Henry Kissinger On Ukraine: How The Crisis Ends

 By Henry Kissinger  

(PUBLIC discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going?)  

In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins. 

*Dr Kissinger and Donald Trump

Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other – it should function as a bridge between them. 

Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.

Tribute To Donatus Duru: Late Editorial Board Chairman, Independent Newspapers

 
*Donatus Duru, late Chairman, Editorial Board, Independent Newspapers 

By Ade Ogidan 

It has been most difficult for me to script this mournful message in respect of my darling friend, colleague and confidant, Donatus Duru, who passed on exactly eight days ago, at the General Hospital, Gbagada, Lagos. 

The difficulty has to do with my poor mental disposition in accepting that Duru, the Chairman of Editorial Board, Independent Newspapers Limited (INL), will now be referred to in the past tense. 

When I assumed duties in 2016 as Managing Director and Editor-In-Chief of the media house, I knew very well that the task of repositioning the company would be highly challenging. I had earlier held fort as General Manager, Commercial; and Managing Editor. 

But Duru, in his characteristic candour and valour, came in as a reliable ally in charting the path for the newspapers' sustainable redemption. 

Air Peace, Emir of Kano Tango: Sense Of Entitlement Taken Too Far

 

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Pondering over the Emir of Kano, Air Peace tango this week, I couldn’t help but remember the wisecrack by Sarah Churchwell, the 51-year-old professor of American Literature, who wrote: “People who are given whatever they want soon develop a sense of entitlement and rapidly lose their sense of proportion.”

That is exactly what is happening in this contrived hullabaloo.

For those not aware, the story is that the Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, who was returning from Banjul, Gambia, missed his early morning flight from Lagos to Kano.

Nigeria, A Country With Too Many Sovereigns

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Colonial rule in Nigeria was conducted through Indirect Rule. It was a system of “native administration” patented in Northern Nigeria, which became the model exported by the British across their colonies. For all practical purposes, this system of government gave to most Emirs and other rulers in Chiefly communities, “more power than they had in pre-colonial days.” 

*Allen Onyema 

The result was the establishment of “native states” at the top of which sat these local potentates, many of whom enjoyed powers of life and death over their kinsfolk. The end of colonial rule did not much change this as they reached working accommodation with the post-colonial elite for self-preservation. Powered by twin failures of both leadership and nation building, the result in Nigeria, where it all began, is one country with a multiplicity of sovereigns.

The on-going dispute between the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero, and Air Peace, a private airline in Nigeria, dramatises this. The claim on behalf of the Emir is that he flew Air Peace from Banjul, The Gambia to Nigeria, on February 24, landing in Lagos about 05:45 hours. He was at the head of a ten-person traveling party who had a connecting flight to catch to his home in Kano, north-west Nigeria scheduled for 06:15 hours the same morning, a mere 30 minutes after they landed. Five out of the ten members of the Emir’s traveling party were business class passengers.

Donald Burness, Writer And Scholar, Dies At 80

Donald “Don” Burness, a 52-year resident of Rindge and a global citizen who inspired students and fellow travelers with his teaching, writing and love of art and literature the world over, died Feb. 23, 2022, from abdominal cancer. He was 80 years old.

Nigeria: Emerging Ray Of Hope In Igboland

 By Jude Asike

One possible approach to look at the incoming government of Chukwuma Soludo in Anambra State is to look at it as an account of the change of many things in Igboland, Nigeria. This is invariably to say that with the emergence of Soludo as the next Governor of Anambra State on March 17, 2022, things will positively change for the better in Igboland.

*Soludo

The failure of leadership, lack of genuine goal and vision for Igbo persons in Nigeria will be corrected through a proper understanding of good governance and development initiatives in Anambra State. Anambra is always gifted in producing great leaders of thought, and Soludo is here to move the people of Anambra to the next level.

What, Exactly, Does Nigeria Want From Ndigbo?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

The usual refrain on the lips of Nigerian leaders, particularly those who successfully prosecuted the brutal civil war against the breakaway Biafran Republic is the indivisibility of the country.

One of them, General Ibrahim Babangida, in an interview with Arise Television on August 7, 2021 to mark his 80th birthday anniversary, put it rather bluntly: “When we were in the military, we talked about certain issues concerning Nigeria: the unity of Nigeria as far as we were concerned was a settled issue.”

Understanding Nnamdi Kanu’s Trial

 By Adebayo Raphael

Since Nnamdi Kanu’s abduction in 2021 by Nigeria’s transnational Gestapo, the consequential rage of members of the Indigenous People of Biafra has been, to a considerable extent, not up to scratch. Instead, there seems to be a diminishing rage, IPOB itself on the brink of becoming another fossilised group in the graveyard of reactionary opposition.

My suspicion is: It is either the IPOB has not fully understood the gravity of its historical position in the struggle against feudal fanaticism in Nigeria, or the group is beginning to suffer an entropic decline due to the sudden, perhaps unexpected, abduction, detention and phoney trial of its supreme commander, Nnamdi Kanu.

Who Will Save Nigeria From This Impending Implosion?

 By Lillian Okenwa

Well-known for his intellectual and legal sagacity, Hon. Justice Chukwudifu Oputa is a man greatly admired. His sense of style was impeccable but near bohemian sometimes. I still remember nearly half of his face covered by a huge pair of dark designer sunglasses he wore on the day we went to locus in quo (Latin, for a place where the cause of action arose) at Zango Kataf in the Southern part of Kaduna State during the famous Oputa panel in 2001.

It’s unlikely you’ve seen anything like those sunglasses. I also remember how peeved he was with my cameraman in 2005 when we went to interview him in Lagos for a video documentary I produced for the Supreme Court Nigeria. After introducing my team and exchanging pleasantries, he took a look at Leke’s skin cut and said he doesn’t understand what is wrong with young men these days. He told us how young men in his days took time to groom their hair, and truly although His lordship was already balding, his well-groomed hair stood out.

Retooling Igbo Language In Era Of Digital Pedagogy

 By Chris Uchenna Agbedo

Today, the 21st day of February 2022, the United Nations through its organ, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) marks the International Mother Language Day (IMLD) originally proclaimed by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1999, a special day which the UN General Assembly ratified in its Resolution of 2002. 

Following that landmark proclamation, the United Nations General Assembly, had in its resolution A/RES/61/266 of 16 May 2007, enjoined Member States “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world”. The UN General Assembly, by the same resolution proclaimed the following year, 2008 as the International Year of Languages, to “promote unity in diversity and international understanding, through multilingualism and multiculturalism,” thus designating UNESCO as the lead agency for the Year.

Biafra, Or An Oasis Of Prosperity?

 By Obi Nwakanma

 Let me be on the record, and say that I align myself ideologically with those who seek the right to self-determination as a fundamental human right. This right is enshrined in the charter of the United Nations of which Nigeria is a signatory.

*Odumegwu-Ojukwu taking the oath of office as Head of State of Biafra

These facts are so clear that it begs the question, why is the Nigerian government persecuting, and criminally violating the rights of those like Nnamdi Kanu who has devoted his life to the pursuit of what he sees as his right to be free of the Nigerian enterprise? The answer is: the word, “Biafra” gives Buhari and his ideological fellow travellers the excuse to wallop the Igbo.

Soludo’s Challenge

 By Obi Nwakanma

Charles Chukwuma Soludo is a brilliant economist. He made a Nsukka first in the years when to make a first-class at the University of Nigeria was like a camel passing through the eye of a needle. These days the University of Nsukka is poorly run, and badly situated/oriented, and there is a narrowness to its own self-image that degrades it radically.

One hopes that the rise of its great alums, like Dr Soludo, a former student, and former Professor of Economics at the University of Nigeria might help push a “Nsukka renaissance.” In a sense, Nsukka gave Soludo his first rodeo.

*Soludo

One returns to the fountain of one’s intellectual growth to fetch the waters of life. But though Soludo might have been taught by the likes of Okwudiba Nnoli, I’m a little worried about his centrist, middle of the road politics: Charles Soludo was known among his fellow students in those years of Students Union Politics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, as something of an “establishment figure,” who ran with the hares as a student member of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the 1980s as an undergraduate student.

As Electric Bill Is Now More Than The Minimum Wage…

 By Abolade Ademola

The electricity tariff of Laaga residents (in Ikorodu, Lagos) has gone so high that everyone cannot afford it. As a resident of the community, I will like to add my voice to this challenge and bring it to the notice of Ikeja Electric and NERC.

In Laaga community, located around Ewu-Elepe, a suburb of Ikorodu, residents have been made to pay an estimated bill that is more than the minimum wage of the entire country, Nigeria.

The steady rise in the bill is very discomforting in a country where the rate of inflation keeps rising without a commensurate rise in income.

The residents of a community with few pre-paid meters have been suffering in silence for some months now but it has become very unbearable with the bill sent for January 2022 in the last few days, a whopping sum of N23,000 only! It is such an exasperating amount that everyone is lamenting this outrageous amount that was sent.

Nigeria: Government As Purveyors Of Fake News Today

 By Emmanuel Onwubiko

“A few lines of reasoning’s can change the way we see the World.”— Steven E. Landsburg.

I was actually ruminating on a very important theme that traverses all of humanity and indeed already indulged in my compulsive lifestyle of deeply reflecting on my newly acquired books (75% of my annual income go into buying freshly minted, topnotch books, hard copies) and one of the most recent copies occupied my consciousness because of the opening quotation aforementioned.

*Information Minister, Lai Mohammed

Titled Basic Economics: A Common sense Guide To The Economy, this quotation rather led me to think much more about the threats to the Nigerian economy by the widespread use of fake news by all kinds of government officials with dominant reference to Federal Government officials. Lies, misinformation and outright fake news are increasingly being forced down the throats of millions of Nigerians by those who run the government and therefore have seamless access to our humongous commonwealth and patrimony which they misapply as their whims and caprices dictate to them. 

Soludo And The Made-in-Anambra Work Ethic

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

There is palpable fear amongst the serious commentariat in addressing relevant issues because most of the viral news attributed to esteemed personages may have been cooked up by the feeble minds of the fake news industry. Anambra State Governor-elect, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, has had many words put in his mouth by these fake news manufacturers.

*Soludo

It’s therefore interesting seeing Prof Soludo while interacting with the members of his transition committee laughing off one of the fibs that quoted him as saying that he would not spend more than N20 million for his swearing-in ceremony.

Soludo cleared the matter thusly: “I have made a wish that not even One Kobo of Anambra people’s money will be spent on the swearing-in ceremony. It is a wish, and I mean it. What are we spending money on? Just a few people coming to the inauguration and witnessing it, then I will open office and get down to work immediately. I do not wish any event, dancers or players and all that. I just want to show up for work, like every first workday. Though it is going to be a Friday, which is the weekend, I’m going to work for over eight hours that day. No ceremony, no event, no party, nothing. Not even 10 Kobo will be spent. So the people who are saying N20million has been budgeted should go and tell us where they will get that money. It is going to be work, work, work, and that is what we epitomize.”

Who Is Bola Ahmed Tinubu?

 By Bisi Olawunm

Since he made his debut in politics as an activist in the prodemocracy agitations of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) in the early 1990s, Bola Ahmed Tinubu – latterly Asiwaju, Jagaban – has been in the eye of the storm arising from what is seen as his identity crisis. There have been speculations and claims, as well as innuendoes, about his name, nativity, parenthood and educational records. To many people, the only thing that is real, without contention, about Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the physical person.

*Bola Tinubu 

In the past few weeks, the intensity of the interrogation of who Bola Tinubu is has revved up several notches as it suddenly, as it were, dawned on people that this person may emerge Nigeria’s number one citizen, come 2023. Bola Tinubu is an enigma of sorts, a curio – a subject of phenomenal curiosity and angst. The puzzle is: How could someone be so well known, in terms of public visibility and public office attainment – as a former senator and governor – and yet so unknown, or with contentions, in terms of his antecedents? We have shell companies, usually engaged in shrouded transactions. Is Bola Tinubu a shell persona, an artificial creation to obfuscate transactional reality?

From World Poverty To Corruption Capital

 By Matthew Agboma Ozah

To say the least, President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s fight against corruption has been unrelenting and vigorous. Even though, we hear more poetic statements than seeing actions and convictions. However, one area the government has made a mockery of the corruption fight is not only in what seems like a selective or media trial jamboree.

*Buhari

But the fact that, the country consecutively for years keeps dropping in global corruption ranking. This has shown that moral values are fast diminishing among the people and especially so in the political class and public office holders. As it were, integrity, honesty and dedication to duty have collapsed in the society. At the moment, the menace of corruption in Nigeria, especially in terms of the threat it poses to the country’s development is beyond explanation.

Insecurity In Nigeria: What Exactly Is Govt Getting Right?

 By Ladesope Ladelokun

The President handed Nigerians the marking scheme with which to assess him some five years ago when he told Nigerians at virtually every campaign stop that he would fight insecurity, work hard to revive an economy in a tailspin and declare a total war on the vermin called corruption.

*President Buhari

But it must be said that it is not the best of times for Nigeria at the moment. The most populous black nation is mourning. It is mourning the demise of peace in a country where human life is not worth more than a kobo a dozen and left helplessly bleeding by elephantine corruption.

While it is expected that every rational leader would be worried about Nigeria’s many problems, it cannot be out of place to state that worrying alone cannot liberate the wretched from the chasm of destitution, or lift an economy gasping for breath. But hope gives the strength to trudge on when everything fails. After all, only death terminates hope and only the living can hope. But hope can be shattered.

Toxic Dust On Orlu-Owerri Road

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Recently, I visited Imo State and was on the Orlu-Owerri road. It is heartwarming that the road is being rehabilitated because in August when I used it on my way to a wedding, it was in such a dilapidated state.  

But, sadly, the insensitivity of the firm handling the reconstruction work is turning what is otherwise a laudable project into a traumatic experience for the people. The dust that envelopes that road all day is so thick that even though most vehicles switch on their headlights on bright afternoons, it is still very difficult for drivers to see oncoming vehicles just a few meters away.

*Gov Uzodinma flags off the reconstruction of Orlu-Owerri Road

And because of this thick cloud of dust, the motorists practically “drive blind”. One wonders what it is usually like driving at night when the dust and darkness merge to compound the situation. I shudder to imagine the implications of this.  

But this is not even the really scary part of the story.

Slavery In Mauritania And The Shame Of A Continent

 By Osmund Agbo

In November 2017, the world watched in utter disbelief, some cringed-worthy footage aired by CNN where dozens of men in detention facilities were being auctioned off for as little as $400 each in Libya. If you think that was a fluke, the crew was also told of the existence of similar auctions taking place at nine other locations in the country.

The victims? People that look like me that belong in the melanin-rich subset of Africans. The traffickers were our brothers, a shade or two lighter from the north. But that’s just a tip of the proverbial iceberg. Slavery is alive and thriving in Africa by Africans.

What if I tell you that the last country in the whole wide world to outlaw slavery is a country in the continent of Africa. Yes, that is Mauritania, in 1981. To put it in perspective, that was some 116 years after the US Congress ratified the 13th amendment which stated that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”