Yes, We Protest!

 By Obi Nwakanma

Chinua Achebe, the leading African writer of the 20th century, did write in his The Trouble with Nigeria, that Nigeria was a fractious nation. However, a shared fear and antipathy of the Igbo was the single thing that unites Nigeria. This situation persists. And this certainly, is the impulse that drives Bayo Onanuga, senior Special Assistant to Mr. Tinubu on Information and Strategy, to keep invoking the name of the Igbo in his enterprise as a hack, and a regime propagandist.  The Igbo, it is now clear,  are Onanuga’s nightmares. 

At every turn of event, he invokes the Igbo. When his world is about to fall apart, he invokes them. His masters love him for sticking it to the Igbo. But he does not seem to know or understand the Igbo. So, let me tell him a little bit about these people. They are democrats. It takes them a long time to arrive at a decision, because they talk, and debate and disagree, to the point sometimes, of distraction. They are slow to anger. They watch. They sniff the ground carefully. They are patient. They make sure that they are on the right they act. 

Bayo Onanuga's Recklessness

 By Valentine Obienyem

Besides the trending old lyrics from Mike Ejeagha, “gwo gwo gwo gwom”, another issue that gained traction on social media platforms was the trademark diatribes from Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu. In his statements, he portrayed Mr. Peter Obi as an incurable anarchist without any basis in fact. 

*Peter Obi 

The beginning of Onanuga’s release immediately sets the tone for the entire message: “Obi should be held responsible if the planned protest turns into anarchy.” By this statement, he is implying that Obi is behind the planned protest of 1st August. Even his response to the threat of court action shows that he is enjoying the furore caused by his media outburst, as sadists often do. 

Remake The World By Ending Colonialism: The Abuja Agenda

 By Owei Lakemfa

Expression of shock and incredulity were reactions from a number of persons and organisations across the world who were invited to the International Conference for the Eradication of Colonialism. The general question that followed was: “Are there still colonies in the world?” Indeed, there are 61 territories and peoples who list themselves as colonies or what the United Nations, UN, classify as Non-Self Governing Territories.

However, the UN officially recognises only 17 such territories. These are American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, French Polynesia, Gibraltar, Guam, Montserrat, New Caledonia, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Tokelau, Turks and Caicos Islands, United States Virgin Islands and Western Sahara.  The 17th territory is called Falkland Islands by Britain and, Malvinas, by Argentina.

Judges Are The Biggest Bribe-Takers In Nigeria: Wow! What A Country!

 By Olu Fasan

IT is official! The judiciary is the most corrupt institution in Nigeria; judges are the biggest takers of bribes in this country. A few years ago, I wrote a piece titled “Lord, give Nigeria bold and incorruptible judges”, (Vanguard, April 25, 2019). When I said that Nigerian judges are fantastically corrupt, it seemed as if I was just making an assertion, as if I was just expressing an opinion as a columnist.

But now, we have an official confirmation. According to a recent survey conducted and published by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Nigeria’s public officials received N721billion cash bribes in 2023, and judges topped the list of the recipients.

Bayo Onanuga: Spewing Ethnic Hatred As Weapon Against Mass Hunger

 

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

These are very dangerous days in Nigeria. 

“These are times that try men’s souls,” as the founding father of American independence, Thomas Paine, wrote in The American Crisis. 

In very recent history, people did not speak out in time until the Hutu/Tutsi mayhem overwhelmed Rwanda. 

It is incumbent on me to now call out Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, on his recent pathetic ethnic baiting that can only end up pitching one ethnic group in Nigeria against the other in an orgy of flagitious violence. 

Omolola Oloworaran: Financial Round Peg In PenCom’s Round Hole

By Ikechukwu Amaechi 

As Nigeria battles, unarguably, its worst financial crisis since independence, it is only apposite that the most pragmatic way to pull the country's chestnuts out of the raging economic inferno, to borrow a cliché, is to put round pegs in round holes. The appointment of Ms. Omolola Oloworaran as the new Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) ticks that box. 

To understand why her appointment matters, there is need to appreciate what is at stake and the centrality of the pension industry in resolving Nigeria’s extant economic quagmire even if not wholly, at least partially. 

Bayo Onanuga’s Slimy Mud-Bath

 By Ochereome Nnanna

For his own purposes, President Bola Tinubu had delayed the appointment of Bayo Onanuga as one of his spokesmen. Ajuri Ngelale, broadcast journalist and Ogoni chief, was presented to give Tinubu’s media office a handsome, though unsmiling face.

*Peter Obi 

Many commentators were relieved that elements like Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Festus Keyamo would not be brought to irritate the nerves of decent Nigerians with their tawdry, noisy and cheap propaganda antics which we saw during the campaigns for the 2023 general elections in Tinubu’s camp. This feeling was further reinforced when Alake was posted to the Solid Minerals Ministry and Keyamo taken to Aviation.

GMO Foods Can Kill

 By Bob MajiriOghene

In the Summer of 2008, I was part of a team that visited Germany on a 3-month training on Environmen­tal journalism. As part of our train­ing, we were taken to a lab somewhere in Dresden, I think, where innovative methods of food production were tak­ing place. According to our resource persons, these ‘innovative’ methods favour ‘biosynthesis’ – a process where the genes of plants are tinkered with for optimum yield and stronger species of the food plants.

Prior to this time that the scientists were looking at biosynthesis, the regular, normal and natural process for plants to produce food was known as photosynthesis – where the plant grows to receive sunlight to enable it to produce a crop, a yield or what have you.

Our Senate Is A White Elephant

 By Ugoji Egbujo

Our Senate is a luxury. Akpabio, the Senate President, can’t choose his words carefully. Recently, he reminded a female senator that the Senate is not a nightclub. He was rebuking her for not obtaining his permission before speaking. In his flippancy and uncouthness, idleness could be gleaned. 

*

Senator Akpabio received a letter from Ganduje, APC chairmen, and read it in plenary. Then, robotically, he revved the engines of the Senate and dumped Ndume. That sequence would have been fitting in a one-party communist state like China. Ndume’s sin was that he criticized the president. 

Who Wants Dangote Refinery Dead?

 By Charles Okoh

There must be something inherently wrong with us as a people. There must be a reason that has made it practically impossible for all governance models or theories that have worked elsewhere to work here. Of course, the an­swer to that is corruption. We cannot say it enough. The level of corruption in the country is such that until something drastic is done, the development of this nation would continue to remain stunted.

*Dangote 

For a while now, we have been waiting for the much-anticipated Dangote Refinery to be launched.

Our expectations and optimism were not misplaced given the har­rowing experience Nigerians have been having with exploiting our God-given resources for the benefit of the people of this country. Sadly, there is no evidence to show that this nation is endowed with such a resource as crude oil because we have never benefited as a people.

Dangote Refinery, Victim Of Nigerian Factor

 By Dele Sobowale

A lot of media people have been talking to Alhaji Aliko Dangote lately; more would give an arm to be able to reach him – all because of the refinery which was advertised as the answer to our perpetual fuel problems. Laymen and women have developed the notion that, when it starts supplying fuel, prices would crash to pre-subsidy removal levels – among other expectations. More unsolicited write-ups have been sent to me by strangers and friends, alike, about Dangote himself and his refinery than I have ever received in a long time.

*Dangote 

Suddenly, the Dangote Refinery, apart from pervasive hunger, appears to be the only subject worthy of attention. The opinion leaders are almost evenly divided – those sympathetic to Dangote and those totally against – even though the latter are often afraid to be identified. That is power – the ability to make people fear you even when you don’t know them.

For Once, I Agree With Adams Oshiomhole

 By Tonnie Iredia

For the better part of the last two decades, I had cause to severally disagree or oppose the viewpoints, statements or actions of Adams Oshiomhole either as President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), or Governor of Edo State or National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). 

*Oshiomhole 

In order not to belabour the issues of the past, I will only just say we fell apart many times and quite often used the media to put our different positions in the public domain. It is therefore quite likely that many people who knew about our sour relationship would be surprised to read this piece which eulogises Oshiomhole’s commendable contributions to debates in the Senate, especially in the last couple of weeks.

Pastor A.C. Ohanebo: Old-Fashioned Preacher At 80

By Modestus Chukwulaka

“Where tradition is lacking,” Leon Trotsky writes, “a striking example becomes relevant.” 

*Pastor Ohanebo

In every sense, this is true. In biblical church practice, as in other spheres of endeavour, this is an essential part of the catechism of transformational leadership. It demands that leaders be inspirations to their followers, in line with the principle exemplified by Jesus, who began “both to do and to teach.” 

Bola Tinubu’s Ministry Of Cow And Chicken Affairs

 By Ugoji Egbujo

It’s haphazard. One moment, the Federal Government is pursuing the Orasanye reforms; the next, it’s churning out fresh ministries to serve political expediency. We took away the petrol subsidy to save the economy, only to become obsessed with distributing money and food to the public as if we can’t sit to think.

Now, we have a ministry for cow and chicken affairs. A full-blooded ministry for only livestock. Who knows why the title ‘Development’ is attached to it? Some say the entire thing is a peace offering to the Miyetti Allah and company. Others say the suspicious timing makes it a lollipop in the mouth of a group wailing against the Samoa Agreement.

ECOWAS Continues Its Blunders As West Africa Splits

 By Owei Lakemfa

West Africans on July 7, 2024, witnessed the tragic split of their region into two opposing blocs. The first time since the 1975 establishment of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS.

Eleven regional Heads of State met in Abuja under the ECOWAS umbrella while three of their counterparts: Presidents Assimi Goita of Mali, Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso and Abdourahamane Tchiani, Niger, met in Niamey for the inaugural Summit of the Alliance of Sahel States, AES.

UK General Election: British Democracy Shames Nigerian Ineptocracy

 By Olu Fasan

Trust Nigerians, some will scoff at any comparison between Britain’s democracy and what Nigeria calls democracy. But if democracy is, as Abraham Lincoln famously defined it, “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, then Nigeria must be held to universal standards.

*UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer

The critical electoral link between the government and the governed must not be severed, and democracy must not become ineptocracy, a system run by inept people. In any representative democracy, the irreducible core is the will of the people freely expressed in credible elections. That’s why last week’s UK general election offers some lessons.

Bandits And Arewanistan Agenda?

 By Ochereome Nnanna

For sure, banditry, especially kidnapping for ransom, is one of the three security challenges in Northern Nigeria. The others are Boko Haram/ISWA terrorism in the North-East, and Fulani herdsmen militia, a nationwide terror network.

In the South, kidnapping for ransom is in the hands of local criminal gangs. Even our battered Nigeria Police Force, NPF, are still largely on top of their game. The recent rescue of the Fouani brothers kidnapped while jollificating on the waterways of Lagos, was achieved by the Police. When was the last time you heard the Police doing much about the rage of banditry in the North?

Universities Without Electricity: Nigeria’s Contribution To 21st Century Knowledge

By Owei Lakemfa

June 2024. Festivity was in the air. Professors and students, staff and high class visitors were in attendance. The highlight was a first class dinner. Africa’s book factory, Professor Toyin Falola, flew into the country to deliver the farewell lecture. It was all in honour of Professor Abd-Rasheed Na’Allah, out-going Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja, UNIABUJA. But, trust spoilers.

They are never far away from festivities. As the wining and dining went on with fine speeches seeing off the VC at month end, students of the university were lamenting the N500 daily they pay to charge their cell phones. It was the second week the university had been plunged into darkness. It was not that the university is new to power outages, but this particular one had lengthened to pay farewell to Professor Na’Allah.

Interpreting Court Judgments In Nigeria

 By Tonnie Iredia

During Nigeria’s First and Second Republics, not many people had faith in the country ’s judiciary. To start with, court cases dragged on for too long; making it practically impossible for litigants to enjoy the fruits of judicial victories. In other cases, many criminals were set free on account of some technicalities couched in Latin that ordinary people never understood.

Part of the assignments of some transition bodies set up during military rule was to educate Nigerians on the dangers of extra- judicial activities. But if the truth must be told, it has been quite difficult to persuade politicians to follow the sermons on the rule of law which seem to provide inconsequential efficacy.

Investigate Buhari, Now!

 By Obi Nwakanma

Nigeria is in dire straits. That is no longer news. It is not even news anymore that Nigerians are going through the worst economic crisis of their lives. The very lean Structural Adjustment Programme years – the SAP years – may not even compare. I have been told that the kind of desperation seen now in Nigeria is apocalyptic. It is strange and foreboding. An eerie and very fatalistic despondence gnaws at the very core of the Nigerian psyche.

*Buhari 

For many of us growing up in Nigeria from the late 80s and the 1990s, Nigeria had turned into something of an economic dustbowl. Many middle class folks suddenly found themselves thrown down the scale. Many families were destroyed because of the stress on family life and income. I came home one holiday in 1986 from University of Jos, and asked for jam, and nearly got kicked off the dining table by my enraged father who thought my request both insensitive and unintelligent.