Unending Weak Political Opposition In Nigeria

 By Tonnie Iredia

After twenty-five years of unbroken civilian governments in Nigeria, one can easily imagine that the country is getting settled as a democracy. But whereas a civilian government rather than a military regime is more likely to be democratic, civilian rule in Nigeria and indeed in several parts of Africa are far from adhering to democratic practices.

 In truth, what obtains in many African countries is authoritarian democracy. The causative factors are many. Poorly organized political parties, prevalent poverty, commercialized politics, election rigging and the tendency for those in power to decimate opponents so as to remain in power perpetually.

Can President Tinubu Emulate Kenya’s Ruto?

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Earlier in the week, there were reports of massive protests in Kenya, an East African country. The protests were actually not new, having begun in 2023, in reaction to bids by the government of Kenya to raise taxes. According to the 24-hour English news channel, Al Jazeera, the protests signify a major shift in Kenya, where, previously, most people accepted the inadequacies of government.

*Ruto and Tinubu 
I dare say in that regard, Kenyans are like Nigerians as my people also swallow, lock, stock, and barrel, all the balderdash that goes on here in the name of governance. It is instructive to recall that both Nigeria and Kenya were colonised by the British. Kenya gained independence in 1963.

Waiting For Noah’s Ark

 By Banji Ojewale

When God could no longer stand the overthrow of the good order He established on earth, He stepped in with the Noah's Ark solution. The upset Creator said since man had allowed his depravity to flush out His benignity, He would respond with a heavier rain flood to wash away man and his iniquity. 

But not all earthlings would go; some humans, along with pairs of the lower primates, would be sheltered in a huge vessel to be constructed by a good man called Noah. He and some members of his household together with the animals would take refuge in the boat during the deadly deluge. The storm did come, sweeping off evil men and women and the children and youth who took after them.

No Emergency Rule In Rivers

 By Charles Okoh

 The senseless crisis in Rivers State has continued un­abated and from the looks of things, it might just con­tinue until common sense prevails or until those who are fueling it run out of firepower. I call the crisis senseless because there can only be one captain in a ship and as it is in Rivers, the State Governor, Mr. Simi­nalayi Fubara, is the captain in the state and whatever may be happen­ing out of the state is irrelevant, im­material and inconsequential.

*Fubara, Wike, Tinubu

The crisis last week following the expiration of the tenures of Local Government Council Chairmen in the state, took another dimension, as police, youths and other citizens occupied 21 council secretariats, re­sisting the outgoing chairmen and their supporters from gaining en­trance to the offices.

Restructuring: Emir Sanusi Misspoke On Regionalism, Parliamentary System

 By Olu Fasan

There are two forces contending for the future of Nigeria. One is the force of change and progress. The other is the force of conservatism and status quo. The former argues that Nigeria’s political and governance structure is deeply flawed and not working, and that Nigeria must be restructured to make progress.

*Sanusi 

The latter posits that there’s nothing wrong with Nigeria’s structure; so, there’s nothing to restructure. If anything, it submits, what Nigeria needs is good leadership, as if there is any serious country that puts its faith solely in the goodness of a leader and not in the robustness of its institutions, particularly the constitution, which is the central determinant of how a country is governed. 

Rivers Of Impunity And Absurdism

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

In his 1961 book, The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Julius Esslin, a Hungarian-born British journalist and professor of drama, lamented what he called absurdism, “the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose.”

*Fubara and Wike 

Esslin, who died in London, United Kingdom on February 24, 2002, aged 83 years, couldn’t have had the oil-rich state of Rivers, Nigeria, in mind when he wrote his famed book 63 years ago.

But nothing captures the state of affairs in Rivers State today more profoundly than Esslin’s “theatre of the absurd”.

Trading Blames, Living In Denial While Nigerians Suffer!

 By Dan Onwukwe

No matter the clouds of controversy that trailed how he won the Feb 25, 2023 presidential election, one year has passed since Bola Tinubu was sworn in as Nigeria’s President. But the manner in which he has governed the country in the last one year still generates intense public debate. The following questions remain top of public discourse: Is Nigeria better now than Tinubu met it?

*Tinubu 

 Are the lives and livelihood of the citizens better or worse  now than before Tinubu came to power? And how will history judge him and the policies he has implemented in the last one year ? Of course, opinions  differ, but the general consensus is that history will not be kind to most of the policies that he initiated unless he changes course. On that score, it’s not unkind to say that his administration still carries more baggage than an ocean liner. 

Is There Really Right To Life In Nigeria?

 By Tonnie Iredia

In developed democracies, citizen patriotism is exceedingly high because the right to life in such countries is a priority both in theory and in practice. For example, the US government would take every possible step to stop whatever can bring harm to any American citizen. Indeed, the death of one American citizen especially outside the country ’s shores is enough to lead to war.

Commendably, they generally don’t wait for a calamity before action is taken. This is why the country’s embassies by convention issue periodic advisory releases to serve as early warning signals for their citizens wherever they are. It is therefore not by accident that such citizens are able to develop a high degree of affection for their country.

Nigeria’s Not Too Big to Fail

By Oseloka H. Obaze

Deciphering Nigeria can be depressing. Interrogating her history and present political trajectory can also be disconcerting. That awkwardness is further complicated by the fact that, in a nation where governance is now rife with propaganda, the truth is always a conspiracy; and truth-tellers, traducers. 

That disposition did not prevent two recent unvarnished and non-salutary New York Times assessment of the state of Nigeria. Both pieces represent a reality check and the proverbial writing on the wall. Despite the pushback by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) government, what is dawning stealthily on Nigerians is that Nigeria’s long-forecast implosion might actually be self-fulfilling. Put differently, Nigeria is not too big to fail. 

Cholera Outbreak As Indicator Of Deeper Issues

By Adekunle Adekoya

When we move forward by a mile, it seems we always do something that will make us take backward steps for 10 miles. And so, it was alarming and distressing to read reports of cholera outbreak in our country again, especially in Lagos, our most sophisticated showpiece of urbanisation. Many have died, and more are hospitalised as a result. I thought we’d heard the last about cholera; I remember the epidemic that raged in our country in the early ‘70s.

No less than six people fell to the cholera epidemic in my little village of Gbawojo, nestled in the forested plains of Ijebu North-East Local Government Area of Ogun State. It was 1971 and I was in primary school in Sagamu, at Wesley School, Oko1. From our school gate we could have glimpses of the courtyard of the Akarigbo’s palace. The Akarigbo of Remoland then was the late Oba Moses Awolesi, Erinwole II.

‘June 12’: Nigeria Is Not A Democracy; Stop Celebrating A Lie!

 By Olu Fasan

Last week, Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, tripped and fell as he climbed the steps of the parade vehicle during this year’s “Democracy Day”. Characteristically, Tinubu dismissed the incident, saying he “dobale”, that is, prostrated for democracy. In truth, Tinubu’s tumble is a perfect metaphor for democracy in Nigeria.

For, let’s face it, Nigerian democracy is so inherently wobbly that it’s prone to tripping and falling. Indeed, Nigeria is not a true democracy, and to celebrate annually a failed system, instead of admitting and tackling the failure, is to entrench and perpetuate a lie. 

As Labour Unions Speak Truth To Power

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

 “Truth crushed to earth shall rise again;/ The eternal years of God are hers./ But error, wounded, writhes with pain./ And dies amongst his worshippers” – Willian Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) 

From the historical perspective, and going by the dictates of democracy, as expressly stated by the Greek tribes that had founded the city-states, after doing away with monarchy by 700 BC, where one person ruled and subsequently aristocracy at about 500BC, it is a “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. Democratic governance is therefore, meant to serve the overall interests of the vast majority of the people and not the favoured few as it had played out with aristocracy. 

Change Your Ways And Not The Anthem

By Dr Sota Omoigui  

When I wrote my words for the anthem, in 1978, it was my dream for the country to move forward and take its place among the great nations of the world.  But all that potential has been hijacked and degraded by a political leadership that constitutes a criminal enterprise. Many of our people now wonder if we were ready for independence.

The regressive reverting of our anthem to the colonial anthem is a betrayal of our independence. It is a symbol of a political leadership that is clueless and has so lost its way that it goes crawling on its hands and knees back to kiss the ring of its colonial master to adopt its anthem – music and lyrics.

Africa’s Continental Criminal Court Can No Longer Wait!

By Chidi Odinkalu

Less than a decade ago, the detention centre of the International Criminal Court, ICC, in Scheveningen on the outskirts of The Hague could easily have been mistaken for a committee meeting of leaders of the African Union. One of its long-term guests was Laurent Gbagbo, a former president of Côte d’Ivoire. From neighbouring Liberia, Gbagbo’s contemporary, Charles Taylor, kept up a punishing schedule on the tennis courts of the facility. With them there also was former Vice-President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, Jean-Pierre Bemba. 

Hard Times!

 By Sunny Awhefeada

Hard Times, published in 1854, is the title of the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, the English novelist. Like most of Dickens’ novels, Hard Times is a searing indictment of a corrosive and morally atrophied so­ciety on the brink of disaster.

Set in Vic­torian England, which was touted as a prosperous epoch, the novel reframes the socio-economic turmoil that undermined the entire fabric of the English society of that time. The reality of what was config­ured as prosperity was acute deprivation and hunger for the common man as a re­sult of the dislocation occasioned by the Industrial Revolution.

Nigeria: Fall Of Democracy!

 By Kenneth Okonkwo

President Barack Obama said, democracy will win if we fight for it. Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of American democracy, arose from a meeting with his colleagues, where they deliberated on the preferable system of government for America, and was questioned by a woman outside the meeting to reveal to America their choice. He quipped, we have a republic, if you can keep it. Eternal vigilance is the price to pay for democracy, certainly not a fall. 

Democracy is worth fighting for, it’s not worth falling for. The reason democracy is failing in Africa is that the people who ought to be the fighters for democracy, are busy falling head over heels for the crumbs that fall off from the table of these half baked, incompetent and corrupt leaders. So nauseating is the level of sycophancy that even the leaders now make a joke when they fall that they were doing obeisance to democracy.

Democracy Day: Electricity Bill Is Larger Than My Salary

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Today has been declared a public holiday by the Nigerian Government to mark Democracy Day. May 29 used to be Democracy Day until then President Muhammadu Buhari put forward June 12 as the real McCoy.

The greatest piece of fiction written in Nigeria since the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart back in 1958 was the fantastic yarn that promoted May 29 as Nigeria’s Democracy Day.

Some of us are even hard put coming to terms that there is civil rule in Nigeria let alone democracy. At the very least, to practice democracy a country has to first boast of democrats.

Who Are Nigeria’s True Heroes Of Democracy?

 By Tonnie Iredia

In 1987, the then Federal Military Government led by President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) set up an electoral body – the National Electoral Commission NEC to midwife a robust transition to civil rule political programme. This columnist was deployed from the Nigerian Television Authority NTA, to serve as the pioneer Director of Public Affairs of the Commission.

*Chief Abiola casts his vote during the 1993 election 

This positioned me to observe a number of things about politics and elections in Nigeria. I once came across a pamphlet titled ‘future heroes of Nigeria’s democracy’ compiled by a non-governmental organization identifying some well-known politicians that would likely succeed the military. But from my interactions with several politicians, I had huge doubts that many of the listed political leaders would readily choose to undergo danger and pain for the sake of democracy.

Killing Of Soldiers In Aba: Matters Arising

 By Obi Nwakanma

Two weeks ago, armed attackers stormed Aba, and at the Obikabia military checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, shot and killed two soldiers. It was a very unfortunate and dastardly act by these very cruel, heartless and rampaging gunmen who targeted armed soldiers, and have been making the South- East of Nigeria a terrible jungle of contemporary Necropolitics. These killer gunmen must be ferreted out and served their just dessert. But the reaction both by the military authorities, and by the president of Nigeria left bile in many mouths.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu issued orders to security agencies to lay siege and not only apprehend the killers of soldiers of the Nigerian Armed Forces, but also those calling for a “sit-at- home.” The Nigerian Armed Forces, he said, was capable of coming down heavily and crushing “non-state actors” making our communities unsafe. It is heartening to know that the Federal Government and our Armed Forces can crush these non- state actors making our communities unsafe, restless and increasingly unhabitable and insecure.

Afro-Descendant Leaders Release Demands For COP16: Recognize Land Rights, Key To Conserving Biodiversity In Latin America

 For the first time, ahead of COP16, 25 Afro-descendant organizations announce recommendations to prioritize land rights of communities contributing to conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean  

A declaration released at a press briefing highlights significant overlap between lands claimed by Afro-descendant Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean and biodiversity hotspots; call for the inclusion of the term Afro-descendants in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

 Bogotá, Colombia, June 14 – At a press briefing held on Friday, June 14, the Coalition of Territorial and Environmental Rights for Afro-descendant Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbeans, in alliance with Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), Proceso De Comunidades Negras (PCN), Coordenação Nacional de Articulação das Comunidades Negras Rurais Quilombolas (CONAQ), and various Afro-descendant organizations released a series of evidence-based recommendations that will call on organizers of the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference to include full respect for the rights and contributions of Afro-descendant communities at the global event that will open on October 21 in Cali, Colombia.