As Poverty Deepens In Nigeria

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. — Aristotle (384-322 BC).

The state of affairs in our dear country, Nigeria, as at now, is simply bothersome. When an Ijebu man is finding it difficult to afford garri, which he wants to soak in water and gulp down with either a piece of meat, a cutlet of fish or a handful of groundnuts, then there is a hell of a lot of things to worry about. Two weeks ago, I was at home, in Ijebu-Ode for the burial of an in-law. Returning after the affair, I detoured to the popular Oke-Aje Market, near the Moslem Praying Ground to buy garri, which I really can’t do without.

Book News: 'Ojukwu: Exile, Diplomacy And Survival' By Kanayo Esinulo

 Fresh and Hot!

American book experts always tell us that Fall (Autumn) is usually the time when blockbusters hit the shelves...  

Veteran journalist, eminent writer and public relations expert, Kanayo Esinulo, has been under tremendous pressure to give the world this book.

In Biafra, he worked closely with General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu at the Biafra State House, and stayed with him as one of his closest aides in exile in the Cote d’Ivoire. He saw everything at very close quarters, including all the details of “the years in exile and the deft moves that led to Gen Ojukwu’s return to Nigeria in 1982.”

I can’t wait to devour this long-awaited book which will be presented to the public in November … and, then, bare my mind in a review...

Everybody needs to read this book...

 

TV Series Adaptation Of Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' Features Idris Elba As Okonkwo

 Press Release

Achebe Masterworks Announces Development Deal with A24 for TV Series Adaptation of Things Fall Apart

In a landmark collaboration, Achebe Masterworks is thrilled to announce a partnership with acclaimed Studio A24 and producers, Idris Elba and David Oyelowo, for the television adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

Published in 1958, Things Fall Apart established African literature on the global stage and remains the most widely read African novel, with over 30 million copies sold and translations in more than 60 languages.

Oil Refineries: Nigeria Ignores The Green Energy Transition At Its Peril

 By Olu Fasan

Last  week, I wrote about the dire economic consequences for Nigeria as a petrostate almost solely reliant on oil and gas exports. This week, I want to address another aspect of that intervention: the climate impacts of Nigeria’s deepening commitment to burning fossil fuels.

Nothing demonstrates this commitment more than the excitement over the Dangote Refinery and the government’s determination to license more private oil refineries while pursuing new hydrocarbon exploration. The economic and climate impacts of Nigeria’s fossil-fuel dependency pose existential threats to the country’s future stability. Yet, Nigeria is entrenching itself as a hydrocarbon country while paying lip service to energy transition.

Edo Governorship Election And The ‘Umpire’ Called INEC

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

I had very instructive discussions with two A-list Nigerian politicians before and after the Edo State governorship election; the first being on Wednesday, three days before the poll. Both men have held positions of immense responsibility in government both at the state and federal levels.

The first politician dismissed those who believed that given the pedigree of the 18 candidates and sophistication of the Edo electorate, the odds favoured the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Dr. Asue Ighodalo, as unrealistic.

Bako, The Bandit Historian!

 By Emeka Obasi

Genocide does not happen in one day. It is triggered by individuals with skewed minds raging with hate and spewing evil through their speeches, body language or pen. Ahmed Bako should prepare for summons by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Bako, who taught History at the Usman Danfodiyo University Sokoto used what should have been his Valedictory Lecture but was tagged the institution’s 50th Inaugural Lecture to descend on the Igbo. He painted them as Diaspora in Kano, killers of Sardauna, and separatists, whose aim from the beginning was to use education to dominate.

Why Tinubu Should Listen To Our Elder Statesmen

 By Nick Dazang

Apart from an army of voluble commentators holding successive governments to account and speaking truths to them in the most parliamentary and patrician fashion, Nigeria is blessed with scores of irrepressible elder statesmen.

*Tinubu

Whenever matters come to a head and Nigeria teeters at the brink of precipice, these statesmen weigh in with their thoughts. They intervene by way of statements or well calibrated pronouncements. Sometimes they do so by authoring scathing epistles. Some of these statesmen, such as Chiefs Gani Fawehinmi and Anthony Enahoro and Dr. Tai Solarin have departed this sinful world.

How Long Will Yahaya Bello Continue With This Lawless Act?

 By Richards Ibe

The ex-Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, who handed over to the current governor of the state, Usman Ododo in January this year after his two terms of four-years-tenure, has consistently been in the news in the past eight months.

*Bello and others dancing on the road...

It has been from one drama to the other bordering on his stewardship and how he handled the affairs of the state under his tenure.

Bello, who was alleged to have defrauded the state to the tune of N84 billion during his tenure, have done everything in and out of the books to avoid his trial spearheaded by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The EFCC, Yahaya Bello And Gov Ododo: Stranger Than Fiction

 By Ugoji  Egbujo

The glory has departed. In the Obasanjo era, politicians dreaded the EFCC. When Ribadu was at the helm, the EFCC didn’t do tales by moonlight. Obasanjo and Ribadu were not saints, but against corruption, they barked and bit. Under their watch, the Eagle would have broken its beak and neck rather than allow this Bello-Ododo charade. It’s getting messier. The EFCC looks castrated.

*Bello

How then does Tinubu seek to renew hope if his government cuddles the most high-profile political criminal suspects so shamelessly.

Rivers State: Caveat Emptor For Wike

 By Ochereome Nanna

Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, must be feeling on top of the world right now. He has successfully retrieved the structure of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Rivers State from Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

*Fubara and Wike 
With the endorsement of the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party and the fact that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, witnessed and certified the recent congress of the Rivers State chapter of the party, all eyes are on the Governor to respond in the battle for his own political survival.

'Oil Curse’: Nigeria Has No viable Future As A Petrostate

 By Olu Fasan

The latest foreign trade data show that Nigeria recorded a trade balance of N6.52 trillion in the first quarter of this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. Expectedly, President Bola Tinubu seized on the figure as evidence that his economic reform is working. Given that the positive trade balance significantly reversed the negative balance of minus N1.4 trillion recorded in the fourth quarter of last year, one should cut Tinubu a slack. After all, a trade surplus, any trade surplus, is better than a trade deficit! 

However, dig deeper, there’s little to gloat about: for nothing has changed in the structure of Nigeria’s export trade. Crude oil exports, at N15.5 trillion, account for 80.8 per cent of the total exports. If you add other petroleum oil products, including natural gas, at N1.9 trillion or 9.92 per cent, oil and gas represent 91 per cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Thus, non-oil exports, at N1.8 trillion, account for a minuscule nine per cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Surely, then, Tinubu’s economic reform has done nothing to change the structure of Nigeria’s export trade, which remains almost totally dominated by crude oil and natural gas. 

Celebrating Omalicha Radio, 91.1 FM: A Voice For Development

 By Tony Onyima  

On Friday, September 20, 2024, Omalicha Radio 91.1 FM, Owerri, a beacon of independent development broadcasting, will celebrate its first anniversary. Founded by the seasoned journalist and editor, Ms. Angela Agoawike, the station has become a critical platform for community empowerment and sustainable development, especially in the heart of Owerri and beyond. 

*Agoawike 

As we mark this milestone, it is fitting to reflect on the significance of the station's achievements and the role it continues to play in the landscape of communication, community development, and the bridging of critical divides. 

Edo Governorship Poll: Only Justice Will Guarantee Peace

 
By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Saturday, September 21, Edo electorate will elect a new governor who will superintend over the affairs of the state in the next four years. In other climes, that is a simple task. Agreed, contestation for power is a serious business not meant for chicken hearted fellas, but the heavy lifting is done out on the hustings, talking to people. On Election Day, the will of the majority expressed through the ballot box prevails.

Dangote Refinery Is Here; Why Are We Unhappy?

 By Dele Sobowale

“I am beginning to wonder how many fools it takes to make the term ‘My Fellow Citizens’” -Honore de Balzac, 1799-1850, in LOST ILLUSIONS

You were probably one of those who eagerly awaited the completion of the Dangote Refinery while labouring under the illusion that it will crash the price of fuel nationwide. Welcome to the unpleasant reality. Underlying that self-deception was the un-stated but implied assumption that Alhaji Dangote was embarking on a venture designed to free Nigeria from fuel importation. Well, “when you assume, you make an ass of you and me.”

Gullible Nigerians, especially many media commentators, had committed the blunder of forgetting that Dangote is a businessman caught in a global race for position among the world’s richest people. He went into refinery primarily to make as much money as he can; and stopping fuel importation is a distant second objective – except that securing a monopoly of the domestic fuel supply would help achieve the ambition.

The Oppressors Who Love The Oppressed

 By Owei Lakemfa

It is bizarre. The International Monetary Fund, IMF, calling on the government to protect the poor from the impact of the fuel price hikes it engineers! To add to its criminal thought process against the Nigerian people, the same IMF is telling the Tinubu administration that fuel prices in Nigeria are too low and need to be increased because it is allegedly selling below market price. What market?

To understand this, we need to know that the Western Europe-owned IMF and its Siamese American twin, the World Bank, have since 1981 told every successive Nigerian government that our petroleum product prices are too cheap and must be increased.

A Nation Without Roads

 By Sunny Awhefeada

The road constitutes a met­aphor of life’s journey for Africans. It is central to the configuration and under­standing of the metaphysical nexus between the abode of the dead and that of the living that we call life. The metaphoric and metaphysical essence of the road also mediates life’s journey and its uncertain twists and turns.

The road is benign as it connects people and places. The road is also a cruel phenomenon as it has thrown people and places into mourning. The road consumes hu­manity. It engenders loss. African literature in its depiction of the African predicament whether it is physical or existential has remained the most fertile site for the plural manifestations of the essence of the road.

Adams Oshiomhole Is Irredeemable

 By Charles Okoh

They have always told us that politics is dirty but nobody informed us that there are also mad men in politics and that in politics indiscretion and sloppiness are virtues. It is sad that perhaps, be­cause of the stupendous wealth and power politicians wield, there is something that makes some of them absolute nut cases, insensi­tive and unreasonable.

*Oshiomhole

Former Edo governor and one time NLC president, Adams Os­hiomhole, has consistently prov­en that wisdom indeed does not come with age. A man can be 100 years old and yet lacks wisdom. Oshiomhole has shown that the older he gets the more reckless, irrational and indiscreet he has become. How can somebody as old as this consistently speak without wisdom, discretion and self-restraint?

Ahmed Bako: Intellectual Masturbation As Inaugural Lecture

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

What caught my attention when the flyer of the 50th inaugural lecture of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto surfaced in the social media late August was the theme: “The Igbo factor in the history of intergroup relations and commerce in Kano: Opportunities and challenges revisited.”

The lecture, to be delivered by Ahmed Bako, a Kano-born professor of African and Nigerian history, triggered a sense of foreboding instantly because I guessed it would be a voyage in dog whistling, a pastime of ethnic irredentists across the country when dealing with their bête noire – Ndigbo. He proved me right.

PhotoNews: Igbo Road By Main Market, Kano

 

Governing Nigeria: Does The Economy Trump Politics? No, It Doesn’t!

 By Olu Fasan

It is the age-old chicken and egg question. Which comes first: the economy or politics? That’s the question at the heart of this intervention, and it was triggered by two recent events. The first was President Bola Tinubu’s response to the call for a new Constitution. The second was Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s speech at this year’s Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, in which she called for a social contract for Nigeria. Everyone knew about those events, but few detected their logical fallacies. So, first, let’s recall the events.

Recently, in August, the highly venerated elder statesman Chief Emeka Anyaoku led a group of eminent Nigerians under the aegis of The Patriots to meet Tinubu at the State House and asked him to convene a constituent assembly to produce a draft people’s constitution for Nigeria.