I Stand With Apostle Johnson Suleman

By Clem Aguiyi

Apostle Johnson Suleman of the Omega Fire Ministry is no stranger to controversy. He’s not a saint and didn’t ask to be canonized one, but the Apostle Suleman that I know is a man who love Christ. He toils hard in the Lord’s vineyard, labouring day after day to win souls for Christ.

*Suleman 

He does not just love Christ but ready to die for the Gospel. When he, Apostle Suleman spoke fearlessly on the rights of Christians to bear arms if need be to defend themselves from physical attacks by Islamists, I was agitated as I wondered what would happen to him for speaking out: Will they ignore him? Attack him? Smear him? Frame him up or bring physical harm upon him?

I was therefore, not shocked when little known Canadian stripper, Stephanie Otobo started regaling us with her infamous sexcapades with the media not asking critical questions despite the gaps in the tales.

Having reviewed her sorry tales, I reached the conclusion that she is acting out a familiar script. You need not look further to draw a nexus between Stephanie, her lawyers, Suleman’s foes, their political affiliation and their penchant for image savaging to reach same conclusion. For starters, Apostle Suleman is being accused of sleeping with Stephanie.

Recall for emphasis that on January 28, 2013, Mallam El-Rufai tweeted that “if Jesus criticizes Jonathan’s government, Maku, Abati or Okupe will say that He slept with Mary Magdalene.”

Who Is An Intellectual In Nigeria?

By Simon Abah

As an undergraduate of the University of Ibadan, years ago, I looked forward to many occasions on campus. Some were matriculation and convocation ceremonies. Another was the faculty-lecture-summit involving notable outside stakeholders such as the ones I witnessed, involving Femi Falana, Frank Kokori and others. These  summits were academically enriching and fulfilling – despite my early-in-the-day- exposure to academic giants such as Professors A. Faniran, O. O. Areola, J. O. Ayoade, C. O Ikporukpo, A. S. Gbadegesin and others that space won’t permit me to mention.

On the day of matriculation and or convocation ceremonies, we dressed smartly and hung around outside the convocation and/or matriculation arena. Afterwards, we went about exchanging forced banters especially to the celebrants we didn’t know personally. You need not know the celebrants to be feted. We were on a mission to be feted. All you needed do was to say, “congratulations” to celebrants, family members and parents, acting like you know them, beaming with angelic smiles. This gave you straight passage to enjoy a culinary trip. How we needed it! Conserving scarce resource was a student’s fare. At least we were certain that we weren’t going to dine on those days at D’Morris restaurant within campus and saved nickels which we needed to sustain ourselves afterwards.

The University of Port Harcourt held its convocation ceremony on Friday, March 24, 2017 for undergraduate and graduate students. It reminded me of Ibadan days, only this time, I needn’t have to go to the panoply of celebratory arcade to be feted by unknown persons. I came at the behest of the family of a graduate and was sure of my chow. 

Although choices await school leavers especially as finding a job in Nigeria is largely dependent on the contact persons one knows nowadays. There are a few jobs for few people. A graduate nearby, out of excitement in fulfilling a life ambition, spasmodically shouted to his parents, “Dad, I am now an intellectual.” I had to stare. Intellectual? Who is an intellectual in Nigeria?

The President’s Handlers And His Health

By Ikeogu Oke

This piece was triggered by a tweet I stumbled on recently. Emanating from the tweeter handle of one George Okusanya, it read, ‘Femi Adesina: “The president is not sick”.

Lai Mohammed: “The president is hale and hearty”.

GMB: “I couldn’t recall ever being so sick”.’

 

*Buhari 

Clearly, the tweet juxtaposes the words of Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, and Lai Mohammed, the President’s Minister of Information and Culture, on the one hand, and those of the President on the other hand. By this contrasting placement, the tweet seems to provide proof of the allegation that the President’s handlers had misinformed Nigerians about the state of his health while he was in the UK on medical leave, in consequence of which they have drawn flak from a legion of critics.

I, for one, had been taken aback by the morbid interest shown by some Nigerians in knowing the exact state of the President’s health while he was receiving medical treatment abroad. And this is why: I had thought such people would be more concerned about the resultant indignity for our country that, 56 years after Independence, our President, the President of the country that prides itself as the “Giant of Africa” and “the most populous black nation in the world”, still travels to a foreign country, the country of our colonial masters, to receive medical treatment for a protracted period, during which he might be splayed repeatedly on an operating table, anesthetized, and carved open by foreign scalpels.

Nigeria: Will Darkness Continue Forever?

By Adanu Moses

The power sector in Nigeria is no doubt one of the most inefficient in meeting the needs of its consumers anywhere in the world. The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which before now was a wholly government-owned venture before it was sold to private entities was the organisation governing the use of electricity in Nigeria. Renamed PHCN, it was formerly the National Electric Power Authority (abbreviated NEPA).

For a better part of power generation history in Nigeria, consumers have experienced more power outages than supply. This accounts for why Nigerians humorously represented the acronyms NEPA and PHCN to mean -Never Expect Power Always, Please Hold Your Candle Now. For a better share of history, Nigerians have also blamed the power outages on the distribution companies, saying they are in the habit of always holding onto power and releasing only the bills. This is one of the stack truths and another is the fact that Nigerians seem to have gotten themselves used to the incessant power outages.

This leaves an inquisitive mind asking, who is to blame? Considering the history of system failures in Nigeria, can we say the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) is actually holding unto the power? The simple answer is not farfetched. There is no power to hold unto.

At the end of 2014, according to statistics gathered by the Heinrich Boll Foundation, Nigeria, the country had an installed power generation capacity of 8,000 MW.But only 4,000 MW was being fed into the national grid. Several reasons were given for this huge difference between capacity and actual generation but the reasons do not reduce the energy need of the country which is ever on the increase. As at the end of 2015, the electricity need of Nigeria stood above 40,000 MW and research says 192,000 MW will be needed by 2030. With this huge gap, 80 per cent of the population is left in darkness. 

Ndi-Igbo And The Biafran Question

By Okafor Judith

I have heard so many people ask, "Why won't Ndi-Igbo forget the memories of the 1967-70 civil war and move on?" Or "Why is it that Ndi-Igbo cannot forget the bitterness of the civil war and move on?"

Odumegwu-Ojukwu taking oath of office as
Biafra Head of State in 1967

But I have these for those who have been asking the aforementioned questions:

The countries of Europe still discuss about the 30 year war that brought about the Westphalia treaty of 1648.

The Jews have not forgotten the holocaust of 1940s.

Alexander the Great wars of over 2000 years ago are still being talked about.

Ndi-Igbo have every right to discuss about the war because Warsaw still discuss the attack on her by Germany in 1939 in their history classrooms. Learning one or two things from it.

The First World War that was fought in 1914 which disrupted the relative peace in Europe for over 100 years is still being discussed.

The US attack on Japanese two cities - Hiroshima and Nagasaki that led to the subsequent end of the Second World War is still being discussed till date.

The aforementioned Wars and among others were fought during the 17th century and early 20th century. While the Biafra-Nigeria war that was fought in the mid 20th century is the one that Ndi-Igbo should not talk about, but rather forget and move on.

Hameed Ali And the Custom Uniform

By Jaafar Jaafar

I’m happy the Senate did not succumb to Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Ali’s implausible pretexts of avoiding either appearance before the Senate or wearing the service uniform.

Since his illegal appointment as Comptroller General of Customs on August 27, 2015, Hameed Ali, a retired army colonel, flies the service aircraft, earns the service highest salary, occupies the top service office, but looks down upon the service uniform. He wants all the privileges attached to the office, except that grey uniform with green beret.

That military elitism of looking at the police with disdain, the paramilitary with derision and civilian with contempt is still running in Hameed Ali’s veins. Haughty, asocial and absolutist, Ali is a terrible oddball under a democratic setting.

But if Ali thinks their uniform is demeaning to wear, as his regimented, intemperate ego tells him, he should quietly leave the job for career officers or someone who could abide by the rules. It is not a matter of doing your job well, which is also put to question particularly by your senseless retroactive order on car duty payment. Ali’s order on mandatory duty payment for old vehicle owners is akin to forcing pre-JAMB era degree holders to sit for UTME and score 200 to validate their certificates or risk revocation of their degrees.

On the uniform, Ali should be reminded that discipline as essential in military as it is in paramilitary service. As it depicts discipline, commonality and solidarity in military service, so it does in paramilitary service. When Obasanjo appointed a retired army general, Haldu Hananiya, as head of Federal Road Safety Corps, he wore the corps livery to show that he is part of it.

Magu's Rejection: I Stand With The Senate (II)

By Ochereome Nnanna

Having examined the retired Colonel Hameed Ali versus the Senate saga, let us take a look on another contentious issue: the Ibrahim Magu screening controversy.

President Buhari and Sen Pres Saraki 

So many people have said their minds on this matter, which is their constitutional right. There are those who blame the Senate for the long-drawn impasse and difficulty in getting Ibrahim Mustapha Magu confirmed as the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. Some have alleged that in rejecting Magu’s candidacy, the Senate constitutes itself into a “parallel government”. Others say they want to “collect the power” from President Muhammadu Buhari and frustrate him from implementing the “change” he promised Nigerians.

The one I found most interesting was the submission of Chief Robert Clark, a respected lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, with usually sound perspectives on legal and current affairs. He appeared on Channels TV and was all over the place, lamenting that the Senate’s treatment of Magu was “a slap on the face of the President; a slap on the faces of Nigerians”.

The impression being given by all these shades of opinion is that the Presidency has played its own part neatly only to be messed up by the Senate. Another impression is that the Federal Government is all about President Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidency he commands and the Cabinet he has at his disposal. In other words, the Executive Branch alone is the Government. On both counts I beg to disagree. First of all, let us track the facts of this story.

Following the sack of Ibrahim Lamorde as the EFCC Chairman, Magu, another police officer, was nominated as his successor in acting capacity. One would have expected that President Buhari, cognisant of the sensitive nature of the EFCC Chairman’s duties, would immediately send Magu’s name to Senate for confirmation. Instead, Buhari delayed this issue between 9th November 2015 and 14th July 2016, when his Deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo as Acting President, submitted Magu’s name to the Senate for confirmation when the President was away on his foreign medicals.

Suicidal Defence Of The Naira

By Henry Boyo

The awareness of the correlation between lower naira exchange rates and increasing poverty motivated the “Save the Naira, Save Nigerians!” by-line in articles in this column since 2004. Despite the obvious debilitating impact of Naira devaluation on inflation, domestic industries, employment and social welfare, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recently, brazenly   declared that it deliberately devalued the naira from below N120/$1 to almost N150/$1; regretably CBN, by this act, declared a war against our welfare.

 The apex bank however, countered that devaluation was necessary to stabilize the economy and ensure that monthly naira allocations matched the projected 2009 expenditure budget. I daresay, however, that such a fiscal strategy is counterproductive; Instructively, the resultant bloated Naira allocations will still be inadequate to cover recurrent and capital expenditure which were earlier projected with at least 25% stronger naira values.

When the folly of this strategy ultimately dawned on our monetary policy makers, the CBN Governor quickly recanted and later alleged that, the devaluation was in fact, the handiwork of speculators!!   Now, let us examine his claim. The first pertinent question is, how speculators accumulated almost N2,000bn between October and November 2008 to exchange for $7bn plus from CBN?   Indeed, prior to the alleged deliberate devaluation, the monetary authorities, reportedly held internal consultations and sought President Yar Adua and National Economic Council’s approval; inevitably, prominent Nigerians with interest in banks became consequently privy to the dastardly blow awaiting the naira!

Curiously, despite the very late budget passage in October 2008, and the parallel delay in capital projects execution, the Federal Executive Council, nonetheless, authorized 100% release of all outstanding budget provisions, not minding that with Sallah, Xmas and New Year- holidays imminent, there were barely seven weeks left to 31st December 2008 to complete projects which should normally take 12 months for implementation.

Invariably, with the subsisting embarrassingly surplus Naira Liquidity, and the open secret of an imminent Naria devaluation, the banks besieged CBN with demands for unusually large dollar purchases, which they would later sell with huge profit after devaluation.

Uniform Palavar: I Stand With The Senate (1)

By Ochereome Nnanna

 Whe retired Col. Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of the Customs, CGC, finally yielded to the language and pressure of force and appeared before the Senate on summons on Thursday, 16th March 2017, the only thing I wanted to see on him was his uniform as the overall boss of that organisation.

  

Once I saw he was still wearing his white kaftan, my gaze went beyond him to the bevy of the Customs top brass, all proudly and smartly outfitted in their grey khaki uniforms and looking resplendent indeed. Some of the “oga madams” (or female officers) seemed to make a meal of the situation, all dolled up in comely (even sexy) make-ups and slanting their caps at rakish angles, as if to say: “to hell with Oga Hameed Ali for insulting the dignity of this uniform”.

Meanwhile, Hameed Ali stood before the Senators like a truant schoolboy physically bundled to the assembly ground to receive his due punishments from the school principal. Receive the punishment he did: he was dismissed with ignominy to go and wear his uniform and come back a week later.

Otherwise, he would face the wrath of 109 Senators with the mandates of millions of Nigerians. The arrogant will always be humiliated, and the proud put to shame. I hear people parrot Ali’s nonsensical claim that no law compels him to wear the uniform. Which law compels Africans to respect their elders? Which law compels us to greet people when we meet them?

Whistleblowing, New Profession?

By Ben Okezie

As a junior crime reporter working with the defunct National Concord Newspaper in the 1980s, I was posted to the police and other security agencies beat. While on the beat, I came across a man whose only job was to extract information about criminals, especially robbers, in Lagos metropolis. He was well known among senior police officers and he was referred to as an “Informant.”

His job was to collate information from robbers, their operational hide-outs and, possibly, their next target. Such information was passed to the state Commissioner of Police and he was adequately  rewarded financially. I gathered that, whenever the police were auctioning recovered vehicles, he was always considered. However, the story changed when one of the robbery gangs received information about his activities with the police; he was trailed to his house in Ajegunle and shot dead before his neighbours. The police never disclosed the story to journalists but investigations revealed the incident.

Informants of those days were rough-looking, some of them turned out to be disenchanted members of robbery gangs. Their reports were mainly to expose robbers for easy apprehension and prosecution, but things have changed, the world has evolved and corruption has taken a devastating stand. This was not the situation prior to Independence.

Gov Nasir el-Rufai In The Wilderness

By Amanze Obi

Governor Nasir el-Rufai  of Kaduna State has just cried out. He came close to a lamentation. Or so it appears. But those who know him are not taken in by the antic. They know that a smart Alec is at work. The Kaduna governor is never known to be quiet. He does not seem to have any humility in him. He is showy and conceited. That is why he has broken loose so soon.

*President Buhari and Gov El-Rufai

Whereas many have taken note of the state of the polity, especially in the light of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ill-health, el-Rufai does not have the patience for such niceties. He must seize the stage and dominate the discourse.

At issue here is the governor’s letter to the president. He was, ostensibly, addressing his godfather. That was the way it appeared. But he addressed Nigerians at the same time. He told President Buhari, his benefactor, that all was not well with their party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and, by extension, the government of the day. El-Rufai said those of them who formed the APC and used it to wrest power from the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) had a dream. They envisioned an Eldorado. They thought that PDP was on the wrong track. They set out, as he imagined, to put the country on the path of good governance. That was the mental flight that the likes of el-Rufai reveled in.

The NCC’s And MTN’s Swindle

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Despite the hobbling challenges of poor security and infrastructure, it is not uncommon for foreign investors to speak glowingly about the huge opportunities in the Nigerian business environment. They wonder why Nigerians should lend themselves to ruing their citizenship and being subjected to stark poverty when all around them are treasure troves they, foreigners, have braved long distances to explore.

Of course, we cannot legitimately accuse some of these investors of engaging in double speak. Yet the discerning among us are not oblivious of the fact that such a tribute to the boundless opportunities in the country could also serve as a euphemistic way of referring to the ease of making a fortune from the country by circumventing its laws and swindling the citizens.

Yes, it is not only foreign business people that enrich themselves through the violation of the laws of the country to the detriment of the citizens who pay for their services. It is a norm among local businesses to make their customers to pay for services that are not offered or shoddily provided. This is why the citizens have almost become inured to their ordeal at the hands of electricity distribution companies. 

Is Nigeria A Tragedy?

By Abike Olajide 

In literature, tragedy does not really connote something tragic but it means a re-evaluation and possible redemption of a given situation. Truly, this is a season of darkness and struggling: No power, no good roads, unemployment and poverty are on the alarming rate. But surely, light will break and relief will fall.

*Buhari 

With much natural abundant resources, Nigeria has failed on all indices of life worth living. What went wrong? Leadership deficiency, I can hear you say. Nigeria is wasting God’s resources. The country is now in a mess.

General Yakubu Gowon, despite the oil money available to him, chose to increase workers’ salary rather than use the money to build industries as foundation for a great economy. His action led to inflation that the country is yet to be freed from. 

President Shehu Shagari, a weakling, permitted politicians to loot the country dry. Ibrahim Babangida introduced an economic policy, Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that inflicted untold hardship on the people. Coupled with this was that Nigeria got exposed to maximum corruption under him.

Do I need to say anything about General Abacha, 18 years after his death, his looted funds are still in different vaults around the globe. Olusegun Obasanjo, in his second coming destroyed the country more than he met it. He paid the country’s debt and those who facilitated it smiled home with hundreds of millions of dollars. On his watch, infrastructural decadence reached its peak. Under him, though, microeconomy was got right, credit line improved but he never touched infrastructure.  At the twilight of his term, he came into the realisation that he had not met the aspiration of Nigerians and thus sought a third term. Of course, he could not get it.

Before Supreme Court Finally Kills PDP

By Steve Nwosu

The dizzying pace at which mundane things are elevated to national prominence has since made me lose sense of what is right and what is wrong. So, to keep my sanity, I’ve since concluded that every one is right. All correct, sir!

If you say the economy is in recession, you’re correct. If you prefer to live in denial and insist that there is no recession, you’re also correct. Hameed Ali versus the Senators? Magu versus the Senators? Hospitalised El-Rufai versus convalescing Buhari? All correct!

But there is one thing I have a fairly clear head about. And that is what is the mess the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has brought upon itself.

Now, if there is anything the PDP is very good at – apart from impunity, it is the uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (apologies: Chinua Achebe). Of course, I don’t expect the All Progressives Congress (APC) people to gloat at that, because everything that was wrong with PDP is beginning to appear in APC.

However, the PDP is a master of the art of self-destruct!
When it was in government, it was fighting itself, providing opposition to its own government. And now that it is out of power, it has contrived to produce a most fractious split right down its middle. And even as the simple solution to its problem stares it in the face, it’s looking with eyes wide shut.

It is fixated at a Supreme Court that does not hold any promise of good news.

Yes, soon after the Appeal Court verdict that upheld Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff’s claim to the party’s chairmanship, the Sen. Ahmed Makarfi faction appealed the judgment, and is now expecting a favourable ruling from the apex court.

But, irrespective of whatever direction the pendulum swings at the apex court, the PDP would still be the loser. But we’ll return to that later.

A Husband’s Touching Account Of His Wife’s Life

By Kimmies Floral

When I got home that night my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking about divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

(pix: 123RF)

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

Nigeria: Redirecting The Lost Giant

By Fashogbon Moyinoluwa

“When we innovate, we create millions of jobs, we build the companies that lead the world, we are healthier, and we make our lives more productive”, this was written by Bill Gates on accelerating innovation with leadership. Moving Nigeria to the status of a First World nation is a challenge any willing leader should love to take on. Blessed with natural resources and a large population, Nigeria has the potential to compete with other nations of the world in any sector, but we need first to put our home in order by diversifying our economy, and restructuring our institutions to cover up the loopholes that allow for corruption.

To move Nigeria from being a third world country to a first world nation, a leader should in no particular order, invest in education, increase the manufacturing capacity of the nation, remove the hurdles facing entrepreneurs, provide basic infrastructure that propel a nation’s growth, be dedicated to providing statistics and information, promote mining and agriculture, make the environment tourist-friendly, promote the numerous traditions we have in Nigeria and most importantly, invest in and support innovation.

Every sector in present day Nigeria has decayed and the most delicate of all, which is the education sector has suffered the most. Investing in education should be top priority in moving Nigeria to the status of a first world nation. Taking a cue from first world nations like Luxembourg, Singapore, and Switzerland which have 59.6%, 54.7% and 51.3% respectively of people in high-skilled employment, according to the Human Capital Index 2015.

A leader should educate the population to the extent of attaining at least 99% literacy rate and 80% of high-skilled citizens. This can be done by revamping the educational system of the country. Firstly, all the syllabuses in Nigerian schools should be reviewed, especially in the universities, in such a way that they should meet up with the current international standards and subsequently set the standards for syllabuses around the world. Also by improving the researching capacity of our universities and making them more practical oriented than they currently are. Then go ahead to remove the numerous hurdles students face while trying to get into the universities by creating a system whereby students can apply to as many universities as they wish in other to give them more options and reduce the number of high school graduates lurking the streets. An educated population can propel innovation and turn out good leaders, and this combination is what is needed to move Nigeria to the status of a first world country. Innovation makes a country competitive in the global market. 

The Tragedy Of A Presidential Illness

By Dan Agbese

President Muhammadu Buhari is back home and is now at work in Aso Rock. That sentence, a poor reportage of stale news, speaks to our collective relief at seeing the president as usual resplendent in his white baban riga, at his desk.

The enormous relief at his return is still washing over the nation. He was away for 50 days. And for 50 days, this nation was on tenterhooks, consumed by fear, concern and anxiety. And hope was progressively marginalised. Presidential spokesmen positively muddied the waters when they unnecessarily tried quite gallantly but pathetically vainly to deny what was patently undeniable: the fact of the president’s illness.

I join millions of my compatriots in welcoming Buhari back home. It is the Lord’s doing. Or, perhaps, more appropriately in this case, it is Allah’s doing. 

It should not be difficult for Buhari to pick up from where he left off more than 50 days ago as of this writing. He is lucky to have a vice-president who is committed to the ideals of governance they share and did a splendid job of minding the complicated shop by the name of Nigeria. His administration remains on course. Splendid.

The president’s illness was a sad and cruel reminder that illness is no respecter of persons. All mortals, presidents and truck pushers alike, are subject to the grim decision of the Grim Reaper entirely at its own discretion. The president is human; so is the truck pusher. I see the president’s illness as an interruption on his programme of salvaging the country. It shook the nation as much as it shook his own immediate family. Pox on illness.

VCs, Let Tuition-Free Varsities Stay

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

As the nation contends with slumped economic fortunes that are mainly accruable from oil resources, it makes hefty sense to contemplate fresh ways to source revenues to sustain the operations of institutions. But increasing the cost of university education that would be borne by students and their parents as recently proposed by vice chancellors should not be one of these measures.

By proposing that tuition-free university education should be abolished, the vice chancellors under the aegis of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities have only reopened an old debate. It is the right time for the debate because it throws up the imperative to prudently manage resources so that there would be enough to deploy in important areas of the nation amid the recession.

The economic crisis has rendered the government at both the federal and state levels incapable of paying workers and pensioners. Now, there have been lamentations about how the paucity of funds has become a major impediment to the actualisation of the great visions that different levels of government and their officials have for the people. 

Yet it is a wrong time for the debate because the same economic crisis that has reduced the funds available for the government has also impoverished the citizens. Indeed, since the citizens are the more adversely affected, vice chancellors should not expect parents to get money to bear an additional cost of university education. Is it the parents who have been rendered jobless by the closure or relocation of their companies that would pay the tuition? Or is it the parents who receive N18,000 minimum wage that would pay it? Even with the universities operating the so-called tuition-free system now, is it all the citizens whose children are qualified for university education that can afford it?

The idea of stopping the tuition-free policy should be jettisoned simply because of the poor. Remember, most of these vice-chancellors and others who are canvassing the payment of fees in universities enjoyed tuition-free university education. But for this, most of them would not be where they are now. Those in the South West during the government of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo often recall with a high sense of gratitude how his free educational policy made it easy for them to go to school. Yes, the population of university students then was not as much as we have now.

When Buhari Shamed His Megaphones

By Mike Ozehkome

It  was Izaak Walton (1593 – 1683), an English writer, who once said: “Look to your health: And if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.”

Health, it is said, is wealth. And anyone who has been ill from mere headache can relate to the travails of Mr. President in recent weeks.

*Buhari 

When the president transmitted his letter to the Senate for vacation to the United Kingdom, little did we know that the subsequent events to follow would raise much ruckus and fuss within the polity.  However, for a minute, let us all sheath our ideological swords and thank God Almighty for the president, his family and Nigerians at large, for  making it possible for the president to return alive; for it could have been, indeed,  worse.  God forbid!

Nigeria is sui generis-on a class of its own. There is hardly any country in the world that is akin to Nigeria. Our ideologies, credos, languages are multifaceted and multidimensional. Truth be told, it would be a Herculean task for any leader to placate the various interests and tendencies of this nation in one breath. This has been the major challenges of previous leaders in this nation, whether military or civilian, including Abacha, Gowon, Murtala, Shagari, Shonekan, Abdulsalam, Yardua, GEJ, OBJ, IBB, et al, however well-intentioned they might have been.

What makes a Southerner happy to be a Nigerian is quite different from what makes a Northerner happy to be a Nigerian. Sometimes, this is caused by ignorance, sometimes by the weakness of the human mind, which loves to categorise. Other times, because of the various vested interests by different groups. One fact is indisputable; uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, particularly in Nigeria, a country with about 388 ethnic groups that speak over 350 languages (Onign Otite); some say over 500.

Sometimes, we forget that our leaders are also human, with their weaknesses, foibles, strengths, fears and anxieties. It would be unfair to gloss over some great things that President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) has done for Nigeria. His has been that of service to his nation, since his youth, when he was born of a Fulani family on 17th December, 1942, in Daura, Katsina State, to his father, Adamu, and mother, Zulaihat. He is the twenty-third child of his father. Buhari was raised by his mother, after his father died when he was about four years old.

President Buhari’s Return

By Wale Sokunbi

 At last, President Muhammadu Buhari returned to the country last week as announced by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Mr. Femi Adesina. His prolonged absence had been a source of intense acrimony in the polity with anti-Buharists insisting that he was either dead or gravely ill, and should resign on account of his incapacitation. His defenders and party members, especially his media team on the other hand, had insisted that he was only resting and taking medical tests. As such, he was expected to   return to the country at any time.

*Buhari and his wife, Aisha, after his return

However, the stridency of the demands of the wailing Buhari naysayers who chose not to be placated with photo-shoots of the president’s “hale and heartiness” in London, soon combined with the rising profile of the then Acting President,  Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to bring the President back into the country.

And, since the president arrived in the country, there has been an attempt at a restoration of some form of normalcy, with the president even “resuming” and spending three hours in his office on Monday.  No sooner had the President sat on his “presidential seat”, however, than the Internet again went viral on close videos of the President’s gait as he walked from the plane that brought him from London.

The close-up videos, undoubtedly, showed a much-emaciated and limping president, who was still badly in need of medical attention. It is not surprising, then, that Mr. Adesina said that the president would still travel in a matter of weeks for a medical review of his condition.

That is as it should be, as the president appears clearly in no position to take on the challenge of administering a country that is battling a debilitating recession in the midst of ferocious opposition from the former ruling party and some segments of the polity.