In Loving Memory of Oluwakayode Solomon Ojewale

 (July 6, 2024, One Year Without You)

By Olanrewaju Ojewale

It has been one full year since you left us, Kayode. One year since our world changed forever. One year since the earth stood still for our family and our hearts were shattered beyond comprehension. July 6, 2024, is a date engraved in our souls, the day we said an unexpected and painful goodbye to a man whose presence was as comforting as it was powerful. July 6, 2025, we gathered solemnly in remembrance, not just to mourn your passing, but to honor your life, your love, your laughter, and your legacy.

*Kayode

There are no perfect words to capture the depth of the sorrow we still carry. Grief, we’ve come to understand, is not a season that passes, but a companion that walks beside us. Some days, its grip is gentle; on others, it’s crushing. But every day, we feel it, because every day, we miss you.

Abacha’s Loot Laughs At Maryam’s Lies

 By Ray Ekpu

A former First Lady of Nigeria and wife of Nigeria’s most autocratic ruler, Mrs Maryam Abacha is trying to generate a controversy about her husband, General Sani Abacha. In a recent interview she said that her husband who ruled Nigeria from November 17, 1993 to June 8, 1998 never stole public funds but rather saved money for the country.

Late Abacha and wife, Maryam
She also claimed that this money he allegedly saved for the country mysteriously vanished after his death in 1998. She went further and “berated Nigerians for believing that her husband stole public funds and that it is because Nigerians are fools, that is why they listen to everything.”

2027: The Theoretical Case For Jonathan’s Return To Power

 By Olu Fasan

The title of this intervention is hedged with the word “theoretical”. That’s because the proposition that former President Goodluck Jonathan could return to power in 2027 is patently far-fetched and improbable: therefore, although there’s logic to the proposition, it’s purely theoretical.

*Jonathan

Indeed, Jonathan’s wife, Patience, put it unequivocally when she said recently that her husband would never go back to Aso Rock, and that she would campaign vigorously for the re-election of President Bola Tinubu. The bond between the Tinubus and the Jonathans is so strong, Mrs Jonathan implied, that it would be a betrayal if her husband ran against President Tinubu in 2027. 

Fear And Fragility: How Safe Are Nigerians?

 By Dakuku Peterside

When dawn cracks open the Nigerian sky these days, the first breath many people take is heavy with questions that shouldn’t linger in a country as rich in potential as Nigeria. It used to be enough to worry about food on the table or the children’s school fees, but now an even more primal fear sits beside those old burdens: “Am I safe enough to see tomorrow?”

Once upon a time, these worries were spoken in hushed tones only in the North-East, in places where Boko Haram and ISWAP turned towns into ghost settlements and farms into mass graves. But now, fear has found new postcodes, new voices, and new victims. From wedding convoys ambushed on the road in Plateau to explosions rocking markets in Kano, from gun battles in Kaduna’s streets to soldiers ambushed in Niger State, the message is clear: the fear of sudden violence is no longer distant. It has become the air we breathe.

Cuddling The Serpent Of Tehran!

 By Ochereome Nnanna

At the height of its power, Islam once controlled vast territories: from Morocco to China and from Russia down to sub-Saharan Africa. The rise of the European colonial empires, notably those of Britain and France, and later the United States of America’s global dominance, put the West and its value system at the centre of world power. It ended the 600-year-long Islamic Ottoman Empire and subjugated once powerful Muslim majority countries.

*Ayatollah Khomeini

The establishment of the Society of Muslim Brothers (Jama-at al Ikhwan al Muslimin), a Sunni Islamic movement in Egypt by Imam Hassan al Banna in 1928, set the tone for the political resurgence of Islam in the world of today. The Islamic Brotherhood and its offshoots seek to establish “caliphates” ruled with Shariah law, which is rooted in the Islamic scripture, the Quran. Most Islamists believe that the waging of jihads is something worth returning to in order to achieve the original aim of subjugating the entire world under Islam.

Senator Umeh, The Lying General And A Fallen House

 By Chuks Iloegbunam

Chief Victor Umeh, the Senator representing Anambra Central at the National Assembly, has instituted a lodestar that must henceforward be emulated by all legislators from the South East geopolitical zone, whether serving in their states of origin or Abuja. Last week, Senator Umeh called General Yakubu Gowon, Head of State of Nigeria, from August 1966 to July 1975 to order.

*Umeh, Gowon

He told Gowon that he owed Ndigbo an unreserved apology, the absence of which is at the root of the nation’s enduring instability.

What had Gowon done wrong? For the third time since October, when he turned 90, the man has, in three public statements on the Nigerian condition, demonstrated that appropriating the truth was beyond his competence. Had he heard of and listened to Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804), Gowon would have remembered the German philosopher’s warning that, “By a lie a man throws away and as it were annihilates his dignity as a man.” Just by the one lie, warned Kant. Of Gowon, however, the dreadful reality is his preponderance of concocting a legion of barefaced lies, a chronic incapability to face the truth, even for one millisecond.

Who Will Heal The Northern Nigeria?

 By Sani Danaudi Mohammed 

The North is currently facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions. The current wave of conflicts and the resurgence of the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno state, the killings in Benue, Niger, and Plateau states in the North-central call for urgent action. The situation is dire, and the people of the North are crying for help. The attacks have left many dead, while the survivors are living in fear. The North needs healing, and it needs it fast.

The killings in Benue, Niger, and Plateau states are a stark reminder of the security challenges facing the North. The killings are senseless, and the perpetrators seem to have no regard for human life. The federal and state governments are working tirelessly to overcome the situation, but their efforts seem not enough. The people of the North are losing hope, and something needs to be done urgently. The North needs leaders who can bring people together and provide a sense of security and stability.

Demolition Of Obi's Property: APC Crosses The Line!

 By Steve Osuji

Brigandage. Barbarism. Primitivism. Parochialism. Provincialism. These and many more synonymous words raced through the mind when news broke about the demolition of a property belonging to the family of Peter Obi (PO). 

*Obi

This property, said to belong to the brother of PO, former governor of Anambra State and presidential candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 elections, which was razed to rubble using stealth instruments of the Lagos judiciary has all the elements and pockmarks of the ruling party, APC, the Lagos State government and indeed, Aso Rock. 

Ikeja GRA is probably the primest (!) piece of property on the mainland part of Lagos. Ikeja is also the administrative seat of the Lagos Government. It therefore stands to reason that every inch of land in Ikeja, especially the GRA area is assumed to be well noted and annotated in the Lagos land registry.

Benue Bleeds Amidst Government Inertia

 By Sunday Onyemaechi Eze

“The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” – Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

After the villainous and senseless Agatu killings in February, 2016 accompanied by the usual condemnations, it was hoped that affliction of Benue people will not rise the second time. Contrary to the assumption, the evil struck again defiantly.

The recent attack launched on Yelewata, Nyiev Council Ward of Guma local government area by marauding terrorists was a deadly unprovocative onslaught against a sleepy, defenceless community taken too far. According to reports, it was a strategic attack launched on three flanks with a standby fourth reinforcement. Death toll currently stands at over 200 persons, including children while many are still missing.

Peter Obi On Lawlessness And Impunity In Our Society

*Obi

"Any society where lawlessness overrides the rule of law is not destined to be a haven for investors. Recent reports showing that Nigeria’s human rights indicators have worsened merely highlight severe shortfalls in government protection for civil liberties, personal security, and basic living standards. 

"I know what I have been going through as a person in abuse of my human rights just because I contested a Presidential election which I have legitimate rights to do. So I imagine what small business owners, regular citizens, and vulnerable communities face every day. If this level of lawlessness can happen to someone with a registered company and legitimate means, what hope does the ordinary Nigerian have?

The Benue Genocide

 By Nick Dazang  

Before now, and for reasons best known to him, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had preferred either to delegate or outsource his hallowed duties as the country’s Commander-in-Chief and Mourner-in-Chief to his minions. His minions, thus invested with presidential power, instead of showing compassion and fellow-feeling to their compatriots, carry on with haughtiness and uncommon superciliousness. Either they talk down at their bereaved hosts, who are reeling under the irreparable losses occasioned by the dastardly attacks visited on them or they snub critical stakeholders outright.

This arrogant pattern of behaviour has continued, ad nauseam, until last week’s engagement by President Tinubu with stakeholders in Makurdi, following the genocidal killings that took place at Yelewata in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State.

Again, Who Killed Dele Giwa?

 By Olatuni Dare 

Some 34 years after Dele Giwa, crusading journalist and founding editor of the defunct Newswatch was killed in what remains one of the most horrific acts of preternatural malevolence ever carried out in Nigeria, nothing has been established beyond the fact and the manner of the murder.

 

“Who killed Dele Giwa?” has been a recurring question ever since.  Whodunit?

*Giwa 

Former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, with whom Giwa enjoyed a cozy relationship, that he was not loath to advertise, has been and remains a principal suspect in the murder.  No arrests were made, and no suspects have been arrested, and no persons have been charged, much less prosecuted in what passed for the official investigation of the murder: a travesty perfused by obfuscation, intimidation, blackmail, perjury, denialism, and all the bureaucratic weapons that officialdom can conjure up.

There was ample reason for regarding Babangida as a principal suspect in the murder.

Dele Giwa’s Assassination: More Questions Than Answers

 By Ray Ekpu

Dele Giwa and I were close friends and colleagues at Concord and Newswatch. At Concord some colleagues called us Ray Giwa and Dele Ekpu, an attempt to emphasise the closeness of our relationship. And when Dele was badly treated by Chief MKO Abiola, the sole proprietor of Concord, I resigned my appointment as the chairman of the Editorial Board even before Dele did. And when Dele was assassinated, I lost 10 kilogrammes within two weeks and lost my memory for one year. 

*Giwa

That was how deep the relationship was. But at the 10th anniversary of his assassination, we, his colleagues, decided that despite the depth of the loss, we needed to forgive those who killed him and move on. 

However, the former president, Ibrahim Babangida has laboured to explain in his autobiography, A Journey in Service, why, according to him, the investigation of his assassination was not concluded by his government. But his explanation has produced more questions than answers, while he was trying to defend the officials in his security services who were fingered for the crime.

Benue-Plateau: Tinubu’s Last Chance

 By Ochereome Nnanna

After two years as President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu has the last chance to prove himself in the Benue and Plateau theatres of the Fulani herdsmen genocidal attacks on indigenous Nigerian communities. These terrorists drawn from domestic and foreign Fulani jihadist bandit groups were named by the Global Terror Index back in 2014 as the fourth “most murderous” terror group in the world behind ISIS, Al Shabbab and Boko Haram.

*Tinubu

But here in Nigeria, they are protected, armed and facilitated in their genocidal campaigns, which the Federal Government, the military and even the undiscerning sections of the media deceptively call “farmers-herders clashes” or “farmers-herders crisis”.

The Forgotten Take-Aways From June 12

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Yesterday was June 12. That date has become something else in the history of our dear country. At the risk of telling you what you what you already know, the presidential election of June 12, 1993 was adjudged by Nigerians and watchers of Nigerian politics worldwide to be the freest, fairest ever held in the country.

But sadly, the country was denied the benefits of enjoying the dividends of their freest and fairest election through a most callous annulment of that election, a development that I still cannot understand till tomorrow. Not that I was a child in 1993; far from it, in fact I had fathered two of my own children long before that election, and as a university graduate, was fully equipped to discern and witness the train of events that happened one after the other, as a practising newspaperman, till the nation was told that the election stood annulled. I still don’t understand it.

June 12: If Abiola Won, Is He Now A Posthumous President?

 By Olu Fasan

Exactly 32 years ago, the presidential election of June 12, 1993 was annulled by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida that conducted the poll. Over three decades after that seismic decision, the truth, the whole truth, about why the election was annulled and who actually annulled it remains unknown.

*Abiola 

General Babangida’s long-awaited memoir, A Journey in Service, failed woefully to settle the whodunnit question because he passed the buck and named a long-dead colleague, General Sani Abacha, who can’t defend himself, as the chief culprit, and resorted to doubtful conjectures about the motives of those he described as “the nefarious ‘inside’ forces opposed to the elections”, but mentioned none of them except Abacha. Thus, 32 years after the epoch-making decision, Babangida still could not bring himself to name any living culprit, as if none exists! 

Nigeria: When INEC Assumes The Role Of Kingmaker!

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Well-meaning Nigerians are relieved that the misconceived bill which sought to impose “a maximum of six months imprisonment or a fine of no more than N100,000” on any Nigerian of voting age who refuses to vote “in all National and State Elections” which surprisingly scaled Second Reading at the House of Representatives recently has been withdrawn. Even the House Speaker, Mr. Abbas Tajudeen, who sponsored the controversial bill easily achieved the realization that it was poorly thought-out and hastened to withdraw it. Indeed, the widespread outrage the bill provoked was duly justified.

How can anyone sit in the comfort of the House chambers and attempt enacting a law that makes voting mandatory without first finding out the factors that watered the growing apathy towards voting? Indeed, there were several informed Nigerians who were ready to go to jail than allow any law to force them to vote.   

10,217 Persons Killed In 2 Years: Still Playing Games With Security

 By Adekunle Adekoya

This week, the newswires were awash with reports that the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Olufemi Oluyede has relocated to Benue State, ostensibly in a show of force following endless killings by herdsmen militias in that state. Without fear of equivocation, one can say that Benue is the most embattled of all the states of the federation, given the frequency of attacks and scale of killings in that state. 

Plateau will be second on that gruesome list. Kaduna, under Nasir el-Rufai would have trumped both, given the bloodbath that took place in that state, but something happened; there is palpable relief as the orgy of killings there, particularly in Southern Kaduna, seems to have abated. What happened in Kaduna? Can we make it happen in Benue and Plateau?

Bola Tinubu And State Capture

 By Obi Nwakanma

I have made this point at various points in this column, that for a nation to claim “independence,” or legitimacy, it must have sovereign control of its state institutions.

*Tinubu

It should never be a transactional or “contract state.” Is Nigeria a sovereign state? I do not think so, because, currently, Nigeria does not seem in control of its sovereign institutions. As a nation, Nigeria is not governed by her leaders. It is under state capture. Those who parade themselves now as the leaders of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, are in fact, not answerable to the citizens of this republic.

W.F. Kumuyi At 84 And Lessons On Legacy Leadership

 By Banji Ojewale

A newsmagazine editor was troubled after traveling extensively with Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, founder and General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, DCLM, on his missionary trips to parts of Nigeria, Africa and Europe. He was intrigued with how members of Kumuyi’s Deeper Life Bible Church, DLBC, embraced the evangelist wherever he went.

*Pastor Kumuyi 

He observed the dignifying discipline, stability and rare aura of oneness Kumuyi’s persona was giving the organization. But the newsman had concerns, agitated and worried about a post-Kumuyi order. Would the Church hold together again after the departure of its leader? Wouldn’t it suffer the fickle fissiparous fate of others orphaned by their founder’s exit? Wouldn’t that be a huge loss and complete cancellation of gains meant to be harvested by the future?