe, Balewa

 

On the mundane level, no one removed any turban from Sir Abubakar’s head. The turban is a headdress. Soldiers invaded the Prime Minister’s official residence at around 3am, when the man was in bed. Did he sleep turbaned? Do people sleep in their headdresses? Apart from that picture in which presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari appeared in suit and tie, wearing a wan smile and looking almost comical with his receding hairline, there hardly is another photograph of the man in which a cap does not adorn his head. Would his traditional fondness for full dressing gear ever mean that he went to bed in a hat? Do women sleep with all those accessories they routinely assembled on their heads for public events? Tafawa Balewa’s turban was not removed because he wasn’t wearing one when his adversaries closed in on him.

From Wild, Wild West To National Inferno!

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

A seemingly innocuous spark in an otherwise isolated part of a nation can change the course of history. 

Nigerian history as we have it today owes its shape to the handling or mishandling of the Action Group crisis of the early 1960s. The initial crisis led to a chain of events culminating in the Nigeria/Biafra war and the deeply polarized and wounded nation such as we have today.

*Awolow, Azikiwe, Balewa

“May you live in interesting times,” is a twice-told charge; and thus Chief Simeon Olatunde Oloko found himself through forces beyond his control to be in the epicenter as a witness of the events that reshaped Nigerian history. Born at Agodi in Ibadan, the author who studied at the esteemed London School of Economics and Political Science, and was called to the bar of Inner Temple in 1958, served as secretary of the pivotal Western Nigeria Development Corporation (WNDC) from the vantage point of which he lived through the manifold crises that bedeviled the old Western Region and Nigeria.

Let Us End The Nigerian Civil War!

 By DAN AMOR

For those who were born during or after the Nigerian Civil War, recent publications, provide an illuminating pathway to the events that led to the war. No nation among the third world countries makes a stronger claim on the interest and sympathy of Africans than Nigeria. What Nigeria has meant to the black continent and to blacks across the world, makes her future a matter of deep concern. Nigeria might be doddering or tottering behind less endowed African countries as a giant with feet of clay, no thanks to the tragedy of irresponsible leadership. 

  *Displaced South Easterners during the Biafra-Nigeria War

But whatever happens to her usually serves as a huge lesson for other African countries. To view therefore with judgment and comprehension the course of present and future events in Nigerian life and politics, we must possess knowledge and understanding of her past, and to provide such understanding within concise compass, we must consult history. Yet it is an unbiased, disinterested and unprejudiced inquiry into the history of our country that will ensure that we leave a legacy of truth for generations yet unborn.

In fact, the true story of Nigeria must begin with the foundations of the nation-its geographical and economic character; its socio-political and religious influences and the psychology of its peoples. 

Besides the existence of multi-ethnic nationalities before the fusion of the Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914 by Lord Fredrick Lugard, a British imperialist military commander, and the almost 100 years of British colonial rule, the great period of post-independence crisis – 1960 – 1970 – must be vividly delineated for posterity.

The death in November 2011 of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu who has come to symbolise that great epoch of epic struggle brought to the front burner of national discourse, the issues and convergent forces at play in the Nigerian Civil War. But recent developments point to the fact that our leaders who prefer to learn their geology the day after the earthquake would want history to repeat itself. 

Unfortunately, rather than telling in bold dramatic relief, the tragic and magnificent story of what brought about the war and its aftermath, some commentators have elected to mislead the reading public on who actually caused the war. Some have even pointedly accused Chief Ojukwu of having masterminded the war in order to divide Nigeria. 

What can be more mischievously misleading than the deliberate refusal to allow the historical sense transcend the ephemeral currents of the present and reveal the spirit of a people springing from the deepest traditions of their tragic experience? How could one begin to appreciate a legend who continued to be astonishingly misunderstood even when the realities of the factors that pushed him to rise in defense of his people are damning on the rest of us more than 50 years after his action? Why is it so difficult for us to appreciate the fact that Ojukwu had come to represent, in large and essential measure, not only a signification of heroism but also a courageous attempt to say no to an emerging oligarchy which was bent on annihilating his people from the face of the earth? 

No Nigerian in his right senses should support any nebulous attempt to re-awaken the Biafran experience. But if we believe the time-tested aphorism that few men are austere or dull-witted enough to scorn the pageantry and romance of history, then we must ask ourselves why, for God’s sake, would people become so barren in thought as to hold the view that Ojukwu caused the Nigerian Civil or what some mischievously call the Biafran War? 

Even for those of us who were born during the holocaust that was the war itself, a deep reflection on what brought it about cannot in all sincerity be divorced from the greed and unbridled ambition of Nigerian politicians – the quest to dominate others and the winner-takes-all mentality of the lackeys to whom the colonialists handed over power on a platter of gold. 

Why must we forget so soon the blatant rigging of the 1964 Western Region election by the Federal government – controlled Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) in favour of S.A. Akintola at the expense of Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Action Group who was believed to have won that election in the first place? How can we forget so soon that it was the upheaval that followed that manipulation in the Western Region and the inability of the government at the centre to contain it that orchestrated the January 15, 1996 military coup and its aftermath? 

In fact, in all the accounts of the developments that led to the war, both local and international, none particularly mentioned Ojukwu as a key player in either the coup of January 1966 or the July 29, 1966 counter revolutionary coup led by young Hausa/Fulani soldiers. Ojukwu’s response to the wanton killings of Igbo and other nationals of Eastern Nigerian origin was a latter day development which in all practical purposes followed the natural course of history. He was just an uncommon patriot who responded decisively to the issues of the day. 

We bow courteously before the mighty personages of other traditions. The appeal of Nigeria’s annals is not that of a success story. The record of our soulless country is strangely somber. Like in France, our earliest heroes might be heroes of defeat. But the story is shot through with episodes of unequaled magnificence. That history is repeating itself just as we recall our ugly past shows that it is the destiny of Nigeria to live dangerously. 

Last month, January 15, 2021, Nigerian leaders pretended to have marked the 51st anniversary of the end of the Nigerian Civil War. All of them, including the victims of the war itself who pretend not to know, went to the graves of the "unknown soldiers" to lay wreaths in remembrance of the supreme price they paid for Nigeria to be one. Yet, in the minds of most notoriously undemocratic Nigerians, the war has not yet ended and the country is not yet one. The last administration made an Igboman Chief of Army Staff and brought the Civil War to its knees. He prosecuted the Boko Haram war almost to its logical conclusion. 

          *Ojukwu, Ankrah and Gowon at Aburi, Ghana, 1966
But another man came and reversed what the last administration did by insisting that an Igbo cannot be Chief of Army Staff; cannot be Chief of Air Staff; cannot be Chief of Naval Staff; cannot be Chief of Defense Staff and cannot even be Inspector General of Police. The current one is saying that the civil war has not ended; that the vice presidency which the South East attained seven years after the war was an error. No. It is not true. The Civil War which ended on January 15, 1970 must be laid to rest. No victor, no vanquished. 

Between 1800 and 1945, there have been pockets of civil wars across the world before the Nigerian Civil War which was fought between 1967 and 1970. There was the Castle Hill convict rebellion, 1804; the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition (Texas) 1812-1813; Argentine Civil Wars, 1814-1880; Zulu Civil War, 1817-1819. There was also the Long Expedition (Texas), 1818, 1821; the Greek Civil War, 1824-1825; the Freedom Rebellion (Texas), 1826-1827; Liberal Wars (Portugal), 1828-1834. The American Civil War was fought between April 12, 1861 and May 9, 1865 and the Spanish Civil War was prosecuted between July 17, 1936 and April 1, 1939. All these civil wars ended and the respective countries became more united than before. 

If the Nigerian Civil War has been fought and won or declared "no victor, no vanquished" by Gen. Yakubu Gowon, then it must have meaning and the end taken to its logical conclusion. The South East must produce the next Inspector General of Police and the Service Chiefs, for Nigeria to move forward. God has endowed this country with all that is needed for it to blossom into one of the best countries in the world. We must end sectional greed and domineering postures for Nigeria to get there. The Nigerian Civil War must end without much ado. Let this country be great again.

*Amor, a public affairs analyst resides in Abuja

Nigeria @ 60: Our Leaders Have Failed The Founding Fathers

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

To fight against untruth and falsehood,

…to fight for our memory;

for our memory of what things were like –

that is the task of the artist.

A people who no longer remembers

has lost its history and its soul.

–     Alekzander Solzhentsyn 

With trillions of revenue in Naira, mostly from crude oil sales, agricultural exports, solid minerals, sundry taxes including Value Added Tax (VAT), from the ‘60s till date, it is a crying shame that Nigeria is currently the world capital of extreme poverty! And that it still parades some of the most disturbing and dismal figures in the Human Development Index (HDI) across the globe. 

*Awolowo, Azikiwe, Balewa 

According to Oxfam Report, between 1960 and 2005, about $20 trillion was stolen from the treasury by public office holders. This amount is larger than the GDP of United States in 2012 (about $18 trillion).The Report goes further to state in categorical terms that the combined wealth of Nigeria’s five richest men, put at $29.9 billion could end extreme poverty at a national level. Yet, more than 112 million people are living in poverty in Nigeria, while the country’s richest man would have to spend $1 million (N386 Million) every day for 42 years to exhaust his fortune! So, what does this mean to you and yours truly? 

Is Nigeria A Mistake?

By Julius Oweh  

Of the three prominent early Nigerian na​tionalists, it was perhaps Nnamdi Azikiwe, the great Zik of Africa and a mentor to Kwame Nkrumah who believed in the unity and corporate existence of the nation. The other two, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo at one time or the other expressed their reservations about the unity and oneness of the country. It is on record that Ahmadu Bello described the 1914 amalgamation as a mistake, while Awolowo described Nigeria as a mere geographical expression. 

*Buhari 

At the height of constitutional conferences that paved way for the nation‘s independence, Bello was quoted as saying about  the north ‘we are not going to be part of Nigeria again‘. The most powerful politician of the north at that time only had a change of mind when Awolowo explained the concept of federalism to the Premier of northern region.   I am embarking on this political voyage so that you can truly understand the situation and why after sixty years of independence, despite the abundant human and material resources, Nigeria is still the butt of dirty diplomatic jokes around the globe. 

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. 

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.

Nigeria: Buhari And A University Of His Own

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

With the current preoccupation of President Muhammadu Buhari with the setting up of his own university, his flatulent claim of being actuated by public interest has suffered further repudiation. His pet project has unravelled him not as a touchstone of integrity, moderation and patriotism but as another victim of the acquisitiveness of the nation’s leadership that has ceaselessly undermined good governance.

President Buhari and wife, Aisha 

 To be sure, it was not Buhari himself who publicly vouchsafed his plan to set up a private university. It was his wife who disclosed that she would set up a university with the name Muhammadu Buhari University. But even if Buhari were not the originator of the idea, the fact that his name is associated with the project shows that he is fully behind it. After all, he has not disavowed his wife’s claim since the news broke.

Remembering Bola Ige

By Abiodun Komolafe

Ethno-religious leanings or socio-political ideology notwithstanding, it is almost improbable for any society to underestimate the contributions of some people to the emancipation of its people and the realization of the dream of its founding fathers. For instance, America will forever remain grateful to the likes of Martin Waldseemuller, Stephen Moylan, George Washington and Martin Luther King Jnr. for their contributions, one way or the other, to the realization of the American dream as a land of equal opportunity for all.

*Bola Ige 

In like manner, China’s economy wouldn’t have become “the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history” to the extent of having “lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty” but for the political sagacity and economic ingenuity of leaders like Chairman Mao Zedong and Den Xiaoping.

Terrorist Herders: Open Letter To Gov Godwin Obaseki

By Sylvester Odion Akhaine

Your Excellency,

I chose this medium of an open letter to reach out to you because of the existential danger presently confronting the peoples of Edo State. It is no longer news that Nigeria has become an open killing field stalked by so-called Fulani ‘herdsmen’, a roving band of terrorists acknowledged by the Global Terrorism Index as the fourth most dangerous terrorist organisation in the world.

*Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State

The crux of the matter is that while every community in Nigeria is alive to this danger posed by this band of terrorists and have openly rejected penetration projects variously referred to as ‘cattle colonies’ and ‘ranches’ advanced by their sponsors who currently control the levers of power at the centre, the governing elite in Edo state has maintained felonious silence over their forceful occupation of Edoland and murderous activities within. It is possible that the silence is induced by honest ignorance of the dynamics of the activities of these terrorists on your part and therefore requires some enlightenment by a recourse to some aspects of our history. 

Buhari 2019: The Audacity Of Buharideens

By Martins-Hassan Eze

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance  and an conscientious stupidity” — Dr. Martin-Lurther King Jnr.

Walahi! This thing called shame some Dudu’s just don’t have it. How can a man with conscience and human heart refuse to acknowledge the regrettable fact the GMB is a disaster; a ticking time bomb. Is it not now clear that GMB is the worst thing to happen to Nigeria since the return of civilian rule in 1999? Yet, some mugus are not just shameful enough to stop selling the candidature of this Mobutu in the social media. And, I ask. Is the protection of lives and properties no longer the primary responsibility of government? Have PBM and APC not failed woefully in this regard? Perhaps, for Elrufai; the petit Kaduna tyrant and Dean, college of Buharideens, good governance is all about ethnic cleaning and political jihad. 

President Buhari 

Who should we blame? Did KONGI the noble laureate not bemoan the fact that social media is a vomitorium some years back?  Some folks think that the social media is their village stream. They just jump into the square with rotten and stinking narratives: fighting corruption is the reason why we should become slaves in our country. Fighting corruption is also the reason why all ancestral lands of non-Muslims in the north should become a mass grave and grazing land for Fulani herdsmen.