Urgent Action Is Needed On Alcohol Harm In Nigeria

 By Isidore Obot

Alcoholic drinks are all around us. They come in various forms and prices – from expensive foreign wines and liquor to the more affordable palm wine and locally distilled beverages. Drinking at home or in a communal setting is a popular activity among old and young in Nigeria as it is in many parts of the world. 

More than half (53 per cent) of Nigerians aged 15 years and above are alcohol consumers; 47 per cent are abstainers, a category that includes people who have never had any alcoholic drink and those who used to drink but stopped for religious, health or cultural reasons. More females (62 per cent) than males (33 per cent) fall under the category of abstainers. This distribution is similar to what obtains in most low-income countries but different from the situation in western countries where higher proportions of adults are alcohol drinkers.

Corruption: EFCC Is Not Fit For Purpose; It’s Time To Scrap It!

 By Olu Fasan

When General Olusegun Obasanjo became president in 1999, he was under pressure from the international community to tackle corruption frontally. Obasanjo himself described corruption in Nigeria as cancerous, saying it required surgical operations. He established an anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in 2003.

But 20 years later, Nigeria remains a “fantastically corrupt country” as a former British prime minister memorably put it. The cancer of corruption has festered and spread malignantly, destroying every facet of Nigeria’s polity.

Hadi Sirika And The Fraud Called Nigeria Air

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Some people believe that Nigeria, our dear country, is a criminal enterprise. Those who perceive the political ideology construct – patriotism – from the prism of the three wise monkeys, a Japanese pictorial maxim which embodies the proverbial principle of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” aver that such a portrayal is harsh.

But in reality, the ‘see no evil crowd’ are only parodying the mendacity of the three monkeys in the Japanese folklore – Mizaru, who pretends to see no evil by simply covering his eyes; Kikazaru, who hears no evil, covering his ears; and Iwazaru, who claims to speak no evil by covering his mouth.

Unmasking Poverty In Nigeria: The Pains, Deprivation And Remedies

 By Elvis Eromosele

Poverty is a real concern in Nigeria. It permeates the lives of individuals and communities, leaving many trapped in a cycle of deprivation. Poverty is a pervasive issue in Nigeria. It casts its dark shadow over countless lives, leaving individuals and communities starving millions of opportunities for a better future.

Nigeria serves as a poignant case study, a country grappling with the complexities of poverty despite its vast resources. To uncover the true face of poverty in Nigeria is to inspire collective action and foster a society where every Nigerian can thrive.

There Was A Man Called John Jerry Rawlings

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Nigeria is more divided than ever, and the politicians of Nigeria have gone completely mad. It is as though everybody is now totally beyond control. Nigerians have replaced the Constitution with just one word: Impunity.

*Rawlings 

Of course in this matter of impunity, there is no difference between the parties and the politicians because crossing party lines rampantly like harlots-on-heat is all the rage. There is no redemption in sight for the odious lot. These wanton Nigerian politicians need to be reminded of what happened in Ghana back in 1979.

No Tobacco Day: WHO And Smoking Epidemic In Africa

 By Adeze Ojukwu

World Health Organization (WHO) has again raised concerns over a looming tobacco epidemic in Africa. It called on African leaders to confront cigarette companies, who are bolstering tobacco farming in the continent. 

“The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health challenges the world has ever faced, killing more than eight million people around the world every year. While the number of people using tobacco products is decreasing in other parts of the world, it is rising in the Africa Region.” 

The Homosexuality Of Cultural Imperialism

 By Owei Lakemfa

I made acquaintance with a lady, Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade, about 1990. A few months later, my wife and I visited her in Ila Oragun where she was running a rural library, the African Heritage Research Library. She was an American who had studied at Fisk University from 1963 -1965, earned a Bachelor’s degree in African- American/Black Studies from the San Francisco State University, and a Master of Library Science from the University of California.

So what was she doing in such rustic circumstances? She said she had three children, including two girls and all around the American communities she lived, aggressive forces of lesbianism were on the rise. So, with the agreement of her African American husband, Ayantuga Olade, she fled the United States. Unfortunately, the forces she ran away from in North America, four decades ago, are on the move in her adopted continent, Africa in the guise of campaigning for workers and human rights.

Chidi Achebe Speaks At The Class Day Of Geisel School Of Medicine Graduation Celebrations

 

By Susan Green

On a beautiful Saturday morning, with family and friends gathered to celebrate the Class of 2023 at the Geisel School of Medicine’s MD program Class Day ceremony, guest speaker Chidi Chike Achebe MED ’96, MPH, MBA, described Dartmouth as a “magical place” and expressed gratitude for the medical school faculty whose guidance and support influenced his life. He told Geisel’s new class of physicians that medicine provides one of the best opportunities for servant leaders, whose humility, charity, gratitude, empathy, kindness, and direct engagement build trust and help create a conducive environment for innovation and excellence.

What Public Officers Can Learn From W.F. Kumuyi At 82

 By Banji Ojewale

The international journalist, Baffour Ankomah of Ghana, is reported to have recorded the lengthiest interview session with Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, DCLM. As editor of the London-based New African monthly magazine, Ankomah ran voluminous portions of his encounter with the revered Nigerian churchman in October 2006, revealing more than a treasure trove of the life and times of Kumuyi.

*Pastor Kumuyi

The Ghanaian newsman said what he served the public, old and new takes on Kumuyi, was bereft of the trappings you witness between the intrusive reporter and his evasive newsmaker, between a predator and his potential prey, or between a dispassionate journalist and an equally disinterested figure. The reporter was intentional in his bid to secure an uncommon interview with an uncommon man. He got it, but at a price: he travelled with Kumuyi across West Africa, following and studying the man of God as he preached to hundreds of thousands of the poor and enthusiastic folk who wanted to benefit from his prayers and messages of salvation, hope, restoration, healing and deliverance.

Creating A Noiseless, Productive Lagos By Reducing Traffic Noise

 By Adedolapo Fasawe

Noise pollution is the undesirable persistent sound resulting from various human activities, especially in cities. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), noise pollution can have a significant impact on our physical and mental health, as well as our overall quality of life.

With the increase in population and the need for transportation within cities, the increasing vehicular use has become a major source of unpleasant noise and often overwhelming aspects of modern urban life. The sound of cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles can be heard virtually everywhere, from the bustling city streets to the quietest suburbs.

Tinubu’s Minority Government Faces A Legitimacy Challenge

 By Olu Fasan

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the newly installed president of Nigeria, is a product of two great institutional anomalies. One is a deeply flawed Constitution designed to delegitimise the presidency of Nigeria. The other is a Might-Is-Right state that manipulates state agencies to impose its will on the people. These anomalies deny Tinubu’s presidency the strong mandate and legitimacy it badly needs to govern.

*Tinubu

Let’s start with the constitutional anomalies. Under section 134 (2) of the 1999 Constitution, a candidate is deemed elected as president, where there are more than two candidates, if: (a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election, and (b) he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two thirds of all the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Buhari, The Man Who Loathes Nigeria

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have bothered commenting on former President Muhammadu Buhari, the man who, rather than build, spent eight years in power dismantling Nigeria, brick by brick because for me, his voyage into oblivion is good riddance. After Buhari’s eight ruinous years, Nigeria really needed a breath of fresh air.

*Buhari 

Whether the new order enthroned last Monday constitutes a refreshing change which Nigerians clamoured for remains to be seen. But no one can possibly be worse than Buhari. But I am intrigued by Buhari’s adversarial disposition to the country that gave it all for him. In his last days in office, he spoke condescendingly about Nigeria, in a manner quite unbecoming of a president.

GCFR: Nigeria’s Highest National Honour Under A Threat

 By Carl Umegboro

The ‘Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic’ (GCFR) is the highest national honorary grant in the country exclusively conferred on presidents and former heads of state.

The last time I checked, only the names of former heads of state, former presidents and the incumbent namely: Shehu Shagari, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Moshood Abiola, Muhammadu Buhari, respectively are in the list of recipients of GCFR. All these figures by their positions as former heads of state or former presidents are all members of the Council of State with the incumbent president and vice president as the Council chairman and Deputy Chairman respectively.

Fuel Subsidy Removal Insensitive, Will Devalue Lives By 300% –NLC

 

Statement By The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) On The Proposed Removal Of Subsidy On Fuel

“We at the Nigeria Labour Congress are outraged by the pronouncement of President Bola Tinubu removing ‘fuel subsidy without due consultations with critical stakeholders or without putting in place palliative measures to cushion the harsh effects of the ‘subsidy removal’.

“Within hours of his pronouncement, the nation went into a tailspin due to a combination of service shutdowns and product price hikes, in some places representing over 300 per cent price adjustment.

“By his insensitive decision, President Tinubu on his inauguration day brought tears and sorrow to millions of Nigerians instead of hope. He equally devalued the quality of their lives by over 300 per cent and counting.

Can We Have A New Nigeria, Please?

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the beacon-bearer of Nigeria, nay Africa’s peaceful coexistence and the flag-flying patriot certainly deserves sincere apologies, eight years after he graciously and peacefully left the corridors of political power, at Aso Rock, Abuja.

And the apologies should in fact, come from the All Progressives Congress (APC) political party with its ‘Change’ mantra, which the millions of overtly naïve and gullible supporters swallowed line, hook and sinker. That played itself out of course, during its well-oiled, puerile propaganda-fuelled presidential campaigns back in the 2014/2015 season.

Who’s Really On Trial At The Presidential Election Tribunal?

 By Isidore Uzoatu

Permit this controversial entry. For you see, I’m one of those who ardently believe that all the democratic regimes we have had in this country suffered the same fate. Consecutively, they have been ruined by the daylight robbery passed off as rigging. I know many will disagree.

After all, Nigerians have always advertised their peculiar penchant for the unrecorded. From Adam (and Eve, perhaps), we have been more taken in by enjoyment and its multifarious accoutrements. Any wonder that, even at the best of times, all we have ever laboured to cope with is the accolade of occupying the happiest space on planet earth.

Nigeria Tripped In 2015, Then Stumbled For Eight Years

 By Owei Lakemfa

Today, Nigeria stands ragged and worn out on the global highway. Should it look back at the last eight years and try to make sense of the rough road it had been dragged through? Or simply pick itself up and face the future?

*Buhari 

The misfortune of the last eight years that was the Buhari regime was foretold. No, not by a fortune teller who might have degrees of in-exactitude. But by the exactitude of lived history. A history that opened the book of remembrance reminding us that this taciturn general who was being propped up on stilts of profane propaganda, wrapped in the borrowed robes of a democrat and falsely presented as an unmatched fighter against corruption, is the same man who for 20 months from 1984 subjected the country to terrors of military misrule.

Muhammadu Buhari And The Tragedy Of The Long Grudge

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On December 31, 1983, Sani Abacha, then an unknown brigadier in the Nigerian Army, went on radio to announce the overthrow of the elected civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari, claiming that the military had done so “in the discharge of our national role as promoters and protectors of our national interest” because of “the great economic predicament and uncertainty, which an inept and corrupt leadership has imposed on our beloved nation”.

*Buhari 

The following day, Nigerians learnt that the new military regime was to be led by Muhammadu Buhari, a wiry major-general with a reputation for asceticism, serving as the general officer commanding (GOC) the Third Division of the Nigerian Army in Jos. Commissioned into the Nigerian Army in January 1963 following training at the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, England, Buhari was not just the most senior among the officers involved in the coup, he was also the most experienced. His contemporary and would-be nemesis, Ibrahim Babangida, who emerged as the chief of army staff, was commissioned eight months later, in September 1963.

Options Before Bola Tinubu And His Critics

 By Jideofor Adibe

The Friday, May 26, 2023 Supreme Court’s dismissal of the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party seeking the disqualification of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the February 25, 2023 presidential election over alleged double nomination of his Vice-President Senator Kashim Shettima, essentially removed the last hurdle to his inauguration on May 29, 2023.

*Bola Tinubu

This means in essence that those who cannot bear the thought of Tinubu and Shettima as President and Vice President respectively will have to find a way of adjusting to the reality that they will be stuck with the duo till August this year (at the earliest) when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the challenges to the INEC-declared outcome of the election. We are of course assuming that there will be no other unforeseen variable in-between. 

Did Buhari Lose Weight In Eight Years?

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

*Buhari 

Let’s be guided by the former president’s own measuring rod to assess him and other public officers.  We don’t need to go into any arcane research or some tongue-twisting grammatical constructions to determine whether our outgone leaders served themselves or served us. All we should do is to consider the body optics: has the office holder lost weight or gained extra flesh?