Nigeria: From Giver To Beggar In 50 years

 By Dele Sobowale

I am delighted to announce here today that just three days ago, the African Development Bank board of directors approved $100 million for the establishment of the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank for Nigeria.” — Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank for Africa, AIDB, Friday, October 18, 2024

All the people present at the event, when the AfDB fulfilled a promise made in June last year, must have given a thunderous ovation. To some extent, there is a need to cheer that a global bank is still willing to invest in Nigeria’s future. All is not gloomy; there is still some hope.

Ojukwu: Exile, Diplomacy And Survival

Book Reviewer: Cosmas Omegoh  

Even in death, fingers keep pursuing General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the leader of the defunct Biafra Republic. And that is largely because of the pivotal role he played during the 30-month Nigeria/Biafra war (1967- 1970). 

Even more than five decades after the war ended and a decade after Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Ezeigbo Gburugburu's death, anything and everything said about him is adjudged emotive and emotional by many, including those who have no cause to be so. That is why this factory-fresh book, Ojukwu: Exile, Diplomacy And Survival, written by Kanayo Esinulo, the General’s aide in exile is sure to be of immense interest. 

Trial Of Minors: When A Dissenter Criminalises Dissent

By Adekunle Adekoya

For some time now, the detention and arraignment of under-age protesters by the Police dominated conversations at home and abroad.

In August, a nationwide protest against the harsh economic policies preferred by the federal administration led by President Bola Tinubu began, tagged #EndBadGovernance. Largely driven by social media conversations, organisers sought to mobilise the populace to register their displeasure with the way things have turned and are still turning for them. So, August 1-10 was billed as protest days. Before the day, government machinery went into overdrive, with massive resources committed to ensuring that the protests did not hold.

Trump’s Victory, The True Colour Of Democracy

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Wednesday, November 6, Donald Trump, the 45th U.S. President, pulled off what, to all intents and purposes, is an extraordinary political comeback – an exceptional feat that has catapulted him once again to the enviable position of the president-in-waiting. On January 20, 2025, he will take another oath of office as the 47th U.S. President.

When Americans went to the polls on Tuesday, November 5, to elect President Joe Biden’s successor, the odds weighed against Trump. Here is a president who was impeached twice during his presidency, refused to accept electoral defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol before vacating the White House and was subsequently convicted of felony charges.

Stop Blaming IMF, World Bank; Nigeria’s Economic Woes Are Self-Inflicted!

 By Olu Fasan

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank have long struck a raw nationalistic nerve in Nigerians. Romantic patriotism drives the nationalistic urge to reject any perceived IMF/World Bank ‘interference’.

*Tinubu

Several years ago, as a magazine publisher, I interviewed Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, then finance minister under General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, when he stopped over in London on his way to the IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington. I asked him why Nigerians detested the multilaterals. “I think in Nigeria we’ve tended to be isolationist,” he said. Nigerians, he implied, loathed foreign institutions telling them what to do, even in the face of a self-inflicted crisis.

Misuse Of Immunity Clause In Nigeria

 By Tonnie Iredia

Many Nigerian scholars are agreed that a major problem of their nation is that the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria 1999 was not freely authored by the people. Rather, it was imposed by the military which had cause at certain periods of history to intervene in the politics of the country.  For this reason, a number of provisions in the constitution are unacceptable to some Nigerians.

However, what stands out clearly as the people’s contributory negligence to the imperfection of their constitution is that many of us further complicate the situation by adding to the same constitution, many unacceptable things that were originally not included by the drafters of the document. A good example is seen in the way many leaders who are not covered by the immunity clause enjoy it without qualms.

Fuel Fiasco As Metaphor For Governance

 By Dele Sobowale

“If they go about solving the problem this way, how many more problems will they have created by the time they are through” -James Baldwin, 1924-1987, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p201, available online.

By any objective measure known to adults globally, what we have on our hands with regard to fuel problem is a fiasco. You cannot ask any of those in control of our fate in this regard a straight question and receive a reliable answer. Two Presidents, the Minister of Petroleum, the Minister of State for Petroleum, the Minister of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, the Debt Management Office, DMO, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, all the regulatory commissions and agencies of government. The conspiracy of falsehood started since the Dangote Refinery was nearing, but still far from, completion in March 2023.

A Revolution In The East

By Obi Nwakanma

Culturally, the East of Nigeria has two things going for it: one is a contiguous and compact geography that is very culturally connected, and the second is a very enterprising and driven population, with no sense, until very recently, of a domineering monarchical spirit.

These hardy republicans, driven by the idea of individual freedom, liberty, justice, the equality principle in which no one is king of the other, and a lack of fear of their destiny and destination, as well as an openness that allows them to cross borders easily; embrace and accept difference even as they preserve what is best in them is the key cultural trait that makes the East of Nigeria very dynamic. 

No Shaking! The Igbo Spirit Lives On!

 By Dan Onwukwe 

Nigeria is very much looking like a horror movie that many people troop in to watch in a cinema. Every passing day, news about the country, and the conduct of government, its officials and some of its key institutions, could break the human spirit. This is because, things that are considered abominable and utterly wicked have become the ‘new normal’ in the country. 

A friend of mine called me last weekend from Canada. His voice was shaking. I thought he has lost someone. But it was a different kind of news. I asked him what has gone wrong. He said everything: “Even from afar there’s darkness at the edge of Nigeria”, he said, as his voice began to tremble. He added ,”if the Nigeria Police could arraign scores of hungry-protesting kids for alleged treason, the government must have lost its soul, and the leadership gone astray”.  He ended the call with this cryptic comment, “this is how autocrats begin”.  

Government Of The Deaf And Dumb!

 By Kenneth Okonkwo

I attended one high profile birthday celebration in Abuja sometime ago. In that celebration, some physically challenged persons were invited too. I picked interest in one pretty lady among them. My attention was drawn to her when one young guy wanted to chat her up but she wasn’t replying. 

*Tinubu and Shettima 

When the guy noticed that she was using sign language, the guy apologised to her and their leader and confessed to the leader that he didn’t know that she was deaf and dumb. The young girl was mad when she perceived what the young guy told their leader. She quipped, the mere fact that I am deaf, doesn’t imply that I am dumb. It dawned on me that if you call a person dumb, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is temporarily unable or unwilling to speak, it means the person is showing a lack of intelligence.

Nigeria-Vietnam: When Your Friend Tells You The Truth

 By Owei Lakemfa

The primary reason a group of Nigerians had a meeting in Abuja with embassy and trade officials from Vietnam on Wednesday October 30, 2024 was to explore business opportunities for cooperation and development.

That quickly changed to nagging questions such as why Vietnam which was a physically flattened country back in May 1976 when it began diplomatic relations with Nigeria is, today, fast developing, while Nigeria is fast degenerating and steadily under-developing? Why is the Vietnamese Foreign Exchange Reserves $92.3 billion and that of Nigeria $39.07 billion?

Toying With The Hardship Nigerians’re Going Through

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Since May 29, 2023, Nigerians have been struggling with unrelenting rises in the cost of living following peremptory removal of subsidy on petrol by President Bola Tinubu.

The much-touted ‘market forces’ have since reacted to the development most viciously, and continue to do so, with many Nigerians gnashing their teeth as it gets harder to make ends meet. What is very disturbing about the whole thing is that government has completely abandoned the people to the mercies of the market forces.

Who Will Call Nigerian Politicians To Order?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

I am worried that Nigerian leaders have captured the Nigerian state, taking beleaguered citizens hostage in the process and yet carrying on as if all is well. 

*Nigerian politicians 

I am even more worried that the grossly abused citizens, afflicted with the debilitating Stockholm syndrome, rather than standing up to their abusers are actually coping, having over time developed positive feelings toward those who have persistently treated them cruelly, violently and unfairly in the name of leadership. But I am most worried that with the way Nigerian politicians are carrying on, sooner or later something will give and we will all be worse for it.

Beyond The Economy, Why Is Tinubu So Unpopular? It’s Arrogance Of Power!

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice-president for development economics, wrote an article in the Financial Times urging Nigerians to embrace the economic reforms of their president, Bola Tinubu. “The country’s elites must forge a political consensus in support of these reforms,” he said.

*Tinubu

Like every seasoned policy expert, Gill knows that without a political consensus, no reform, especially a radical one, can succeed. However, what he failed to say is why there is no political consensus in favour of Tinubu’s economic reforms. Yet, addressing that point is, in part, key to understanding why Tinubu is so unpopular, and why few embrace his “reforms”.

Yoruba People And The Bola Tinubu Cross

By Olusegun Adeniyi  

Many Yoruba people voted for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar or the Labour Party candidate, Mr Peter Obi, during the 2023 general election. This despite knowing that the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, is their kinsman. 

*Buhari and Tinubu 

It is on record that Tinubu lost Lagos State to Obi and Osun State to Atiku. It is also on record that people from other ethnic groups voted for Tinubu. In fact, a few of his supporters outside the Southwest were almost violent in their endorsement of the man who is now our president. Former Niger Delta militant leader, Mujahid Asari-Dokubo is one of such people. 

Is Bola Tinubu Settling Scores?

 By Ugo Egbujo

Tinubu has become an unabashed  chauvinist. It’s a hard watch. It doesn’t bode well for national unity. Tinubu’s critical appointments have become the most lopsided in the history of this country.

*Tinubu

A Yoruba is the police Inspector General. A Yoruba is the EFCC Chairman. A Yoruba is the Head of the DSS. A Yoruba is the Attorney General. A Yoruba is the Chief Justice of the Federation. And Tinubu, a Yoruba, is the President and overseer of all instruments of coercion. The entire criminal justice system is in the hands of one ethnic group.

Nigeria In Disarray: Waiting For Damnation

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu  

This Fiction Called Nigeria: The Struggle for Democracy by Adewale Maja-Pearce; (Verso, UK, 6 Meard Street, London; Verso, US, 388 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York; 2024; 185pp) 

Adewale Maja-Pearce does not pull his punches in his prolific engagements in public intellectual pugilism. He packs quite a punch, and comes strongly recommended by such eminent worthies as Jeremy Harding of London Review of Books who writes thusly: “Adewale Maja-Pearce is Nigeria’s most dependable journalist.” 

There is no denying the fact that Nigeria as a country is in dire straits. It is as though Africa’s most populous nation is forever thrust in suspended animation, especially after the heavily flawed 2023 presidential elections. Incidentally, Adewale Maja-Pearce starts out with these words: “This book was written against the background of the 2023 elections.” 

Humphrey Nwosu: Unsung Hero Of Nigeria’s Democracy

 By Tonnie Iredia

The death a few days ago of Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the outstanding Nigerian who supervised the famous June 12 1993 presidential election no doubt reminded many Nigerians of how best to organize an election. Although the winner of that election was never formally declared, everyone knew who it was and across the globe, the contest was unanimously accepted as the best Nigerian election in history. The accolade is yet to change.

*Prof Nwosu 

Those who knew Nwosu’s strength of character especially those of us who worked with him on the elections must have been elated for the first time hearing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a tribute describing Humphrey Nwosu as “as a bold and courageous administrator as well as a patriot and national asset,” who played a major role in shaping Nigeria’s democratic journey. The description was simply apt.

The Nigerian Alignment Is Faulty

 By Owei Lakemfa

It was a triumphant occasion. The venue was the Muhammadu Buhari Cantonment, Giri, Abuja. The joyous occasion was the destruction of over 2,400 illicit arms. The chief celebrant was the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, NCCSALW. The five-star guests included the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, members of the National Assembly, representatives of the service chiefs, heads of other security agencies and top military brass.

The man given the honour to set fire on the arms, was the National Security Adviser, NSA, Malam Nuhu Ribadu. He waxed lyrical as he carried out this task. However, his claims that soldiers and policemen were selling arms to terrorists, bandits and criminals, were within days, challenged by the Defence Headquarters.

A Smoke-Free Nigeria Is Possible: Lessons From Sweden’s Successful Tobacco Harm Reduction Strategy

 By Akinwande Puddicombe

Tobacco use remains one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time, responsible for more than 8 million deaths annually worldwide.

Despite decades of anti-smoking campaigns, over 1.1 billion people still smoke, and the numbers remain stubbornly high, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Globally, the healthcare burden caused by smoking-related diseases continues to strain resources, yet millions of smokers find it difficult or impossible to quit.