Opinion

  Not until playwright Sophocles sired character Oedipus in his definitive Greek play was human imagination tempted to consider the fact of pre-ordained parricide. Pushed by forces beyond his control, the heir of ancient Thebes ended up felling his own patriarch in the chilling fulfillment of a grim prophecy. Several …

For those who were not yet in secondary schools when HE Peter Obi became governor, you might truly have physically missed the beginning. I had already graduated from the university over a decade before he started campaigning towards 2003 gubernatorial election. But I didn’t give him a thought then. I …

The Nigerian President is different things to different people, depending on the prism from which he is being considered. To some people, Muhammadu Buhari is a father figure. At 77 years old, he qualifies. To some others, he’s the greatest crowd pulling politician the country has seen for some time, …

In the build-up to the 2015 general elections, the country was divided right down the middle. On one side were the Jonathanians, who supported the then incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan, and wanted him to continue in office for another term of four years. On the flip side were the Buharists …

He did not deliver on his promise to write “The Book” before his death. The fact that Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu did not publish a book on the Nigeria-Biafra War leaves a very large hole in whatever passes for Nigerian history. “Victors write history, and the Biafrans lost,” Frederick Forsyth writes …

  [email protected] 0807 552 5533 I considered three other titles before settling for the one above: Banditry and not corruption; brood of vipers; and a nest of bandits. A nest of killers was how the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, described the then ruling party, the PDP, after the assassination …

  As a participant observer in the Niger Delta project, I am amazed that over the past few weeks an incredibly enormous amount of energy has been expended by various individuals, groups and corporate entities on issues around the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, the Niger Delta and Nigeria at …

  [email protected] 0705 263 1058 It was with an air of clairvoyance that we started the series on Ondo governorship election 2022! When others still saw the contest as yet to take off the ground, we already saw it at boiling point! Now that others are just seeing it heating …

I shall take the liberty to begin this piece with the conclusion. Today, the 19th of July, 2020, Mr. Peter Obi, the Vice Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2019 elections and a Former Governor of Anambra State, is 59. I shall simply define him as …

When a pilot dies, the colleagues say he or she has gone to the hangar in the sky. Hangar is a place where aircraft are housed, but it was way, way too early for Nigeria’s first female helicopter fighter pilot, Tolulope Arotile, to go there. Not a time for parking …

Handle: @Irochesonny Our nonchalant attitude to governance and preemptive action against avoidable calamities as a country, to say the least, are unimaginable and legendary. For quite sometime now, Lagosians, especially those who reside in Apapa and its environs or have the unfortunate experience of going in and out of Apapa …

[email protected] 0807 552 5533 Some think it is foolhardy for the North not to want to relinquish power in 2023. They think it implausible for the North, after eight unbroken years in the saddle, to still want to cling unto power. Some think it should be obvious to the North …

There’s a wise saying in Yoruba land, which goes thus: “If you like, feed the entire city with pounded yam, egusi soup and stockfish on a daily basis, there’ll still be people who won’t like you.” Let’s be honest and frank with ourselves. There are some people with primordial antipathy …

As it is today there is no duly elected National Chairman and Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as required by the Electoral Law to submit the name of the governorship candidate in Edo State, to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as a result of the dissolution of …

  [email protected] 0705 263 1058 Today is the concluding part of the series on the Ondo governorship election which we started a few weeks ago. Last week we ended on the note of the allegations of nepotism against Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu. The allegations in that regard are four-fold. One: That …

Several comments, interpretations, narratives and theories have greeted the recent letter written by Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike of Rivers State to President Muhammadu Buhari, expressing the sincere appreciation of the Rivers State Government and people to Mr. President, for approving the sum of N78.9 billion to the state, as refund …

It came like a bolt out of the blue. Early this week, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, issued an advertisement, which went in a completely different direction compared to what he had always said of President Muhammadu Buhari. The Wike we knew was either usually crying wolf where there was …

[email protected]  0807 552 5533 Political chicanery did not just start yesterday. Deceit and tomfoolery are as old as society itself. Former President Goodluck Jonathan once described himself as the most criticised or the most vilified Nigerian leader ever. He might have been right as at that time but it is …

Nigerians forget all too quickly. Many of my countrymen and women have of course forgotten the bomb of a letter that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo sent to then President Goodluck Jonathan. Given the volatile political situation in the country today it is crucial to recall that Obasanjo letter and its aftermath. …

[email protected] 0705 263 1058 For good reasons, South-westerners are nostalgic about the tenure of Chief Obafemi Awolowo as the first premier of the Western Region – what with the ‘first this’ and ‘first that’, and the free education policy especially! While that age remains golden, it is usually eulogised to …

It is in the DNA of every Nigerian government to talk tough on fighting corruption. This useable tactic of mass deceit did not start today. Let it be known that the much-abused General Sani Abacha was in his time a very ferocious fighter of corruption. From available records, the list of …

Something good is already happening. Something marvelous is in store, as Federal Government kickstarts the $2.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) National Gas Pipeline Project next Tuesday. It’s another humongous signature milestone by President Muhammadu Buhari, which will leave his footprints inexorably on the sands of time. Roads. Bridges. Rail. Airports. Social …

  [email protected] 0807 552 5533 As the parties step up preparations for the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states coming up in a few months, the clouds are gathering and the signs are ominous. Storms lie in wait and history is about to repeat itself – except for those …

Never An After Thought by Afolabi Sokpehi Imoukhuede HCS; Narrative Landscape Press (Prima), Lagos, Nigeria; 220; 357pp The power of the printed word is the greatest asset of every inspirational leader. Once the works are written down as words, it is then left for History and Father Time to bear …

  [email protected] 0705 263 1058 The first conclusion to be drawn from these series is that in a presidential system of government such as the one that we have copied from the United States of America, a sitting president or governor should, as of right, be given the right of …