Throwback To When Nigeria Lost Children At Lekki Tollgate

 By Ebuka Ukoh

October 20, 2020, was an unforgettable Tuesday. Then, I sat at home, watching DJ Switch’s Instagram livestream, my phone trembling in my hands as her voice broke through the darkness.

The sound of gunfire echoed over the national anthem. Flags fluttered in blood and fear. Protesters—unarmed, singing, kneeling—were sprayed with bullets. I remember feeling sick. Not just in my body, but in my soul. I knew how this would end. We all did.

In Nigeria, power too often answers activism, not with dialogue but with death.

Has Social Media Corrupted Nigeria’s Moral Compass?

 By Shuaib Agaka

When the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, speaks about social media, his primary concern isn’t data privacy or investment—it’s morality.

In a report by  Tech Digest, the country’s top technology regulator was quoted as saying:  “We want to see people using it to promote digital safety, to promote content that will build a stronger nation.”  He lamented that most Nigerians now use social media purely for entertainment. His words strike at the heart of a growing national crisis: as we become one of the world’s largest social media markets, our moral compass and cultural identity are being shaped by algorithms that reward vanity, vulgarity and viral shock value.

Putting An End To Igbophobia

By Ralp Egbu

I had a choice to begin the dissection of national disorganization from reconciliation and unity but I told myself that the right way to enduring reconciliation and national unity would be to first of all discover the unit problems so we can put whatever solutions we come up with in their proper perspective. When this is done we get to the root of the problems.

The bane of national development has had to do with two basic approaches, take problems from the superficial level of the symptoms. World organizations lead us to run with the slogan “wipe out malaria by 2027” and when we want to start we begin with spending very huge national resources to purchase foreign made mosquito nets.

Bokku Advert Is Psychological Warfare

 

By Amanze Obi

Anybody who thinks that the ethnic slur from Bokku Supermarket directed at the Igbo was a mistake must be scratching the issue on the surface. Bokku was certainly no happenstance. It was a well-scripted, properly rehearsed enemy action released to the public for a predetermined purpose – to ridicule the Igbo. 

Those who are wondering how the offensive video passed through all the regulatory authorities and their layers of approval without objection or censorship are not being perceptive enough. When enemy action is at play, censorship takes the back stage. It does not come into the mix.

Independent And Unaccountable: A New Code For Nigeria’s Judiciary

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Among the doctrines that underpin the legal process in Nigeria, few are as profound and pervasive as judicial independence, but no doctrine in the ecosystem of the law rivals its elusiveness.

The idea is ubiquitous in the syllabus of every programme leading to the award of a degree in law, in political science or public administration. After leaving the university, the practitioner will encounter it regularly in conferences and in after-dinner speeches.

The First Time I Was Battered By Policemen

 By Owei Lakemfa

The  images of the police taking on demonstrators in the streets of  Tanzania and Cameroun, following disputed elections,  remind me of the first time I was battered by policemen.

I was 17 and had gone to the Kings Cinema on Lewis street, Lagos Island. After the film, my friend, Albert Biodun Okopie and I were, like many film goers, excitedly discussing the film as we walked on the road.  When  we got to the Magregor Canal, we noticed a small crowd. Parked was a reconfigured 911 bus popularly called ‘Molue’. We joined the crowd to find out what was going on. Two policemen ordered  the crowd to disperse.

Cost Of Governance: Playing Ostrich With The Economy

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Earlier in the week, two renowned economists, one a businessman and the other a traditional ruler used the occasion of a book launch by the Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference in Abuja to speak truth to power. They are HRH Muhammad Sanusi II, Emir of Kano and former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and Mr. Atedo N.A. Peterside, founder of IBTC, which later fused with Stanbic Bank to become Stanbic-IBTC Bank. 

*Tinubu

What came up at the event, which the media focused on, were the reforms of the present administration and the cost of governance.

For Sanusi, the issue was the size and cost of governance. He pointedly asked: “We’ve got to be honest, why do we need 48 ministers? Why do we need dozens of vehicles when we’re moving around in convoys or travelling all over the country?”

Need For Decisive Action On Insecurity

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Recently, the Governor of Niger State, apparently at the end of his tether, vowed never to negotiate with bandits or pay ransom for kidnap victims, saying instead residents must be prepared to defend themselves against attacks. Governor Bago said this when he visited the people of Rijau and Magama Local Government Areas of the state, whose communities were recently attacked by bandits in Kontagora.

His words: “The state has reached a point where the people must stand up and defend themselves because ransom will only turn kidnapping into a thriving business.

Politics Of Lagos Igbo Property Demolitions

 By Ochereome Nnanna

The emergence of Senator Bola Tinubu as the “winner” of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, governorship ticket on December 21,1998, unknown to many, marked a major historic turning point for Lagos State.

Ordinarily, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, the man in charge of the party’s primaries in Lagos, should have insisted on a rerun. He did not, mainly because Tinubu’s contributions to Afenifere/NADECO struggle for Abiola’s mandate, especially his exile experience, endeared him to the party’s leaders above his co-contestants, such as Funsho Williams, Wahab Dosunmu, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele and Rashid Shitta-Bey.

Tinubu And The Politics, Morality Of Presidential Pardons

 By Olu Fasan 

Pardon. An act so seemingly innocuous it should never be controversial. Yet, recently, a state pardon provoked public opprobrium in Nigeria. Why? Because it was wrapped in crude politics and stripped of morality. Pardons are much like gifts: they have a deceptive innocence.

*Tinubu

For instance, gifts are rooted in customs and tradition, but they are also associated with bribery and corruption. Similarly, a presidential pardon loses its moral anchor when it is steeped in impunity and abuse of power. So, it’s understandable why President Bola Tinubu’s recent decision to pardon 175 people, most convicted of serious crimes, triggered a spontaneous public outrage.

Pardons, Clemency, And The Death Of Moral Clarity

 By Ugo Onuoha

Lateef Fagbemi is Nigeria’s Attorney-general and Minister for Justice. He has been at the job since August 2023. He is a Senior Advocate, the equivalent of a King’s [formerly Queen’s] Counsel in the United Kingdom. He might have been a brilliant lawyer but his lawyering skills became more pronounced with his dexterity over election matters. 

My understanding is that he has had quite a few victories in high profile electoral disputes. And the crowning prize of his nose for winning election disputes was in 2023 when he led a team of other senior lawyers and a motley of nondescript attorneys to persuade the Supreme Court to rubber stamp the award of the presidency of Nigeria by the ‘Independent’ National Electoral Commission [INEC] to Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Before Nigeria Defects To APC

 By Tony Iwuoma

When the history of Nigeria’s political decadence is finally written, the season we are living through will deserve its own chapter, a cautionary tale titled “Before Nigeria Defected.”

The phrase sounds exaggerated, almost absurd. But pause for a moment and look around. Every week, from one state to another, politicians, governors, senators, ex-ministers, former foes of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are suddenly rediscovering affection for the ruling party. They are crossing over in droves, clutching brooms they once mocked, delivering speeches that sound as hollow as campaign jingles played out of tune.

Tinubu’s Unpardonable Pardons: Folly Or Fraud?

 By Ugoji Egbujo

In exercise of his prerogative powers of mercy, Tinubu pardoned a convicted murderer on death row. He also pardoned drug barons. He pardoned a kidnapper. That power was given to him on trust by the people.  In a country ravaged by insecurity, every message from the leader should reflect a ruthless determination to stamp out crime and give the fear-wracked populace a new lease on life. How much can we trust Tinubu?

*Tinubu

The power to tell convicted offenders “Go and sin no more” before they have served their complete sentences is at the absolute discretion of the president. But that absolute discretion must be exercised in good faith. Political discretion is a test of a sense of responsibility. A president must always act in the country’s best interest; otherwise, he loses moral authority to govern. When Tinubu grants pardons to murderers, kidnappers, and drug dealers, he doesn’t just expose the country to a few recidivism-prone criminals; he lowers the bar. He tilts the scale in favour of lawlessness.

David Umahi Is Too Small…

 By Obi Nwakanma

David Umahi, Minister of Works under this administration, is not a very likeable man.  He is crude, and not really very polished.

*Umahi

Mr. Umahi trained in engineering at the old Anambra State University of Technology (ASUTHEC), now Enugu State University.

It was not a bad school.

But in the period David Umahi went there, it was not among the top dog schools for engineering in Nigeria.

And so, it was quite rich for David Umahi to claim, in a standoff with the Arise TV News journalist, that he was a “professor” in the practice of engineering. Well, of course, clearly, he was sounding off, in a manner of speaking.

Rushed Clearance Of INEC Chair: For What?

 By Tonnie Iredia

Professor Joash Amupitan (SAN), outgoing Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration) of the University of Jos is now the chairman of Nigeria’s electoral body – the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The entire process of nomination, scrutiny, endorsement, approval and appointment was as far as the public was concerned concluded within a week.

*Amupitan

What was the speed for? Whereas background checks may have started much earlier when the President first ear-marked a candidate, we really didn’t need to present a rushed exercise to the public more so, as the position involved has not only become controversial but has also since moved into one that attracts much cynicism. 

October 20: When Nigeria Lost Children And Conscience At Lekki Toll Gate

 By Ebuka Ukoh 

October 20, 2020, was an unforgettable Tuesday night. Then, I sat at home, watching DJ Switch’s Instagram livestream, my phone trembling in my hands as her voice broke through the darkness. The sound of gunfire echoed over the national anthem. Flags fluttered in blood and fear. Protesters-unarmed, singing, kneeling-were sprayed with bullets. I remember feeling sick. Not just in my body, but in my soul. I knew how this would end. We all did. 

In Nigeria, power too often answers activism, not with dialogue but with death. 

Revealing The Secret Behind Kumuyi's Prayers - A Book Review

Book: Riches Of Prayer

Author: W. F. Kumuyi

Pages: 157

Publishers: Life Press Ltd, Lagos, Nigeria

Reviewer: Banji Ojewale 

Years ago, a journalist approached Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, DCLM, eager to know what he hid under his miracle-laden prayers that always landed, bereft of boisterous baggage. The newsman wondered: ‘’What I find amazing … is that some other pastors would lay their hands on people and shake them till they fall down and roll about. But you don’t do that. You just stand at the podium and pray a simple prayer, a normal prayer, no theatrics, and people get healed.’’

Let’s All Defect, Now!

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Earlier this week, Tuesday precisely, Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah of Enugu State, elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, ditched his party, and with his entire political machinery, defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. He was not the first, and will not be the last.

*Mbah and Tinubu

His colleagues of the PDP that had defected to the APC much earlier include Governors Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State and Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State. With the way things have turned out in Rivers State, we should expect another defection from there anytime soon.

Obasanjo And The Haunting Ghost Of His Third Term Agenda

 By Olu Fasan

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former military ruler and former civilian president, is a bundle of contradictions. One could write a book on Obasanjo’s strengths, and another on his flaws. Of course, Obasanjo is his own hagiographer. He has written many books on himself, with such self-referential titles as My Command, Not My Will and My Watch. But as the biographer Lytton Strachey said, discretion is not the better part of biography. And so, most of Obasanjo’s books are an exercise in self-glorification, with highly disputed narratives. 

For instance, Obasanjo’s My Command, an account of his role during the civil war, was so controversial that it provoked General Godwin Alabi-Isama to write his own book, The Tragedy of Victory, to correct what he described as “Obasanjo’s Tissues of Lies”.

Senior Advocates Of No-Consequence (SANs)

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

The ritual of the “Call to Bar” is the formal ceremony for the admission of new entrants into Nigeria’s legal profession. The responsibility for administering it resides in the Body of Benchers (BoB), a statutory entity described by law as “a body of legal practitioners of the highest distinction in the legal profession in Nigeria.”

The solemnity of the Call to Bar is guaranteed by the presence of members of the BoB who administer the ceremony resplendent in ceremonial gowns supposed to testify to their high distinction in matters legal. The criteria for the determination of this threshold requirement of “highest distinction” antecedent to membership of the BoB are, however, opaque.