Opinion

When I first read the news in People’s Gazette through a link forwarded to me by a friend, I prayed that it would not be true. My prayer was in spite of the evidence to the contrary provided in watermarked documents by the news platform. The letter read like the …

turnport@gmail.com 0807 553 5533 In December 2019, I attended a FICAN (Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria) workshop sponsored by the NDIC (Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation) held at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, Adamawa State. The university is said to belong to ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, recently crowned the presidential …

Monday, 20 June, 2022 From a lack of horses, we always saddle dogs, or cows, or even the ugly, scaly-backed alligator (agílíntí ab’ara hòìhòì). We do it every four years in the name of democratic elections. We choose bile as leaders then lament soon after that we are orphaned by …

turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058 I am from Owo. I was born and bred there. Readers of my columns must have known that by now.  My primary school, modern school and secondary school were all at Owo. I did not step out of Owo to live anywhere else until 1975, first …

We are winding down. In about 11 months, the Muhammadu Buhari administration will be done. So we are ticking off the days. Right is the Good Book when it says “for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one that is to come.” Even if the tenure is …

turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533 D-Day is here! The Ekiti governorship election is a few days away! Who wins the polls? As days become hours, the fear of Segun Oni, the SDP governorship candidate, has become the beginning of wisdom, especially for the Fayemi group! Gov. John Kayode Fayemi is supporting …

Monday, 13 June, 2022 “Confidence is like a dragon; for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.” That is from Criss Jami, poet and author of Venus in Arms. There is no moral mountain the confident will not seek to degrade. A party is proposing a Muslim-Muslim presidential …

After a long voyage, all the political parties have concluded their special conventions and primaries, and they now have presidential flag bearers representing the parties at the polls next year. The past two weeks have been an endless season of tension, permutations, and intrigues. The drama that brought the two …

June 10, 2022 Most of the time, I appreciate men that stay married over the years not because they are better than their peers who have lost their homes to separation or divorce but because they are able to endure the acidic tongues of their wives in moments of anger. …

  If you are of my generation, and you have some literary inclination, you would have read the novel by James Hadley Chase, with the above title. Knock, Knock! Who’s There? It was the dream of Johnny Bianda to own a boat off the coast of Florida. And he filched …

In the race to brace the tape of the presidency in 2023, the most consequential decision as to who would fly the flag of the major parties is made by delegates – a new set of power brokers, thanks to section 84(8) of the amended Electoral Act. PDP delegates chose …

turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533 Wednesday, June 8, 2022. The 2022 Ekiti governorship election is around the corner! Saturday, 18th June is the D-Day. The incumbent, Gov. John Kayode Fayemi, is statute-barred and, therefore, not eligible to contest, having served one term as governor between October 15, 2010 and October 16, …

Monday, 6 June, 2022 Bólèk’ájà means ‘come down and let’s fight’. If you lived in Yoruba land of 1970s with its wood-bodied passenger Bedford and Austin lorries, the slang wouldn’t be strange to you. Sometimes, the push for a fight came from the scruffy lorry boy; some other time, it …

Once upon a time, it was Restructuring now or nothing! It was so loud that even the deaf could hear it! Some even said, no restructuring, no election! Attentions then shifted to constitutional amendments by the National Assembly which gulped Billions of Naira that led to nowhere! Even, our own …

On the surface, the PDP’s special convention of May 28, 2022 looks well organised and quite colourful. Great organisational skills were on display and everything appeared moving fine safe for a last minute infraction of allowing a sudden and unscheduled halt with a partisan declaration of an aspirant stepping down …

June 3, 2022  The shocking news of a suicide reportedly committed by a telecommunications company’s employee, Folake Abiola, an accountant, last weekend, shook the news media space. Largely described as a good woman, unmarried and an active church worker, Folake painfully ended her life abruptly. Several issues have so far …

I’m sure you know the song by Kizz Daniel and Tekno, which is now a rave of the moment: Let me see you dey buga o (go low-low-low) Let me see you (go low-low-low) buga won. And you see people huffing and puffing as they dance to it, with their …

Obi-nomics sounds cool, doesn’t it? And it has gained much traction too just as the Peter Obi presidential aspiration is riding on a great momentum of its own. Obi today is the cause celebre of Nigeria’s politics; making waves everywhere he goes and most importantly, giving Nigerians hope that all …

Practical necessity in politics remains a core requirement for political participation because if you dwell in the world of ideology, moribund optimism, carved strategy, you may lose sight of the practical reality of the political process. It was Victor Hugo who once said that you can stop every other thing, …

Usually, elections everywhere in the world are clouded with divided interests and drama. As Abraham Lincoln once said, the ballot is stronger than the bullet. People who understand how powerful electioneering processes are, will do everything possible, either to exploit its loopholes or to ensure that the process is strong …

turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533 One of the three pillars on which the retired Major-General Muhammdu Buhari hung his return to power as president and commander-in-chief in 2015 was that he would fight and uproot corruption. The other two were that he would end insurgency and insecurity as well as revamp …

The power and spirit of the African drums are being sounded for this year’s US 10th Congressional District. Incumbent establishment Democratic US Congressman Donald Payne, Jr is being challenged by a passionate West Orange, New Jersey progressive independent Democrat named Dr. Akil Khalfani. His voting line for the primary on …

A mass movement has just begun. It is the type that will test the resolve or lack of it of Nigerians to change the way things are in their country. Mr. Peter Obi, the former governor of Anambra State, who until a few days ago, was a frontline presidential contender …

Monday, 30 May, 2022 She was famously called Mama Peace. If there was anything in the Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency that many have missed, it was the no-nonsense voice of Mrs. Patience Faka Jonathan, the president’s wife. She was never afraid to take a position on anything even when her husband …

The political evolution of party systems in the world follows a binary trajectory. We see this political evolutionary trend in most democracies where although multiple parties exist, two dominant parties emerge, dominate the political space, and compete as alternate power wielders that form governments as government and opposition at the …