Opinion

 An opportunity of an informal meeting with the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, recently in Abuja, in company with some politician friends was quite instructive. The intellectual engagement that ensued illuminated the ideas of the comrade chairman about the party’s governance model that will …

  There is a burgeoning fallacy in the camp of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which seems to have gained traction in the permutations and calculations for the 2019 presidential power politics: that just anyone that is fielded as presidential candidate will defeat incumbent president and presumptive candidate of …

  The power, impact and influence of China was evident last Friday in Johannesburg when it met over forty African leaders. It is instructive that a single country which in the 1980s was still considered a Third World country, could convene what was virtually a meeting of the African Union …

  [email protected]  0705 263 1058   Whatever decision Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode eventually takes on his botched or controversial second term, he will have to rue the saying “what goes around comes around”. Four years ago, others got disappointed by the godfather so that he, Ambode, could be appointed, as it …

We have now fully entered the political season – with its embedded bazaars, festivities, speeches, permutations and configurations. Most of the activities in the political space are configured to bring dividends in 2019. The presidential election will define the year 2019 and will be a watershed in the life of …

It’s crucial in this charged season that a good number of clowns in the name of politicians are toying with democracy in Nigeria that one remembers the departed one: Chima Ubani.   A crusader, organizer, activist, revolutionary, hero, strategist, and above all else, a passionate human being, Chima Ubani died in …

Of late, former Vice-President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, has been in the news crusading for the restructuring of the country’s political system. Though many had commended him for this new passion, one would want to take the genuineness of the former Vice-President’s current clamour for restructuring with a pinch of salt. …

  Monk Bede-Gabriel Chika Mary Anabidom (OCSO) owns a story that spins the head. It is well-nigh impossible seeing a first son abandoning all his inheritance to devote his life entirely to the service of God through solitude, silence and prayer. When I got the invitation that St. Patrick’s Catholic …

Children of today do not know anything about the look-read photo-magazine African Film, starring the dapper Lance Spearman, alias Spear. The magazine was quite popular during my post-Biafra-war growing-up years in Onitsha, the township on the bank of the River Niger that earned its mark in the world of letters …

Human rights lawyer Femi Falana SAN has warned that the security of the country should never be confused with government security, stating that “it is problematic to place the security of the state entirely above the interests of individual citizens. Placing security concerns in direct opposition to human rights creates …

  [email protected]  0705 263 1058 There are far too many things wrong with the Oyo State Government’s decision to demolish the Music House of delectable musician and artiste, Yinka Ayefele. Gov. Isiaka Ajimobi was not well-advised on this issue at all. While Ayefele holds the Oyo State Commissioner for Information, …

The shift in the perceived role of corporate organizations as solely pro3fit centres to agents for positive change has become clearer more than ever before with the United Nation’s massive push for sustainability through its carefully conceived Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In achieving the SDGs by 2030, it is a …

All politics is local – Tip O’Neil The resounding victory of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the recent senatorial bye-election in Bauchi South   district    demystified and sealed the political fate of several elements. Chief among them are self appointed “political landlords” resident in Abuja and elsewhere who thought they …

  Those were very dangerous days. General Sani Abacha was calling the shots in Nigeria. I was involved in the Guerrilla Journalism challenging the dictator. There’s my friend, Adewale Maja-Pearce, who was then the Africa Editor of the London-based magazine Index on Censorship. As everybody knows, Adewale takes no prisoners …

  [email protected] 0705 263 1058 Electioneering in Nigeria is war and like in all wars, truth is the first casualty. In Nigeria today where credible elections have receded sharply with the All Progressives Congress’s do-or-die, and win-at-all-costs mindset, it is increasingly difficult to separate propaganda from information. Pestered on all …

  Christian leaders have become a play thing for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Osinbajo gives himself the liberty to talk down on them at will, taking them to the cleaners without justification. Osinbajo himself is supposed to be a top-flight Christian leader and more so the highest office-holding Christian leader …

Governor Udom Emmanuel has diligently in the last three years of leadership followed the words of Thomas Fuller, an English Churchman, that “Charity begins at home but does not end there”, and this is evident in his uncanny disposition to evenly distribution of projects across the three senatorial districts, federal …

  [email protected]  0705 263 1058 May you live in interesting times! It is apt to remember this payer of the late Dr. Tai Solarin today; for these, indeed, are interesting times in our much-abused country Nigeria.  And not only are the times interesting, they are equally troubling. The more you …

  Though he died unsung,   Pa   Ichiogu  Ikpeazu, the great Umuobiakwa  goldsmith, still lives on. Exceptional genes do not die. He produced a teacher, Nwaon­o (nono)  and the teacher produced another teacher, Okezie.     If we could rewind the hand of the clock and call the dead back to life,  Pa …

  [email protected]  0705 263 1058 Whatever name called and under whichever administration, the Ministry of Power is jinxed. When it was called the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), it was a supplier of darkness instead of light; causing Nigerians to change its name to Never Expect Power Always. As Power …

  [email protected] 0807 552 5533 Our people have a saying, to wit: Someone who chanced on a lost item says he will rather die than part with it; what does he want the person who lost the item in the first instance to do? This saying aptly describes the cry-baby …

Time flies fast. It is incredible how it flutters. It has been a year since I started walking   with Governor MA Abubakar of Bauchi state. August 1st precisely marked a year since I left my comfort zone in the newsroom where I was lord of the manor. Where I was a …

President Muhammadu Buhari in Lome, Togo strongly pitched for the setting up of a regional security architecture in the West and Central African sub-regions, giving clear indication that there is a convergence of strategic interests among the countries of the two sub-regions on security. In his address at the three …

[email protected]  0705 363 1058 King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1: 9 – 11 says: The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may …

  [email protected] 0705 263 1058 “Those who vote determine nothing. Those who count (record, and announce) the votes determine everything” – Joseph Stalin, Soviet Union’s maximum dictator. Many have described the Saturday, July 14th governorship election as the war of proxies. Some have also said it was a case of …