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. 

Why Nigerians Are Flocking To Peter Obi

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

The burning desire by Nigerians to see a turnaround in the country underscores the reason why Nigerians are flocking to Peter Obi and the Labour Party.

There is an urgent expectation for a new dawn to manifest in Nigeria without delay to give Nigerians a new lease of life. People are fed up with the status quo. Any political platform that could guarantee the desired rebirth becomes the centre of attraction.

*Peter Obi 

As it were, Nigerians have suffered untold hardship, pain and anguish brought by selfish and greedy politicians. The political and economic system has been ruined. Long-suffering is a norm in Nigeria as people bear the burden of misrule. The virtue of patience has been overstretched beyond the limit and this is understandable.

Understandable in the sense that the country has been raped and bastardised and Nigerians denied the good things of life since independence. The desire for a productive country started on October 1, 1960. That desire did not materialise. Barely six years into independence the country was plunged into a fierce fratricidal civil war that claimed over a million lives and truncated the political and economic trajectory.

Buhari’s Parting Gift To Nigerians

 By Charles Okoh

Come May 29, 2023, it would have been eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari. It would have been eight trying years or a mixed grill of the good, the bad and the ugly. To say those years have stretched the people to the very limit of their existence which has left many despondent, disillusioned, crestfallen and in a state of near hopelessness would amount to stating the obvious.

*Buhari

What are the facts? It is a fact that Nigerians have been enduring very harsh and debilitating living conditions as of late. Did the problem begin with the present administration? Certainly not, it is the culmination of many years of poor leadership and a continuous downward slide, but it is also sad to note that rather than fashioning a plan to halt this trend it had become a free fall. The government of President Buhari has only helped in exacerbating the nation’s slide into the abyss.

Just as his actions have not helped matters in any way, his inactions at several occasions when the nation needed him to wield the big stick has further paved the way for a multitude of cataclysms on the ragged nation that is barely held together by a strand.

Nigeria: Emerging Ray Of Hope In Igboland

 By Jude Asike

One possible approach to look at the incoming government of Chukwuma Soludo in Anambra State is to look at it as an account of the change of many things in Igboland, Nigeria. This is invariably to say that with the emergence of Soludo as the next Governor of Anambra State on March 17, 2022, things will positively change for the better in Igboland.

*Soludo

The failure of leadership, lack of genuine goal and vision for Igbo persons in Nigeria will be corrected through a proper understanding of good governance and development initiatives in Anambra State. Anambra is always gifted in producing great leaders of thought, and Soludo is here to move the people of Anambra to the next level.

Nigeria: Script For A Final Looting Spree

 By Ochereome Nnanna

The Good Book says “by their fruits ye shall know them”. When you dress a person in borrowed robes just to show off, William Shakespeare (Macbeth Act 5, Scene 2) says it will be “(hanging) loose about him like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief”. Before 2003, the Finance portfolio of the Nigerian economy had always been handled by men. After his frivolous first term, former President Olusegun Obasanjo decided to get serious in his second. Nigeria had a debt overhang of $32bn owed to the Paris Club alone.

*Buhari 

Obasanjo saw that his global gallivanting and begging for debt forgiveness was not cutting ice. He needed to do more than merely advertise his “beautiful” mug on the streets of Western capitals.

Anambra State In Nigerian Politics

 By Chuks Iloegbunam

Anambra is one of Nigeria’s 36 states. In size, it is the second smallest after Lagos, measuring only 4,844 km2. Lagos State is 3,577 km2. But Kaduna, Kano, Kogi States are 46,053 km2 , 20,131 km2  and 29,833 km2  respectively. Despite its tininess, however, Anambra’s motto of Light Of The Nation is true in many respects. 

Compared to all other states, Anambra people have shone the brightest in all positive forms of human endeavor – academics, business, politics, sports etc. Olaudah Equiano, the writer and abolitionist came from Esseke, in Anambra State. So did Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the doyen of Nigerian journalism and the first President of Nigeria who played a pivotal role in the attainment of political independence from Britain in 1960. Chinua Achebe was from Anambra as were countless other notable novelists, including Chukwuemeka Ike, Nkem Nwankwo, Onuorah Nzekwu. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is from Anambra.

As Anambra State Confronts An organized Crime Family

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On 6 November, 2021, Anambra State, at 4,844 km² the second smallest state by landmass in Nigeria – Lagos State with 3,577 km² is the smallest – is scheduled to go to the polls to elect a new governor. Preceded by no campaigns or debate and defined by an orgy of mass murder, this Anambra election will go down as one of the most disembodied in Nigeria’s recent history. It is a battle between those who see elections as a game of numbers (no matter how procured) and those who seek to ensure that elections are based on credible counting and accounting.

This election is a defining battle for the future of (south-east) Nigeria. If Anambra produces a governor who, like the one in neighbouring Imo State, is manifestly without legitimacy, there will be no end to the crisis in that part of Nigeria. To understand why this is so, it is essential to recap the story of how Anambra’s governorship elections went off-cycle because it presents a resilient cast of characters that represent a dominant strain of criminal impunity in electoral politics in Nigeria.

Ken Nnamani And Odinkalu’s Misplaced Aggression

 By Reginald Okafor

Chidi Odinkalu has cut a niche for himself as a critic of the intellectual hue in the last few years in Nigeria so much that his views are well regarded. His place in advocacy and as a former Chairman of Nigeria Human Rights Commission (NHRC) place him in a privileged position. They confer some credibility on whatever he says. But, in a recent piece he wrote titled ‘Ken Nnamani:The Man Who Sold His Conscience’, Odinkalu missed his shot by a mile!

*Chidi Odinkalu

Odinkalu, in what is understandably his frustration with the state of anomie in the southeast, where killings and unexplained kidnappings have been the lot of the people, took umbrage with the current administration and dragged some persons in the ruling All Progressives Congress into the sordid affairs in Anambra State, one of them former Senate President Ken Nnamani, a man who has earned his badge of integrity even in the murky waters of Nigerian politics.

Does Nigeria Still Matter To Nigerians?

 By Dan Amor

It is the biggest question of the day! Does Nigeria really matter? Like an inscrutable nightmare, the ponderous mystery of the Nigerian national question, which is ultimately the nation’s enduring essence, is still at issue. Jolted by the scandalous and shocking display of the obvious limitations of the human evolution, the unacceptable index of human misery in their country, and willed by a recent memory of oppression inflicted upon them by discredited soldiers and their quislings, Nigerians have been singing discordant tunes about the state of their forced Union.   

This has further been exacerbated by disarming pockets of inter and intra-communal clashes, wanton killings by herdsmen, senseless Boko Haram bombings, frequent kidnappings by armed bandits, violent robbery and mindless ritual killings across the country. Therefore, the matter for regret and agitation is that a supposedly giant of Africa has suddenly become the world’s most viable junkyard due to the evil  machinations of a fraudulent ruling class and the feudal forces still determined to keep the country in a permanent state of medieval servitude. 

Nigeria: This Country Belongs To Us All

 By Dan Amor

Even as the River Niger surges still along its wonted paths to its dalliance with the River Benue and the consequent emptying of the passionate union into the mazes of the Delta, and, thereafter, into the vast, swelling plenitude of the all-welcoming seas, it is Nigeria, our Nigeria. True, Lagos is still Lagos; Abuja is still Abuja. It is, indeed, injury time in a new country under a new democracy, our democracy! Yet, everywhere you look, things look pretty much as they always have been. Still, the sway of buffoonery and unintelligent greed; still the billowing gown arrogance of the supposedly powerful, the surface laughter of the crashing rivers celebrating the disquieting crisis of democracy, the riveting appearances of things. 

Splendid is the current! Yet, into the heart of the average Nigerian pop uninvited intimations that we live today in the cusp of a new age, a new country and a new democracy. Alas, it is a new era. But in the lull between the passions and exertions and excitations of our workaday world today, at these times when the body yields to repose and the mind nestles in shades of quietude, it hits you: it is the dawn of change! But, what manner of change is this? From better to worse?

Is Nigeria Still the Giant of Africa?

 By Reno Omokri

The 2019 xenophobia attacks in South Africa, for which President Muhammadu Buhari visited South Africa on Thursday, October 3, 2019, was the defining proof that the rest of Africa needed to see, to convince them that Nigeria, under Muhammad Buhari, has become a paper tiger, whose bark is worse than its bite.

Come to think of it. How can Nigerians be attacked in unprovoked xenophobic outrage in South Africa, and it is the Nigerian President who goes to grovel to the South African leader, a neophyte, like Cyril Ramaphosa, nonetheless?
It beggars belief. Obasanjo would never have done that, and former President Jonathan did not do it.

Nigerians may recall that on March 4, 2012, South Africa deported 125 Nigerians over Yellow Fever Certificates. The very next day, then-President Jonathan ordered the retaliatory deportation of 84 South Africans.

Chief Bola Ige: 19 Years Without Justice

 By Dan Amor

A calculated insult and the guilt preceded his death, stealing from the actual murder all its potential impact and drama. There never was a crime more dramatically rehearsed, and the tale only provides it could not have been otherwise. Yet there are no clues to be uncovered, no enigmas to be revealed; for this was a murder almost predicted like its predecessors. 

                                                               *Bola Ige 

As a principled and astute politician, even though he agreed to serve in former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s cabinet, Chief Bola Ige did not preach to Nigerians. But he provoked questions and left us in no doubt as to where he stood. He shared none of the current tastes for blurred conflicts, ambiguous characters and equivocal opinions. Nor was he disdainful of strong dramatic situations building up for firm climaxes. From the critic’s point of view, the plot of Ige’s senseless murder in December 2001, in its high velocity treachery, summarizes modern Nigeria in one word: “shame”. 

Making Nigeria Work Again

 By DAN AMOR

There is a lamentable and disturbing magnitude of violence in Nigeria. So is crime. The country is constantly on the boil. The atmosphere in the country has been nothing but a tawny volcano. The situation conveys at once the chief features of the Nigerian spirit: it is vertical, spontaneous, immaterial, upward. It is ardent. And even as tongues of fire do, it turns into fire everything it touches. What we are experiencing today is induced by poverty, hunger, frustration, apathy and desperation. 

                                                                  *Buhari 

There is no more thermometer to measure the degree of frustration and desperation in the land than the long closure of our tertiary institutions, especially our universities due to strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) since the past eight months. 

When Will Nigeria Stop Fuel Importation?

 By DAN AMOR
Sometime ago, the former Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke hinted that the Federal Government had planned to stop the importation of refined petroleum products in 24 months. I had said in this column then that if that ambitious plan was not met, Mrs. Alison-Madueke should be prepared for a legal battle with concerned Nigerians as her wild goose chase would amount to perjury, a criminal offence since she made the statement under oath in her official capacity as minister of petroleum resources. The truth, however, is that our government officials make statements just because they have to read out something to the expectant public for the fun of it. 

There is usually not substance or truth in their mouths. Otherwise, why would the former Minister predicate the stoppage of importation of refined petroleum products on the turn-around maintenance of the four decrepit refineries? She knew that even if the four traditional refineries were to function optimally their total output would still not meet the demand for local consumption. All things considered, the business segments of the society and the consuming public that suffer the brunt of petroleum products importation would have jubilated at the pronouncement of the then Minister in far away Vienna, Austria. 

Assessment Of Nigeria’s 59th Independence Anniversary

By Guy Ike Ikokwu

The situation in Nigeria today, is egregious and monumental that it gives a great majority of our peoples a feeling of total hopelessness in such a way that the general belief is that there must be a catalyst within the system.

It is now clear to the Nigerian masses that they have been deprived of their sovereignty for more than 50 years by the high ranking military personnel since January 1966 which torpedoed the civilian democratic norms inherited in various discussions with our British colonialists who had acted equivocally in their own self and economic interest. 

We have had 9 constitutions in 25 years to usher in real democracy which our young heroic musician and artist Fela Anikulapo Kuti called “Demon – Crazy” that was a philosophical thoughtful expose but the perspectives of our past decades show that our system of governance has really been demonic till this day! The last 1999 constitution which Nigeria had was initiated by Gen. Abudulsalami Abubarkar. Today we know that the 1999 constitution was a fraud as it was not delivered by the people of Nigeria. 

Nigeria: A Nation In Reverse Separatism

By Russel Andrew Crowe

Calls for the rebirth of the defunct Republic of Biafra have been increasingly heard on the streets of Nigeria in recent times. Following the reunification of Nigeria and Biafra in 1970, the world looked forward to a new Nigeria without the ethnic-tinged political injustices that had alienated one of the most important ethnicities in Nigeria – the Igbos and their near-kins – to the point of seeking a country of their own by force in 1967.

But soon enough, it became clear that, rather than do the sensible thing, some successive Nigerian regimes have used unitary tactics to further alienate the Biafrans that inhabit Nigeria’s oil belt. While some previous regimes had made-pretend that this was not the case, the current regime that came to power some four years ago has made no secret of its disdain for the former Biafrans.

Awolowo, Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) And The Barbarians

By Banji Ojewale

It has been said of Obafemi Awolowo, Western Nigeria’s first premier, that like Roman Empire’s first emperor, Augustus Caesar, he was ‘’an efficient organizer’’ and a ‘’great builder’’ who struck several feats that have remained unmatched in Nigeria’s record books several decades after his rule. In his severally referenced book, An Outline History of the World, H. A. Davies notes that Augustus appeared to have fulfilled his boast that ‘’he had found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.’’ He transformed Rome from a small republic not only into an empire, but also into a civilization that has influenced world history over the ages.

*Awolowo Obafemi

With Awolowo, there are also parallels that are engraved on marble. As premier from 1954 to 1959, when Nigeria was yet a dependent colonial outpost of Britain, he ran a government that has since been rated the golden era of the southwest, the outer region of the area stretching eastwards to the banks of the Niger also  being beneficiaries. Awolowo introduced free education, the first in our clime. He then embarked upon a voyage of social reforms that heavily subsidized health to announce to the world the arrival of a socialist, even if of the centrist hue.

Buhari And The Enduring Hate Narrative

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

In the buildup to the 2015 elections, the wild, uproarious promotion of General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the man with the panacea for   Nigeria’s myriad of problems wasted no time in saturating the air.

*President Buhari 

This was sloppily packaged with a strange, aggressive refusal to give the slightest consideration for any voice of caution, any alternative opinion no matter how sound and redemptive. You either joined the rowdy herd or you are a “hater” of the “messiah.” 

On Biafra And Democracy

By Obi Nwakanma

These are busy times for Nigeria. May is the month of blooms. But in the last couple of weeks, two parallel celebrations came to underscore the fragility of the Nigerian state, and the hollow rituals of its self-annunciation.  First, on May 29, the president like the other presidents before him since the year 2000 when it was initiated by Olusegun Obasanjo, celebrated what it now calls “Democracy Day.”

*Odumegwu-Ojukwu 

I personally think this a truly annoying misnomer because May 29 carries with it, the germ of a profound national tragedy. It was on May 29, 1966 that the Pogrom of Easteners commenced in earnest in Nigeria. On May 29, 1967, General Ojukwu declared the birth of the Sovereign state of Biafra, and announced the excision of the East from the old Federation of Nigeria.

Nigeria: The Road To Babylon

By Reuben Abati

Nigeria is on the road to Babylon: a place of confusion. Three years ago, the people were convinced that they had found a messiah who will lead them to the Promised Land, and meet all their expectations. 

*Buhari 

Today, everyone is speaking in different tongues; “turning and turning in the widening gyre…the falcon cannot hear the falconer… things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/The blood-doomed tide is loosed, and everywhere/the ceremony of innocence is drowned…surely, some revelation is at hand…”

But just may be, there is still, no cause for despair. The good thing about democracy is that it teaches people lessons – ask them in Malaysia and the United States – and even when the people refuse stubbornly to learn – ask them in Syria, Venezuela, and Libya –  the lessons exist nonetheless.