Trial Of Minors: When A Dissenter Criminalises Dissent

By Adekunle Adekoya

For some time now, the detention and arraignment of under-age protesters by the Police dominated conversations at home and abroad.

In August, a nationwide protest against the harsh economic policies preferred by the federal administration led by President Bola Tinubu began, tagged #EndBadGovernance. Largely driven by social media conversations, organisers sought to mobilise the populace to register their displeasure with the way things have turned and are still turning for them. So, August 1-10 was billed as protest days. Before the day, government machinery went into overdrive, with massive resources committed to ensuring that the protests did not hold.

Nigeria Where It No Longer Pays To Work!

 By Dele Sobowale

“How can productivity work in a place where you have ten people clustering an office, no electricity, trek to about 11-storey building. Labour punches the button to work no matter what.”     

– Dr Tommy Okon, Trade Union Congress, TUC

Dr Okon has captured only a fraction of the miseries of millions of “employed” Nigerians. Before reaching the office to start climbing the stairs, he/she might have trekked up to eight kilometres from home to get there. In reality, the relationship between employers and employees in Nigeria today is much closer to the seventeenth century slave and slave owner arrangement. After going through the hazards, including no breakfast everyday, he might still not get paid at the end of the month. Nigerian workers, at all levels in many organizations, now constitute the largest group of involuntary philanthropists in the world now.

As Mr. President cools off in London…

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Soon after President Bola Tinubu made a futile attempt to raise the hope of Nigerians in his Independence Day broadcast on October 1, 2024, he jetted out to London on a ‘two-week vacation’. A statement by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, indicated that it’s a working vacation and a retreat to reflect on his administration’s economic reforms. Really!

*Tinubu

Nigerians are used to governance by deceit. Not a few citizens doubted this story about vacationing to reflect on economic reforms. They wondered why the President should travel to London to do that simple task. Are the air conditioners in Aso Villa not cooling his brain well enough? Well, we have to believe because we have no choice. If you protest, security agents could arrest you and slam terrorism charges against you.

Fellow Nigerians, Forget Govts, Fend For Yourselves!

 By Dele Sobowale

I didn’t come to look for money and exploit the situation; I came to work. I asked for the votes, and Nigerians gave them to me” – President Bola Tinubu, September 20, 2024.

Small correction is needed before getting to the heart of the matter. Nigerians gave candidate Tinubu 33 per cent of their votes; 67 per cent did not want him. INEC and the judiciary finished the job for him. Furthermore, no President has ever confessed that he was looking for money. But, why are they always far richer after than before going into office? To the best of my knowledge, Tinubu had no AIRBUS 320, even Tokunbo, before he became President. That costs a lot of money! One of the best attributes of great leaders is leadership by example

Only The Dead Protest In Nigeria

 By Kenechukwu Obiezu

Protests may be no pills for the dying, but in Nigeria, they pilfer the dead, or at least, their dainties.

On August 1, Nigeria erupted in protests. The protests which pinched many states of the country hard, some harder than others, were over bread, but quickly bared deep-lying issues, braiding together knots of anger and despair over the state of the country.

As Politicians In Power Lie And Cheat

 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? 

Bayo Onanuga’s Slimy Mud-Bath

 By Ochereome Nnanna

For his own purposes, President Bola Tinubu had delayed the appointment of Bayo Onanuga as one of his spokesmen. Ajuri Ngelale, broadcast journalist and Ogoni chief, was presented to give Tinubu’s media office a handsome, though unsmiling face.

*Peter Obi 

Many commentators were relieved that elements like Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Festus Keyamo would not be brought to irritate the nerves of decent Nigerians with their tawdry, noisy and cheap propaganda antics which we saw during the campaigns for the 2023 general elections in Tinubu’s camp. This feeling was further reinforced when Alake was posted to the Solid Minerals Ministry and Keyamo taken to Aviation.

Nigerians May Soon Pay Air Levy!

 By Casmir Igbokwe

Last week, when I wrote that this government lacks a human face, I never knew that more harsh policies were in the offing. If not that President Bola Tinubu is a Muslim, I would have thought that his other name is Zaccheus. The biblical short man called Zaccheus was a tax collector, deeply hated by the people. Although the first name of the executive chairman of our Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is Zaccheus, he is innocent of the recent taxes the Federal Government imposed on Nigerians. 

*Tinubu

The most recent one is called cybersecurity levy. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), all money deposit banks, mobile money operators and payment service providers will soon begin to deduct 0.5 per cent on electronic transactions in line with Section 44 (2)(a) of the Cybercrimes (Amendment) Act, 2024. The levy is to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF) administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). 

Electricity Tariff Hike: Civilised Nations Don’t Pauperise Their Citizens

 By Olu Fasan

A nation is civilised not because of its aesthetic, its beautiful architecture. Rather, a nation is civilised because of how it treats its citizens, because of the duration and quality of life of its citizens. That’s why social security or safety net for the poor is a badge of the heathy society. However, Nigeria creates billionaires but eviscerates the middle classes and makes everyone else poorer without meaningful state support. 

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo once bragged that he created many billionaires while in government. “My aim when I was in government was to create 50 billionaires,” Obasanjo said. “Unfortunately, I failed. I created only 25.” But how? Well, he banned imports of certain products, allowing some manufacturers to enjoy a protected domestic market and rake in billions; he granted waivers of import tariffs to favoured people, who imported large shipments of consumer products, such as rice, tariff-free and sold them expensively, thereby becoming billionaires; and he gave oil blocs to a select few, turning them into billionaires. It’s crony capitalism, a rentier state. Capitalism is rigged to favour a small elite.

Not So, Mr. President, Nigeria Must First Love Her Citizens!

 By Banji Ojewale

The security and welfare of the people (of Nigeria) shall be the primary purpose of government— The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

*Tinubu

In 1976, the military regime of Olusegun Obasanjo sought to stir the patriotic instincts of our young citizens by decreeing the National Pledge into our lives. It must be recited in all Nigerian schools, the junta said. The general’s martial mind given to governing by fiat and force led him through only one route to patriotism: a mental enslavement of the boys and girls through feeding on the pledge would lead, willy-nilly, to their loyalty to the state and its agents and agencies. If they voiced it out many times over the years, their impressionable minds would give way to deeds of loyalty and love for the land, even if they were under an oppressive, objectionable and off-putting government.

Why Tinubu’s Policy Adventures Will Fail

 By Charles Onunaiju

President Bola Tinubu and his administration bask in the euphoria that they have taken some “tough” and “courageous” measures that would deliver prosperity to Nigerians in the future. The coordinating minister of the economy, Mr Wale Edun, recently stated that despite public uproar at the harshness of the measures and their devastating impact on the lives of Nigerians, along with the more frightening dimension of security meltdown, the administration has been receiving accolades at several international forums, including the World Bank, IMF, and the G20 meetings.

*Tinubu

However, it is not because the measures are tough, courageous, and may have attracted accolades from outside that they may fail to produce any result close to prosperity, but because they are extraneous and largely disconnected from the existential reality of the current condition of the country. The choice of the word “measures” to denote government response is deliberate, even as it is widely called policy.

What Tinubu Must Do To Avert Food Riots In Nigeria

 By Steve Onyeiwu

AS the saying goes, a hungry man is an angry man. He is also a restive and dangerous man. Nigerians are already very angry and weary about the country’s severe economic challenges; the lack of inclusivity in economic development; the high unemployment rate; extreme poverty; infrastructural decay, pervasive insecurity, and a bleak economic future. For many Nigerians, a persistent and steep increase in food prices would be the last straw that jolts them into violent food riots. 

Prof Onyeiwu 

President Bola Tinubu understands the severity of the problem when he declared a state of emergency on food security in July 2023, and the formation of a Presidential Task Force on food insecurity early this month. It would be recalled that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo also set up a similar task force in February 2017. But long-term solutions require much more than the mere setting up of a task force. Nigerians are sick and tired of task forces, special committees, advisory councils, high-level summits, council of experts, technical committees, extraordinary body of thinkers, leaders of thought, etc. They want action and impactful results, not admonitions, regurgitated solutions, and empty promises.

Hunters As Missing Link In Nigeria’s Security Architecture

 By Bonaventure Melah

Until Nigeria takes necessary and bold steps to commission a special security agency that is dedicated and committed to fighting crimes and criminalities that are planned and executed within and around forests, all efforts by the government towards ending heinous crimes like banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping and others, would continue to be a mirage.

Today, Nigeria has the Police which fights and prevents crimes within cities and rural communities, the Nigeria Army which was created to protect the nation from external aggression and insurrection, the Navy to fight crimes within the nation’s territorial waters as well the Air Force to defend our air space while the NSCDC oversee national assets and work to stop pipeline, public electricity and other forms of vandalism and related crimes.

Tinubu’s Unhappy 8 Months In Office

 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.

*Tinubu

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.

Nigerians Counting On Tinubu To Fix Economy

 By Kekemeke Gboloibai

Quite frankly, the telltale scars of general delusions caused by the volatility in the economy in 2023 earnestly need a presidential healing balm to give soothing relief to the many Nigerians whose means of livelihood have disappeared with the times, their self-worth undervalued,  and their manliness of mind continually eviscerated. Thankfully, help may be on the way as President Bola Tinubu, in his New Year address to Nigerians, said he feels the pulse and the groaning of Nigerians across the country.

*Tinubu

Regrettably, the average Nigerian cannot meet his family’s expectations as current food and general inflation rates hit an all-time high of 33.93 per cent and 28.92 per cent respectively.

Pogrom In Plateau: Why?

 By Ray Ekpu

It was an unmitigated disaster. As Christians were preparing to mark the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, tragedy struck in three local government areas of Plateau State. Over 20 villages in Bokkos, Mangu and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas of the State were attacked, almost 200 persons, men, women and children, massacred and 1300 houses set aflame while at least 88 persons were rushed to hospitals with varying degrees of injuries. About 10, 000 of the survivors have been displaced. They are now refugees in their own country, uncertain where their next meal will come from or whether the attackers will come to where they are to complete their devious assignment.

Those who survived the pogrom can thank Mother Luck but most of them lost their relations. Here are the wailings of some of the survivors. One of them said: “My entire 21 relatives were wiped out.” Another said that as they attacked “We pretended to be dead but as my son tried to crawl away the Fulani attackers noticed that he was not dead, they killed him.” One woman said: “While escaping with matchete cuts I didn’t know that my baby had fallen from my back.” 

Nigeria: What Goes Around Comes Aground

 By Banji Ojewale

The universal principle is that what goes around must come around. It’s not so in Nigeria. With us, when what goes around goes around, it does more than coming around. As it makes its return trip, it comes aground, grounding us, leveling us, merging us with the miry mud. That’s been our history, extinct and extant. We create institutions and leaders from this back-and-forth process to form an endless cycle of vulnerable links in governance that remind us of the late poet, Christopher Okigbo: AN OLD STAR departs, leaves us here on the shore, Gazing heavenward for a new star approaching; The new star appears, foreshadows its going Before a going and coming that goes on forever… (Path of Thunder).

*Buhari and Tinubu 

 It is a villainous star, a kind of abiku that gives short-lived joy to the home where it surfaces at birth. Our present is nothing but a horrid replay of our unpleasant encounters with the past. We sowed the wind yesterday; but today we’re reaping what’s greater than the wind. What goes around comes aground.

Tinubu’s Foreign Policy: Driving Nigeria In A 4D Wagon

 By Owei Lakemfa

Ambassador  Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, the Honourable  Minister of Foreign Affairs, stepped out on Thursday December 21, 2023 to explain to  Nigerians the four-dimensional space built by the Tinubu administration for the country’s foreign policy. Tuggar, 56, a player in the oil and gas industry had in the last six years, been Nigeria’s Ambassador to  Germany.

*Tinubu

This opportunity  of  a wide audience including the diplomatic community, intellectuals, active and retired public servants   to examine  the new policy, was provided by the ever thoughtful and visionary Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria, ARCAN. 

The ARCAN, led by Ambassador John Kayode Shinkaiye,   one of the country’s greats in African diplomacy, asked me to chair the occasion which had the succinct theme:   ‘The Foreign Policy Agenda under Tinubu Administration.’

Nigeria: Time To Clean Up The Budget Process

 By Tunde Bamise

It is budget season again for Nigeria. In November, President Bola Tinubu assented to the 2023 Supplementary Budget, and, a few weeks later, presented the 2024 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly. Naturally, this has been followed by a lot of debate and conversation about the details of the budget.

President Tinubu, in his presentation speech to the National Assembly, described it as “Our Budget of Renewed Hope; a budget which will go further than ever before in cementing macro-economic stability, reducing the deficit, increasing capital spending and allocation to reflect the eight priority areas of this Administration.”

Tinubu’s First Six Months: Redemption Way Or Road To Golgotha?

 By Kalu Okoronkwo

President Bola Tinubu’s assumption of office on May 29, 2023, marked a critical moment in Nigeria’s political landscape, evoking both expectations and scrutiny.  His landmark speech during his inauguration that brought about the much-touted oil subsidy removal was a turning point in the country’s economic policy.  This is because many perceived the issue of subsidy removal as a hard nut to crack hence previous administrations only paid lip service to it.

*Tinubu 

Six months in the life of a new administration is very much early day for a four- year tenure but the augury mirrors what lies ahead.

An unbiased and dispassionate assessment of Tinubu’s first six months in office can only return one verdict: it has bought unmitigated hardship and thrown more Nigerians into multidimensional poverty. Food inflation is at its highest ever that even a bulb of onion has become a gem stone to be pampered and cherished.