Craving For My Own Taste Of Dubai

By Steve Onyeiwu

To say that Nigerian governors are obsessed with Dubai is an understatement; they are chronically infatuated by it. As we enter election season, with its entertaining and melodramatic defections saga, you’ll hear the governors and governorship aspirants promise they would turn their mostly impoverished states into a Dubai. Even governors who have not paid workers’ salaries and pensions for several months would be telling their hapless electorates they’ll not have to travel to Dubai anymore, for their own Dubai will be right at their doorsteps after the elections. The governors’ obsession with Dubai might make sense on its face value.

Afterall, who wouldn’t want to relish in the posh malls of Dubai, with their indoor ski slopes? Who wouldn’t want to bask in the pristine and romantic beaches of Dubai, while feeling the succulent freeze from the Persian Gulf? Who wouldn’t want to have dinner on one of the several cruise ships on the shores of Dubai Skylines? Who wouldn’t want to go gold-shopping at the famous Dubai gold souk?

Is Nigeria Heading For Food Riots?

By Steve Onyeiwu

Nigeria is no stranger to riots and demonstrations. From the days of “Ali Must Go” in the late 1970s, the SAP riots in 1989, the June 12, 1993 protests and the perennial outbursts by the various militant groups in Nigeria, the country appears to have become accustomed to riots. While the Nigerian state has managed to weather these storms, the country can ill-afford food riots. As the saying goes, a hungry man is an angry man. Nigerians are already very angry about the high level of corruption in the country, the ongoing recession, the lack of inclusive growth, the high unemployment rate, chronic poverty, infrastructural decay and the lack of economic opportunities. For many Nigerians, a persistent increase in food prices would be the last straw that would jolt them into food riots.

(pix: WB)

Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice President, understood the severity of the problem when he established a Presidential Task Force last February to address the problem of escalating food prices. But long-term solutions require much more than the mere setting up of a task force. Some of those solutions will be discussed later in this article.

Buhari, Please Don’t Die Before Me!

By Steve Onyeiwu

Buhari and I are in a race of death. I hope and pray I win that race. As transient humans, we all embark on the race to death right after sliding from our mother’s womb. How long it takes to run that dreaded race depends largely on exogenous factors beyond our control. Religious people believe that the more pious and God-fearing you are, the higher the probability that your race to death would be protracted. In other words, you’ll be competing head-to-head with the likes of the famed and biblical Methuselah. 

*Buhari

But secular folks argue that the duration of the race to death depends on a combination of factors that include genetics, life-style and serendipity. The latter may be influenced by God, spirituality and “providence.” For these reasons, I may well die before Buhari, though he is far older than me. As an inherently unpredictable phenomenon, some of those who have been overly obsessed with Buhari’s death may die before him. Death can also be a biased umpire that fulfills some people’s wishes, but dashes other people’s hopes. While some politicians who are prematurely positioning themselves for 2019 have been cheering Buhari to run faster on the death track, many other compassionate Nigerians pray for his quick recovery.

Right from when he began receiving treatment in London early this year, endless news about Buhari’s death have been circulating around the world. Some say he has a terminal disease. Quack doctors have looked at his photos and conclude that he is chronically ill. Some medical doctors who should refrain from diagnosing a disease by perusing a patient’s visual outlook, without conducting blood, X-Ray, MRI, colonoscopy, physical and other vital tests, have jumped into the fray, declaring that Buhari is a lost cause! But they forget that even the best doctors in the world cannot look at photos and diagnose a patient’s ailment, let alone provide a prognosis for the patient’s survival.

Buhari’s Health, 2019 And Release Of The Chibok Girls

By Steve Onyeiwu

Last Saturday, Boko Haram unexpectedly released 82 Chibok girls, after a gruesome three years in captivity. Indeed, the entire world seemed to have moved on and forgotten these innocent girls. While the world was outraged by the use of chemical weapons against children in Syria, no one seemed to care about the fate of the Chibok girls. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo even speculated that the girls may never be seen again.

What prompted their sudden and unexpected release? The official spiel is that the girls had been swapped with some Boko Haram prisoners, in a deal brokered by Switzerland and some international NGOs. I believe, however, there are more complex reasons for their sudden release, and that the timing is very intriguing.

First, why would Boko Haram release the girls to an ailing President Muhammadu Buhari, who many believe has been so incapacitated that he could no longer prosecute the war against Boko Haram? Why would Boko Haram now be afraid and willing to negotiate with a Commander-in-Chief who has not met with his frontline officers for a long time? In military parlance, Boko Haram would expect the Nigerian army to be disorganised and in retreat. Boko Haram might, therefore, assume that Nigerian Army Chief-of-Staff, General Buratai’s recent visit to Brazil, instead of focusing on intensifying the onslaught against Boko Haram, reflects the army’s disorganisation and lack of command and control by the Commander-in-Chief.

Could the release of the girls be attributed to the fact that Boko Haram and its sponsors would want Buhari to claim credit for the girls’ release, rather than “President” Yemi Osinbajo? Could it have anything to do with the permutations for 2019? Perhaps to ensure northern unity and stability, Boko Haram and its benefactors may have come to the conclusion that it’s better to release the girls under Buhari than under Osinbajo. Maybe they do not want to see a situation whereby southerners would say: “see, your northern president did not succeed in releasing the Chibok girls as he promised during the 2015 presidential election. Why, then, did you people castigate and voted against former president Jonathan for his failure to secure the release of the girls?”