President Tinubu Discovers Ice In Macondo

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Let the whole wide world join me in universal celebration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who has just repeated the immortal feat of discovering ice.

*Tinubu

The first time ice was ever discovered in human history was in the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

According to the opening sentence of One Hundred Years of Solitude, “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Nigeria: Where is the 2014 Confab Report?

 By Dan Amor

In Culture And Anarchy, Matthew Arnold, one of the greatest social and literary critics in nineteenth century England, employs a delicate and stringent irony in an examination of the society of his time: a rapidly expanding industrial society, just beginning to accustom itself to the changes in its institutions that the pace of its own development called for. 

*Jonathan 

Coming virtually at the end of the decade (1868) and immediately prior to W.E. Forster’s Education Act, Culture And Anarchy phrases with a particular cogency the problems that find their centre in the questions: what kind of life do we think individuals in mass societies should be assisted to lead? How may we best ensure that the quality of their living is not impoverished? In this little book of about 238 pages, Arnold applies himself to the details of his time: to the Reform agitation, to the commercial values that working people were encouraged to respect, and to the limitations of even the best rationalist intelligence. 

Nigeria: All Is Quiet On The Western Front

By Dare Babarinsa 
Let me start with a confession. I have not read the manifesto of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. However, I had expected that one of the new grounds the party would cultivate is the abandon forest of constitutional reforms. So far, it has shied away from this. Indeed, some of the pronouncements of its red-cap chiefs suggest that it is militantly opposed to any form of constitutional amendment.

*MKO Abiola

We may recall that President Muhammadu Buhari, before he was halted by illness, had said on national television that he would have nothing to do with the reports of the Constitutional Conference brokered by his pliant predecessor, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

It is not out of point to regard the APC as the successor-political estate of Chief M.K.O Abiola, the great man whose sacrifice formed the cornerstone of our struggle against military rule. Indeed when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn-in as the elected successor to General Abdulsalami Abubakar, many of the leaders of the struggle regarded him as an undeserving beneficiary of Abiola’s great struggle. It is a fact of history nonetheless that Obasanjo had suffered as much as, if not more, than most of the leadership of the opposition. It was not surprising therefore that Obasanjo paid scant attention to the call for the restructuring of the Federation. As President, he played his game as an advocate of a strong Federal Government. He and members of the military class, especially those who spent their youths fighting in the Civil War, are suspicious of the call for constitutional reforms. They fear it might spiral out of control. I disagree.

Where Are The Chibok Campaigners?

By Amanze Obi

Some 584 days ago, something called Chibok crept into the Nigerian lexicon. We were told that a certain sleepy town in Borno State that goes by that name had been invaded by Boko Haram terrorists. The gist of the strange tale was that over 200 schoolgirls had been ab­ducted from a secondary school in the town.

 The story, strange as it was, bore the ring of the familiar. It was in line with what had become almost customary – the daily invasion of northern enclaves by Boko Haram insurgents. Consequently, government, as it appeared then, did not take exception to it. Be­sides, the story resonated more with theory. How did the abduction take place? Where were the authorities of the school when it happened? What about the Nigerian security network that operated in the North East? Did they, by any means, know something about the famed abduction?

 Answers to these questions did not come handy. They were far to seek. Because this was the case, the government of the day, which was honed in by its effort to establish the truth of the matter, was not quick to respond to the abduction story.

That was the period of high wire politics. It was a pe­riod when the Jonathan presidency was encircled by a web of conspiracy but which was hardly obvious to the president himself.

 While the president groped in the dark, the conspirators had a field day. They tightened the noose around his neck. And so, because the Jona­than presidency was not seeing clearly, opposite people seized the stage. They went to the roof tops with the story of the abduction. Then the international media took over from them. And before long, the government of the day was crippled by the story of the abduction.

Will The Chibok Girls Ever Return?

By Maxwell Adeyemi  Adeleye

A graveyard silence enveloped the nation of Nigeria on the 15th day of April 2014 when the despicable news of the kidnap of 276 female students of Government Day Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State hit the blogosphere. The girls were said to have been abducted by suspected Islamic Fundamentalist Group, Boko Haram.

A series of protest trailed the kidnap saga aftermath the failure of the immediate past administration of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the Nigerian security formations to rescue the girls from their abductors.

The incapability of Jonathan’s administration to unravel the misery behind the controversial kidnap of Chibok girls led to a wild condemnation and rejection of his reign within and outside the shores of Nigeria.

This singular factor indeed, contributed massively to the defeat of Jonathan at the polls in 2015 presidential election. The kidnap saga was a good campaign PR for the opposition desperately searching for central power. It was a well greased campaign that collapsed a political dynasty embedded with incumbency.

The hitherto loved, cherished and valued Jonathan by the international community because of his intellectual humility and erudition became a recluse character decorated with a legendary muffler of cluelessness, ineptitude and clumsiness.

In Nigeria, various groups advocating for the release of the missing Chibok girls emerged. Journalists, Activists, Social Commentators and Analysts within and outside the shores including myself descended on Jonathan and his security chiefs through our pen and voices.

That Nigeria May Survive The 2015 Presidential Elections

By Nnaemeka Oruh                                          

 A few days from now, we shall be headed to the polls for the 2015 Presidential and National Assembly elections. Then two weeks later, the governorship and state assembly elections will hold. This year's presidential election will arguably be the most fiercely contested and the closest presidential elections since the history of Nigeria’s democracy. The All Progressives Congress (APC) – the major opposition party in Nigeria, has over the past one year grown to be a robust and influential party which stands within touching distance of taking over from the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). Few will argue that this development has engendered a sense of insecurity amongst the ruling party and has ultimately become very healthy for our democracy.  Yet, as we go to the polls, it is important that we be careful and desist from certain acts that may truncate this well-worked out democracy.

*President Jonathan and Gen Buhari

One of the most important things we need to watch out for is the circulation of false information. In this era of social media, several false information have been in circulation either to gain cheap popularity, or simply to cause mischief and advance some sinister objectives. With the nauseating desire to 'feel among', many for the sake of attracting retweets by twitter celebrities have gone as far as cooking up fake stories that they know will pander to the desires of the twitter celebrities and proceeded to tweet such false news to them in order to gain acceptance and appear relevant.