Dear President Buhari, Please Look In The Mirror

By SKC Ogbonnia
Dear Mr. President,
I am beginning with an Igbo proverb which says that a heedless lizard falling from a tall palm tree typically wrestles to clutch at any available straw on its path before its imminent crash. My father also never fails to tell me that a habit of excuse is the best friend of failure. Nowhere are these sayings more manifest than the case of your presidency.

*Buhari 

Today, the general view is that you are at it again, trying so desperately to cling on to another excuse to avoid responsibility for the crises that have befallen our great party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) and, by consequence, the entire Nigeria.

Is Africa Ready To Educate Every Child?

By  Joel Savage

Third World Countries are plagued by crisis. Among the most critical is poverty, which has taken hundreds of children out of the classroom. Children are the world’s greatest resource, future leaders, and assets to national development, thus; it is, therefore the right of every child to be educated; unfortunately, worldwide many children aren’t aware of what education is, instead, serving in fields under child labour or as child soldiers in wars.

As a child growing up in Africa, I find myself in an environment witnessing how many parents struggle to educate their children. Every weekend, I go hawking as a trader with banana, eggs, and bread, just to make some extra money to help my parents to keep me in the classroom.

Nigeria: The Rule Of Man

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

President Muhammadu Buhari chose the most auspicious place to officially declare his disdain for the rule of law and his avowed preference for the rule of man, his own rule, in the Nigerian nation-state, where he has been deploying his might in its vast capriciousness and whimsicality since he stepped in the saddle on May 29, 2015. 

*Buhari 

The declaration was last Sunday at the International Conference Centre, ICC, in Abuja, venue of this year’s Nigerian Bar Association conference. Members of the Bar and the Bench were there in their numbers. The assemblage of officers in the temple of justice was representative of the nation’s judiciary, an independent arm of the trinity of government.

Why Nigeria Under Buhari Is World Headquarters For Extreme Poverty

By Reno Omokri

On Wednesday the 29th of August, 2018, British Prime Minister, Theresa May, visited Nigeria with a plane full of business people to help Britain make money in Nigeria. So meticulously choreographed was her visit, that she came with businessmen and women that sold or manufactured every item you could imagine from air fresheners to Scotch whiskey.

*Buhari 

Mrs May, who I met twice last year, demonstrated the main thrust of her visit by travelling with David Schwimmer, the Chief Executive of the London Stock Exchange. Her entourage to Nigeria was chockfull of business and industry folk and very lean on civil servants and politicians. In fact, only two members of her cabinet joined her on her African trip. If there was any spare space on the Royal Airforce Jet that flew her to Africa, that space was reserved for people who could bring jobs and capital to Britain.

Presidents’ Health: Missed Opportunities For Nigeria’s Health

By Sam Ohuabunwa

I believe that I am not alone in feeling distressed about the situation of healthcare in Nigeria. Everywhere you look, the problems stare you on the face.

In the public health care space, you face poor infrastructure, old or inoperative equipment and generally, poor attitude. 

*Buhari 

Even skill and competency levels are often suspect. If you have taken a seriously ill patient to our public health facilities – primary, secondary or tertiary institutions, you will know that many more people are healed by faith in Nigeria than by medical care. If you go to the private healthcare institutions, may be infrastructure and equipment may be better, attitude and skills are subject to national averages.

What Happened To APC Report On Federalism?

By Martins Oloja

As politicians are jostling to secure their positions within #PROJECT2019, defecting to different parties in pursuit of relevance for only themselves, subordinating the sanctity of the rule of law to personal interests, perfecting how to truncate press freedom, we need to ask political leaders in the governing party what they want to do with the most important document they produced and made public in January this year: ‘Report of The APC Committee on True Federalism’.

*Buhari and el-Rufai 

 I am fully persuaded that it is public interest to ask about this all-important document and failure to be genuine about how to implement the contents before next year’s election may undermine national security too. And here is the thing, those who always afraid of the hard questions in the governing APC, should not regard this question on what they want to do with their report as a political question: It is a question on nation building and the future of the world’s most populous black nation, Nigeria.

The North And The Buhari Myth

By Kennedy Emetulu

1.Introduction:

One of the ‘mysteries’ of today’s politics is what some Nigerians see as the continued popularity of President Muhammadu Buhari in the North, despite his evident ineptness and the many, many failures of his government. When these Nigerians see him in outings where massive crowds of young people work themselves into a frenzy as they rent the air with “Sai Baba!” chants, they wonder what diabolical concoctions he must have let loose on them to make them feel this way.

*Kennedy Emetulu

People are being buried in grinding poverty, the economy is on a stretcher, Nigeria is regressing into the Stone Age in every respect and Buhari hops into a plane to London and back or walks 800 meters and the whole place is filled with jubilation in the North, or so it seems. What information do these people have that the rest of us don’t have? What planet are they living on when the nation clearly is on a deathbed?

2. The False Successor:

In the nation’s history, only two Northern politicians have had what can be considered the type of popular support or loyalty that Buhari has today in the North. These men were Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Mallam Aminu Kano. But the irony is that as opposed to Buhari, these men actually had political ideas of governance and real track records that gave them credibility with the people.

The Bigger Picture In Ekiti Governorship Contest

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

A day after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Dr. Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the July 14, 2018, governorship election in Ekiti State, a video of Fulani herdsmen brazenly parading their cows on the streets of Ado-Ekiti went viral on the social media. Reports say the video was shared on Facebook by one Isaac, the younger brother of Mr. Peter Ayodele Fayose, the outgoing governor of the state. 

*Fayemi and Fayose 

In a comment accompanying the video (reproduced unedited), the younger Fayose wrote: “Fayemi was rigged in on Saturday against the wish of Ekiti people. Today, Fulani herdsmen have the boldness to rear cow on the street of Ado Ekiti. This is pathetic! This is scary. I pity Ekiti and her people!” 

Political Defections In Nigeria, Causes And Consequences

By Simon Abah

There is an alarming rise in organised political defections in Nigeria.

Although she is being hyped as the giant of Africa, the democracy in Nigeria is not practised like in countries such as Ghana, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Tanzania, Liberia, Senegal and Zambia with stable democracies. Nigeria’s version is a guided democracy and a democracy for the few.

*Saraki

What are the reasons for the surge in defections? Turncoats complain about the absence of internal democracy in their parties and of political witch-hunt by political gladiators.

Do you agree with the beliefs of these defectors?

Particularly since no mention is made about the developmental interests of Nigeria as reasons for changing sides.

Nigeria: A Nation In Need Of Free Speech

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Merit, taken objectively, is ‘something earned, something owed to a person. Taken subjectively, merit is the right of a person to his earning and is of two types- condign and congruous merits. While condign merit deals with strict justice to a reward, congruous merit is not so much a right as a claim but rests upon what is suitable or fitting in a situation’.

With this words of Paul Glenn in mind, each time I am asked my opinion on the nation’s media industry in relation to free speech/freedom of expression, I usually pause to honestly look at its virtues and attributes both objectively and subjectively, and in all, one thing often stands out; the Nigerian media industry in the writer’s views neither merits nor deserves the inequitable treatments so far mated to it by the successive administrations.

Why Nigeria Needs To Be Re-Structured

By Atiku Abubakar

In a recent interaction in the United States, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo asserted that the “problem with our country is not a matter of restructuring…and we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into the argument that our problems stem from some geographic re-structuring”.

*Atiku

It is a surprise that the Vice President would take such a position and, in particular, fail to appreciate the connection between Nigeria’s defective structure and its underperformance. 

Nigeria: Beware The Ides Of March

By Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie

“Beware the Ides of March,” said the soothsayer to Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s famous play Julius Caesar. In those words, Caesar was given an alert about his imminent assassination in the hands of Roman politicians, among whom was his friend Brutus. Approaching another year of elections, this admonition has become frightfully pertinent.

*Cardinal Okogie

For what is being witnessed looks like a reenactment of the Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In this reenactment, Julius Caesar would represent Nigeria, the Roman politicians who plotted his assassination would represent the average Nigerian politician, with Brutus, the politician pretending to be Caesar’s friend, representing politicians who, in their diabolically deadly intrigues, pretend to love Nigeria, but are actually plotting her descent into bloody disintegration.

Shame! Ghana Lawyers And Judges Are Trained To Become Incompetent And Corrupt!

By Rockson Adofo

Honestly, Ghana-trained lawyers and judges are no match for their White contemporaries and those Ghanaians born, schooled and trained in law in the civilized Whiteman’s land. I will prove this assertive claim in a minute. The law lecturers in Ghana tutoring students to become lawyers are to bow down their heads in shame for helping churn out corrupt and incompetent lawyers and judges.

In any country that their judiciary is conspicuously corrupt and incompetent as it is prevalent in Ghana, lawlessness, creation of human monsters, economic stagnation or retrogression, become the tormenting order of the day to cost the citizenry the opportunity of availing themselves of justice, human rights and decent standard of living.

President Buhari And His Lifeless Presidency

By Adebayo Raphael

Since the beginning of Nigeria's fourth republic in 1999, the present administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by President Muhammadu Buhari is unarguably the worst. The failure of the incumbent administration to live up to expectations, within and outside Nigeria, relegates every measure of the towering hope that welcomed it. 

*President Buhari 

The current president of Nigeria has consistently proved to the world that he is undeserving of leading this magnificent country of 180 million extraordinary people imbued with unimaginable potential. The Nigeria that our current president projects in the world, is a backward, ignorant, antiquated, unalluring, visionless, confused, unimaginative rudderless country. At different times when president Buhari has had the opportunity to blisteringly fly the flags of Nigeria before the world, he unabashedly sullied it instead. 

Defection: Waiting For Minister Aisha Alhassan

By Comfort Obi

I will start with a story. A cousin of mine, too nervous to be on the wheels  of her car,  has a rather funny and weird driver. He is good-looking. Deceptively shy. Full of surprises.  Sometimes, erratic, at other times, as cool as cucumber, and when he feels like, he plays deaf.  But he is serviceable when he wishes to. 

*Mrs Alhassan

He feels free with his boss. So ever so often, he crosses the red line. Once, he whatsapped his photograph, dressed to the hilt to his boss. On a couple of times, he had looked his boss in the face and told her: “I have a job interview.” And then, he would come back to say: “I was not hired.” One day, he told his boss he got a job where he would earn double what he is being paid. But he wouldn’t leave: Why: It is a difficult job. I don’t want to drive (inter-state) in the night.

Is Africa Ready For Nuclear Energy?

By Laura Gil

Years back, nuclear energy was a fancy option limited to the industrialized world. In due course, nuclear could be an energy source for much of Africa, where only South Africa currently has a nuclear power plant.Governments across the continent are devising development policies to become middle-income countries in the medium term. Socioeconomic growth comes with a rise in energy demand—and a need for a reliable and sustainable energy supply.

For industrializing countries in need of a clean, reliable and cost-effective source of energy, nuclear is an attractive option.

“Africa is hungry for energy, and nuclear power could be part of the answer for an increasing number of countries,” says Mikhail Chudakov, deputy director general and head of the Department of Nuclear Energy at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an international organisation that promotes the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

Why Nigeria’s Economic Recovery Is Slowing Down

By Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa

Ordinarily there should be so much going for Nigeria’s economy. Production of crude oil at about 2 million barrels per day at a good price of about 70 dollars per barrel is yielding good foreign exchange for the Nation, helping to boost foreign reserves which today stand at about 47.25 Billion dollars. Inflation has continued to decline steadily over several months coming to the current level of 11.4% as the CBN and its MPC retain monetary policy index at a tight stance.

*President Buhari and Finance Minister Adeosun 

 Also some great effort is being made at the economic management level to pursue the Nigeria Economic Recovery and Growth   plan( NERGP). Additionally, some improved liquidity has been noticed in terms of funding Nigeria’s infrastructure projects, combining oil revenue,tax heist with a large dose of debt from sundry sources.

Nigeria: The Wretched Of The Earth

By Yakubu Mohammed

Her birth may not have been miraculous. At least not as miraculous as the birth of Jesus Christ, the story of which event is both elegantly and breathtakingly narrated in the Qur’an and the Bible.

Something, neither divine nor spectacularly prophetic, must have decided her parents to christen her Miracle, this Edo State current wonder. Miracle Johnson is currently in the news. But not for any divine reason or some earth shaking accomplishments.

Nigeria: Presidential Assault On Human Rights

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Did we just read that president Muhammadu Buhari told lawyers that if you put national security side by side with the rule of law, that national security comes first?

*Buhari 

This is an unmitigated assault on constitutional democracy which must not be allowed to be swept under the carpets because it is manifestly erroneous and obscenely illegal. His resort to holding on to a so called supreme court’s decision which he refused to disclose the particulars makes the entire claims puerile, spurious, unbelievably shallow and therefore a nullity to the extent of its inconsistency. Shamefully, the lawyers sat down as the head of the executive arm of government embarked on this one man show of intellectual shame. The President has wounded the truth and must be corrected with all the speed that can be mustered. We will first determine the essence of constitutionalism which is the be all and end all of the form of government in practice in Nigeria without which there would be formlessness.

A Distress Call From Ghana

By Reuben Abati

I got a frantic call from Ghana the other day. It was from Lillian. The Ghanaian authorities were shutting down shops belonging to Nigerian traders at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra. The Inter-Governmental Task Force set up by the Government of Ghana to regulate retail trade had arrested about 50 Nigerians. Many of them were detained.

 “The situation is not good at all, someone needs to come to their rescue,” she said. 

This is not a new matter. Across Africa, the Nigerian trader is often resented by the local population, on the grounds that Nigerians are either taking over their businesses or their women. But the reported attack on Nigerians in Ghana is most disturbing. Both countries share many affinities: historical, cultural, political and social. Nigerians love to go to Ghana. It is less than an hour away by air and it is a stable, organised society.