Nigeria: A Nation Of 200 Million Fools

By Dan Amor

When the Union Jack (the British flag) was, at the glittering mews of the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos on October 1, 1960, lowered for a free Nigeria’s green-white-green flag, gloriously fluttered in the sky by the breezy flurry of pride and ecstasy, it was a great moment pregnant with hope and expectation. The whole world had seen a newly independent Nigeria, a potential world power, only buried in the sands of time.

*Buhari 

Endowed with immense wealth, a dynamic population and an enviable talent for political compromise, Nigeria stood out in the 1960s as the potential leader in Africa, a continent in dire need of guidance. For, it was widely thought that the country was immune from the wasting diseases of tribalism, disunity and instability which remorselessly attacked so many other new African states. But when bursts of machine gun fire shattered the predawn calm of Lagos its erstwhile capital city in January 1966, it was now clear that Nigeria was no exception to Africa’s common post-independence experience.

COVID-19 And Nigeria's Pathetic Leadership Deficit

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

There is no better warning about the growing confusion that seems to be gradually beclouding the federal government’s response to the coronavirus challenge than the belief it betrayed last week that, perhaps, all it needs to calm the fears and apprehensions of Nigerians about its ability to halt the spread of the virus is to reel out a catalogue of activities President Buhari was said to have undertaken so far concerning the pestilence, whether the people felt their impact or not.

*President Buhari and his spokesman, Femi Adesina

Now, if your family is starving badly, do you solve the rumbling signs of biting hunger in their stomach with some wild tales of the efforts deployed by you so far to feed them, or just keep quiet, give them food, and they will see and feel for themselves that you have played your role responsively and effectively?  Or if you must talk, tell them something you have done whose benefits they can readily verify and identify with.

Indeed, some Nigerians are beginning to achieve the conviction that there must be something about being in government in this country that seems to diminish the reasoning ability of people once they get in there and deprives them of the capacity to realize when they have stopped making sense or even become downright annoying. This is very pathetic.

Will Nigerians Soon Wipe Out Each Other?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

I know that the dominant health topic now is Coronavirus (or, if you like, Chinese Virus), but I feel compelled to draw attention to some egregious practices by some callous and cruel Nigerians that are ruining many lives daily in this country. These vile characters are able to unleash this grievous harm on innocent Nigerians because the various regulatory agencies like, the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) or the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON, are either in very deep slumber or very sick and nigh unto death, or even dead and awaiting burial!

I think that if some far-reaching interventions are not urgently undertaken, we would not be able to rule out the possibility that the rest of the world might wake up one day and discover that this large, unproductive territory called Nigeria has become one wide stretch of empty space, devoid of humans or littered with decaying corpses? Is it that human life has since totally lost its value before Nigerians or what? How far should rational human beings tread on the path of mutual annihilation before they realise that it is, perhaps, time to do a rethink, beat a retreat and commence the homeward journey to self-reclamation?  

What Is Left For Coronavirus To Conquer In Nigeria?

By Banji Ojewale

While the rest of the world is receiving a deadly hiding at the hands of the coronavirus pandemic, we in Nigeria seem distant from this global anxiety. We are complacent, living in cloying bliss, expecting deliverance from an outsourced ‘invisible hand’, if Covid-19 finally hits us the way it is crowding on the others with a threat to wipe them out.

The nations of the Americas, Europe, Australasia, and a few here in Africa are panicking, resorting to wild and extreme ploys to outwit the disease. Even in wartime, World War 2, Europe wasn’t as mortally frenzy, didn’t reach for the uttermost ends its nations are aiming for at the moment. They sense danger. It’s universal insecurity communism and ‘rogue’ countries like Cuba and North Korea and Iran were not able to unleash on mankind at their apogee. Military allies have broken pacts and all are becoming recluse, shutting their borders.

Odia Ofeimun: The Writer And His Society

By Dan Amor

When it dawned on me recently that my boss, Odia Ofeimun would turn 70 today, I was confused. I was confused not because I didn't know what to write about my master or how to write it but about which one to write on. I asked my humble self: should I write about the poetry of Odia Ofeimun, or should I write about Odia Ofeimun's language and philosophy or about Odia Ofeimun and his aesthetics? 

*Odia Ofeimun

Indeed, I was really confused, for it is patently difficult to write about a griot whose life experience cuts across almost all facets of human endeavours. As a polyvalent genius, Odia is grounded in almost all the major contemporary schools of critical theory: from analytic philosophy to reconstructed Marxism, from poststructuralism to postcoloniality, and from feminism to recuperated phenomenology.

Amala And The Coronavirus Patient: Matters Arising

By Reuben Abati

Of all the updates that have been given so far by the Lagos State authorities on the government’s efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus, and ensure proper care for the reported index case, and other possible cases (there is a second case now), the most intriguing update for me is the disclosure that the Italian index case who has since been quarantined at the bio-security facility in Lagos, is recovering – indeed so well that he now eats a local delicacy, called “Amala”. This disclosure was attributed to the Manager of the Bio-security Centre in Lagos, Dr. Bankole Akinwale. Let no one be under any mistaken impression that the doctor was trying to suggest that the eating of amala, is any form of cure for corona virus; he being a Yoruba had to find the most graphic way to convey the patient’s health status as at the time he made that disclosure six days ago.

Amala is a special delicacy that is very popular among the Yoruba people of Nigeria. It is in two forms, white and dark brown colours: the former is made from cassava, and is far more popular among the Egba people of Ogun State. They call it Lafun. The latter which is the standard paste is made from yam. Both are best consumed with a variety of soups particularly okro, ewedu, ogbono, or well-made egusi soup or vegetables.

Nigeria Confirms First Case Of Coronavirus In Lagos

...Plus: Basic Protective Measures Against The New Coronavirus

*Gov Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State addressing a press conference
today on the outbreak of coronavirus in Lagos 

The Nigerian Ministry of Health has confirmed the first case of Coronavirus in Lagos. A tweet sent out by the ministry early today (Friday February 28, 2020), reads:

“The Federal Ministry of Health has confirmed a coronavirus(Covid-19) case in Lagos State Nigeria. The case which was confirmed on 27/02/2020 is the first case to be reported in Nigeria since the beginning of the outbreak in China in January 2020”

Insecurity In Nigeria: Declare A State Of Emergency

By Dan Amor

Nigeria has become a perdition in which everybody is losing and nobody is gaining. Everywhere you ever go, your nostrils are daily confronted with the stench of death. The possibility of scores of our compatriots being killed on a daily basis is almost predictable. From the rampaging Fulani herdsmen killing, maiming and kidnapping hundreds of innocent and defenseless Nigerians on a daily basis to cascading incidents of inter-communal or tribal wars across the country, the growing menace of violent armed robbery and police brutality, and ritual killings, Nigerians are having more than they bargained for. 

All this is happening under the watch of a sitting government whose officials are openly asking native peoples to surrender their lands for cattle ranching to avoid being killed. Several analysts, newspaper editorials and informed commentators have had to proffer solutions to the numerous crises bedeviling the country including the imperative for State Police and the urgent need to tame the so-called ‘indigenes/settlers’ dichotomy, but the government at the centre behaves as though it has the solutions to all the problems of the country whereas its efforts are not adding up. 

For A Total War On Kidnapping

By Dan Amor

Something definitely needs to give in now, otherwise, the growing incidence of kidnapping of innocent persons by unscrupulous elements across the country looks good at getting out of hands in no distant time. We hold this position because, hardly any day passes without one infamous report or another of hostage-taking of innocent people in one part of the country or another.

A very disturbing report recently that about eight people, mostly women and children, were kidnapped within Abuja metropolis is enough to jolt all Nigerians, not least the government, from illusions into stark realities. Just recently, a Lagos-bound bus from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, was shortly after departure, waylaid somewhere at Emuoha town in the state and fourteen of the vehicle’s occupants were forcefully taken into captivity by some unscrupulous persons who proceeded to ask for huge ransom of money before the release of the kidnapped persons.

When A President’s Silence Isn’t Golden

By Banji Ojewale

 Silence isn’t golden when your house is in flames and you’re alone at home. You need to shout for help from the army of neighbours within reach. You need to raise your lone voice above the crackles of the inferno gaining new grounds.

 Silence isn’t golden when your spotless reputation is vociferously impugned or threatened and you have an opportunity to stop the campaign. Silence isn’t golden when there is a cacophony of opinions and reports, false or accurate, reaching the public about your candour. Your silence here isn’t golden; it is grotesque, grisly and grimy.

A Message To The North: The South Is Getting Fed Up!

By Dr Ugoji Egbujo

I have a story to tell the North. I hope it receives it in good faith. I love the North. So I have decided to tell the North how his brother the South truly feels. The South loves the north but the South is getting fed up. The truth may taste bitter but it sets free. I will throw away political correctness and let the North know how the South feels because the North has to sit up and shape up.

The South is getting fed up. Today, it’s Boko Haram. Tomorrow it’s banditry. Yesterday, it was confounding mass illiteracy. And no mention has been made yet about the abiding mass obesity of the North. Family resources are being wasted fighting useless fires! The truth is: the South increasingly sees the North like a slothful, temperamental brother that has stubbornly refused to go to school and has begun to keep the company of bad gangs.

Supreme Court Judgments Are Clearly Reversible

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Nigerians must with one voice put this critical question to the seven-member Supreme Court panel of judges that sacked Governor Ihedioha of Imo State and planted Senator Hope Uzodinma as his replacement: Distinguished as you all are, would you have dared to pronounce this same perversity if other than the All Progressives Congress (APC) is currently in control of the Federal Government of Nigeria?

*Justice Tanko Muhammad

The controversial Supreme Court verdict was read by Justice Kudirat Motonmori Olatokunbo Kekere-Ekun. Mrs. Kekere-Ekun was born in 1958. She earned her first Law degree from the University of Lagos, and the second from the London School of Economics and Political Science, not from backyard or quota colleges that routinely grant admissions to laggards confirmed incapable of passing basic School Certificate subjects like English and Mathematics. Called to the Bar in 1981, she was appointed to the Supreme Court 32 years later.

Notable lawyers hailed her appointment to the apex court, two of whose informed opinions are here: “I have read a few of her judgments; she is very sound in law. In other words, she suppresses technicality and allows substance to prevail. She has that equitable spirit of trying to do justice,” said Professor Itse Sagay, SAN.

Keke, Okada Ban And The Unspeakable Suffering Of Lagosians

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

A lady resident in Lagos went to address a seminar at a venue in her locality on Saturday, February 1, 2020, the day the restriction order by the Lagos State Government on commercial tricycles and motorcycles came into effect. By noon, when the event was over, she walked down to the market to shop for what her family would need for the week. When she was through, she came out with heavy packs of foodstuff and other items. Her street is a kilometer (or a little more) away. Since she has refused to learn how to drive despite endless prodding from her husband, children and friends, what she usually did on occasions like this was to engage a commercial tricycle to take her to her street, since no bus plies that way or enters any street no matter how long.

It was at this juncture that it painfully dawned on her that she would have to walk home with the heavy load of stuff she had purchased – which was practically impossible. The commercial tricycles had all vanished on “orders from above.” Just immediately, her husband called to enquire where she was and she explained her predicament.

“Just wait for me there, I am coming to pick you now,” came his reassuring voice. And soon, her husband was there, and with much relief, she entered the car and they returned home. In her bewilderment, it had not even occurred to her again to call him to come and take her home. She was used to the tricycles doing that for her.

Reinhard Bonnke: Example Of Successful Ministry

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith…” (2 Timothy 4:7) 

When on December 7, 2019, news broke that Reinhard Bonnke, the German-born evangelist, whose gospel crusades in many African cities drew multitudes and led many people to make definite decisions to give their lives to Jesus Christ, had died in Florida, the world saw another example of what could rightly be described, by Biblical standards, as a  successful ministry. He was 79. 

*Evangelist Bonnke

The most important item in his life’s history is that, although, he was the son of a gospel minister, Bonnke had a definite testimony of regeneration, that is, being born again – something every genuine child of God should and must  have, but which, sadly, many church people do not have today, including even several preachers! His mother had preached to him when he was nine and he had repented of his sins and given his life to Jesus Christ after which he committed himself to serve God and become a genuine follower of Jesus.

From then, his interest in preaching the Word of God was born and grew. One day, he took a guitar and went into a street in Glückstadt and began to sing. Soon, a small crowd gathered and he brought out his Bible and preached to them. Bonnke was so excited when one man who was convicted by “his preaching knelt down, confessed his sins and gave his to Christ.” 

  

Filled with happiness, he rushed home excitedly and exclaimed as he reported what happened to his father: “Father, it works!  A man came to hear me preach and accepted Jesus. The Holy Spirit really gives us the power to preach!” He could not contain his joy. 

From a very early age, Bonnke began to tell everyone around him of his clear persuasion that he had a very definite calling from God to preach the gospel in Africa. He attended a Bible College in Wales and when he returned to Germany after his education, he met his wife, Anni, and they were married in 1964.

J.A. Atanda Prize For The Best Essay On The Yoruba

Joseph Adebowale Atanda was a passionate historian who dedicated his scholarship to the historiography of Africa, especially that of the Yoruba. Popular among his publications are The New Oyo Empire: Indirect Rule and Change in Western Nigeria, 1894-1934, An Introduction to Yoruba History and Baptist Churches in Nigeria: Accounts of Their Foundation and Growth. The robust contributions of Atanda to Yoruba Studies have enhanced the existing knowledge of the Yoruba history, culture and spirituality, as well as the colonial and postcolonial relation. More than two decades after his demise, his scholarship remains relevant, and more increasingly so. 

Natasha Akpoti: Heroine Of The Kogi Election

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

As I write now, I am not too sure that I will be able to readily remember the full name of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate – the major opposition contestant in the November 16, 2019 gubernatorial election in Kogi State. So, it should not be surprising that I probably wouldn’t have heard about Natasha Hadiza Akpoti, the intelligent and courageous young lady who flew the governorship flag of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in that election if some fellows in the state’s murky political scene did not choose to attract undue attention to the state by stretching their desperation and crude politics to unimaginable extremes in their determination to run Natasha out of the governorship contest. 

*Natasha Akpoti

Indeed, my interest in what happens in Kogi had been so badly depleted by the unedifying record of Gov Yahaya Bello whose most significant achievement in office appears to be his successful de-marketing of the very outstanding campaign undertaken by some young Nigerians to push for the greater participation of the younger generation in the leadership of this country. It is so demoralising that when anyone tries these days to applaud and strengthen the case of this laudable advocacy (whose delicious fruit was the signing into law of the Not-Too-Young-To-Run Bill by President Muhammadu Buhari on May 31, 2018), the predictable retort usually fired back at one is: what of Yahaya Bello, is he not a young man? What is the guarantee that other young people would not only replicate his dismal record if they assumed leadership positions? It is as bad as that. 

Refusing To Go To Afghanistan In Nigeria

By Banji Ojewale

In Nigeria, falling for Afghanistan’s sirens simply is when our newspaper columnists and writers focus their attention on far-flung foreign features while ignoring domestic hot-button issues beckoning them. When home matters of momentous concerns come up asking to be sorted out, or to be interrogated for a solution, the fatal feminine fellows in the form of foreign news upstage the burning national discourse and take our writers away.

The age of military rule in Nigeria gave birth to the concept of going to Afghanistan. The soldiers, upon seizing power which didn’t belong to them, would abrogate the fundamental rights and freedoms of the people, brutishly expressed in the suspension of the Constitution, with all the operational institutions the sacred document created: the elected executive, lawmaking assembly, political parties, popular organizations like labour and student unions etc. The martial lords were notorious for throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Nigeria: Endless Borrowing Will Lead To Endless Sorrowing

By Atiku Abubakar

John Quincy Adams once said “there are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” He may have very well been referring to Nigeria of the last three years.

*Atiku and Buhari 

Barely two weeks ago, I warned during my Founder’s Day lecture at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, that Nigeria had taken almost as much foreign debt in the last three years, as she had taken in the thirty years before 2015 combined. Now that is frightening. And very true.

Frightening, not just because of the amount, but because after such unprecedented borrowing, we have emerged as the world headquarters for extreme poverty and the global capital for out of school children. It begs the question: what were the funds used for?

Third Term Agenda And The Buhari We Don’t Know

By Banji Ojewale

Some compatriots say we wouldn’t know the real man we have as our president until the chickens come home to roost in 2023. In that year, would President Muhammadu Buhari have removed the veil to succumb to the current sacrilegious clamour to go for a fatal tenure extension? Would he have given in to calls to trash the Constitution so he can walk on the slippery ground euphemistically termed third term? Would he be the Buhari of the wailers? Or of the hailers?

*Buhari 

In 2023, is Buhari going to remain the man we’ve always known as our beloved president? Or a stranger foisted on us? Would he be the bride we didn’t pay our dowry for? Would the husband discover he’d been shortchanged at the point where only God would be the Unseen and Silent Onlooker? Would there be a supplanter at work?

Social Media Bill: Short Walk To Total Totalitarianism?

By Matthew Hassan Kukah

I have consistently tried to create levels of differentiation between democracy and dictatorship, especially dictatorships of the military variant as we have had in Nigeria. I have argued that Nigeria is still very far away from the goal posts of what could be called a democratic society. In my view, the environment does not as yet look anything democratic because the actors are largely strangers to the ethos of democratic governance, and what is more, too many of them are tied to the old order, not to talk of the fact that the presence of General-presidents suggest that we are still in the thrall of militarism.

*Kukah

Democracy thrives on debate, consensus building, negotiation, persuasion, argumentation, rule of law, process and inclusion. The military thrives in a coup culture, secrecy, betrayal, violence, command structure, exclusion and lack of transparency. That explains why I have always warned against describing the current charade of violent elections as democracy.