By Elvis Eromosele
“An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.” This is a popular saying from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Many times, these days, I feel like that old woman in the saying, especially when I see skits where food is wasted and there are too many of them now. I don’t find them funny. I can’t laugh. They offend my sensibility. Food don cost.
By Ayo Baje
“Let
us work together to create a future where every child can learn, grow and
thrive. Education is a right not a privilege. Let us make it a reality for
all”
– Hon. Obidike Chukwuebuka (APC Chieftain).
By Owei Lakemfa
The loss of majority in parliament by the African National Congress, ANC in the May 29, 2024 South African elections was a sunset for the continent. It means that the unrepentant Pan Africanist organisation with its vow to the mass of the people and unrepentant commitment to humanity as manifested in its unprecedented war against genocide in Palestine, might be compromised under a coalition.
*Ramaphosa and Zuma
The uniqueness of the ANC in South African and international politics is that it has never really been a political party. Rather, it is an all-comers movement of people dedicated to freedom and social justice. It is built on a tripod: coalition of people with different ideologies and religions, the South African Communist Party which espouses socialism, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU. The current President Cyril Ramaphosa is from COSATU.
By Dan Onwukwe
For presidential aides in a democracy, the advice has always been: Understanding of the inner workings of power is very essential. It will offer you a nuanced picture of leadership at the highest level. For spokespersons to the President, and Governors, the advice is even more direct: Always work in harmony with your colleagues, not in discord. Master your duties. Don’t lord it over others.
*Tinubu
To borrow the words of George Stephanophoous, Bill Clinton’s top media adviser during his presidency, your duty to your boss can be “compared to being an air traffic controller at a busy airport on a foggy night”. That means avoiding issuing contradictory statements that may send the wrong signals to pilots and passengers onboard the aircraft. Deviating from these rules could ignite a firestorm in a presidential plate.
By Olu Fasan
There is aparadox in the relationship between politicians and traditional rulers in Nigeria. Before elections, prominent presidential and gubernatorial candidates queue to pay homage to traditional rulers and solicit their blessing.
*Sanusi
By Banji Ojewale
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor polite, not popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him he is right. —Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) American churchman and civil liberties defender.
*Pastor Kumuyi and his wife, Mrs
Esther
In his book, An Outline of the History of the World, Herbert Abraham Davies relates the epic story of how a cleric put himself in the path of potential backlash to deliver ancient Rome from annihilation at the hands of an all-conquering army of barbarians. The predators were already in the regions of the Roman Empire; all the soldiers needed was an order from their leader, Attila the Hun, to move in and overrun Rome. From this she was saved, (so it was said), "by the earnest entreaties of Leo, Bishop of Rome, who entered Attila’s camp and warned him not to risk the vengeance of heaven by plundering the city, and the Hun leader was so impressed with the bishop’s sincerity and intensity of purpose that he withdrew his troops."
By Olu Fasan
Dear readers, I am wearing my academic cap this week, and assessing the first-year performance of Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president since May 29 last year. In fact, I have marked Tinubu’s first-year assessment. The result? He failed badly. He scored an abysmal 37 per cent!
*Tinubu
Earlier this week, Tinubu marked his own exam paper and awarded himself a pass mark. He said he met Nigeria bleeding and stopped the bleeding. That’s utterly ludicrous, given that most Nigerians have been trapped in unimaginable misery and anguish over the past one year, and the fundamentals of Nigeria’s economy and social fabric have crumbled further in the past year. Yet, Tinubu has cheerleaders. One of them is Dr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, who said Tinubu “has laid the groundwork for progress” in his first year. What an outlandish thing to say! Well, for me, Tinubu failed his first-year assessment.
*The proud winners
Contestants were drawn from
the Junior and Senior Secondary classes (JSS1-JSS3 and (SS1-SS3) to form the
two categories.
From the several students that participated in the first stage of the competition, twenty names made the top performers list. These were then invited to Lagos to write the final test which held on Saturday, May 25, 2024. Six contestants were eventually shortlisted as winners, three for each category.
The event took place on the 28th of May 2024. It was a special day and memorable occasion filled with laughter, joy, and invaluable support for the children of Olusosun Primary School.
Now in its 18th edition, the African Banker Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and institutions that have contributed significantly to the growth and development of Africa's banking sector over the past year. This year’s awards ceremony in particular saw DFIs triumph, enjoying successes, in both institutional and individual categories, and representing the increased growth they enjoy in the African financial ecosystem.
By Tonnie Iredia
The decision of the Kano state government to reinstate Emir Sanusi II some four years after he was dethroned has expectedly elicited diverse reactions from many Nigerians. While some looked at the subject from the cultural point of view and argued that it is in order to restore the traditional institution in its unadulterated form, others are unhappy that politicians have turned the royal throne into a chess game. So, the blame game is on.
Some say it is the result of an unending political rift between two former Kano governors, Musa Kwankwaso and Abdullahi Ganduje. There is a third group that loathes the involvement of the Judiciary which engaged in an offshore interference in the controversy. It is however simplistic to make conclusions about the return of Emir Sanusi II without reference to why and how he was deposed in 2020. The deposition of the Emir 4 years ago was heavily criticised by many political analysts who were convinced that the Emir did no wrong.
By Pat Utomi
Nigeria is a mess right now. A huge mess. Even the blind can see it. And the deaf can hear the cry of anguish of Nigeria’s children. Can the country be rescued? Possibly. But the myths, years of delusions of grandeur and criminal capture of the Nigerian state threaten the possibility.
*Utomi
Last week one of the great TV interviewers in
Nigeria, Charles Aniagolu, asked me the big question. How did we get here?
I resisted the temptation of the immodest but frank answer: go and read just about everything I have written in the last 40 years.
By Adekunle Adekoya
Time flies. Does time really fly? Whichever, next Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of the Tinubu presidency. May 29, 2023, was a day many Nigerians will not forget in a hurry. It was on that day that flimsy fabrics holding economic strands together was brutally rent asunder by a proclamation that we are all now familiar with: removal of subsidy on petrol. Up till the moment Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was reading his inaugural address to the nation, petrol sold for N187 per litre.
Before he finished reading the address, many petrol marketers shut their stations, and queues began growing at filling stations. By the following day, May 30, reality dawned on Nigerians as they awoke to the reality of higher prices of petrol. The increase was threefold; a litre of petrol was selling for N568, and that was the cheapest, available only at NNPC Retail stations. Other marketers, major or minor sold for prices anywhere between N700 and N650 in the Lagos and Abuja areas.
By Olu Fasan
The Most Rev. Matthew Kukah,
Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, is uncharacteristically complacent.
Recently, he upbraided Nigerians for fretting about the Rivers State crisis,
triggered by the festering conflict between the current governor Siminalayi
Fubara and his immediate predecessor, Nyesom Wike. “We ordinary people cry more
than the bereaved,” Rev. Kukah said, adding: “When politicians fight, don’t get
carried away because they will fix their quarrel.”
By Banji Ojewale
It’s a Sunday morning in May 2024 in downtown Accra, capital of Ghana. I’m in a Church auditorium. Strangely for an African Pentecostal assembly, there are subdued acoustics. The preacher’s message is electronically transmitted. But it is solemnly controlled to stay indoors.
Later, I find myself in the city’s busy streets.
I’m challenged by very long, snaky metallic lines glistening under the sun.
Motorists appear horn-shy. I can only hear creaking bursts of engines
responding to traffic lights. There are even no flights of tempers or accidents
to scuttle the scorching silence everywhere.
Would dusk make a difference?
By Banji Ojewale
At the close of every month, an African non-denominational brand, the Global Crusade with Kumuyi, GCK, launches into the international scene, seeking
 |
| Pastor Kumuyi and his wife at one of the GCKs |
…As search to recognise and reward Nigeria’s extraordinary children begins
Dufil Prima Foods Ltd, makers of Indomie Instant Noodles, on Thursday May 9, officially announced the commencement of the 16th edition of its corporate social responsibility initiative, the Indomie Heroes Awards, the nationwide search exercise that seeks to identify, recognize, celebrate, and reward the positive and heroic efforts of by children aged 15 years and below.
By Ugo Onuoha
In light of the challenges facing the Igbo today in Nigeria, the last thing that the beleaguered people should have to contend with is a fractionalised socio- political umbrella body. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been grappling with for some years. And it seems the situation is deteriorating rather rapidly.
The Igbo who are the only large, in terms of population, group of people who are indigenous to Nigeria [a fuller exposition on this another day] have been facing existential threats. The threats to emasculate and possibly annihilate the Igbo have been on for the better part of a century. And evidence abounds.
By Kenneth Okonkwo
On 1st March, 2023, Prof Yakubu Mahmood, Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at about 4:30am, while most Nigerians were asleep, proclaimed Bola Tinubu as winner of the presidential election held on the 25th of February, 2023, in apparent disregard of the laws and rules of collation of results which he made for himself and for INEC.
He even boasted that there will be a big television screen revealing the electronically transmitted election results for the whole world to see to confirm and corroborate the manually collated presidential election results which he will be announcing. He failed woefully and deceitfully announced presidential election results without following due process he made for himself, and blamed technical glitch for failing to obey the laws. Till date nobody has been held responsible for the glitch that purportedly occurred that day. The people in charge of the systems then have been said to have been handsomely rewarded with promotion.
