Opinions

I received a plaintive note last week from a young man who seemed rather shocked that I had not written about Nigeria’s scandal of the moment—the harrowing story of a 14-year old girl named Ese Rita Oruru, abducted from her home in Bayelsa State, transported to Kano by a 22-year old drifter, Yunusa (alias Yellow), […]

Nigerians voted for change and to attain that change there is a need to do things differently, in the recognition that doing what we have always done will only result in more of the same. That change has started with the vital offensive against corruption, which has had a huge and adverse effect on our […]

Even now that the 14-year old Ese Oruru who was abducted from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State and taken to Kano is now free; and even now that the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase has said her abductor, identified as Yinusa Dahiru (aka Yellow), would be prosecuted, her seven month ordeal clearly shows a further decline […]

The announcement the other day that Nigeria has removed more than 20,000 non-existent workers from the government payroll, leading to savings of N2.29bn ($12m) from its monthly payroll, is certainly no complimentary news, as it speaks directly to the corruption and mismanagement that has stunted economic growth and national development. But the fundamental question remains: […]

In 1992, Bill Clinton, then the Democratic Party candidate for the US presidency, popularized the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.” A year earlier, then incumbent President George H. Bush—who was seeking reelection on the platform of the Republican Party—had a high job approval rating on the strength of ordering a military offensive that drove invading […]

The suspicious drop in power supply that has plunged the nation into darkness is, without doubt, an act of sabotage by electricity distribution companies (DISCOS), and a gratuitous insult to the collective intelligence and sensibilities of Nigerians. The National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had kick-started a new 45% tariff hike regime on February 1, but […]

Truly, this writer is lost for words to describe the events at the Ministry of Sports without sounding bitterly incoherent (as always?), but professional training intervened and there you go. A spoiled child is bound to learn how to be unspoiled outside his home and the unspoiled child may have difficulty adjusting to any sudden […]

Permit me to borrow one of the sentences used by Senator Bukola Saraki to buttress his point further during his interactive session at the just concluded Social Media Week Lagos2016 where he referenced the evolving nature of the social media environment that -‘’Times Have Changed, And, So, Must We’’. One remarkable admonition to take home […]

Lee Kuan Yew wrote in his book, From Third World To First: The Singapore Story (1965-2000), the following insightful words: “After years of disheartening trial and error, we concluded that Singapore’s best hope lay with American Multinational Corporations (MNCs). When the Taiwanese and Hong Kong entrepreneurs came in the 1960s, they brought low technology such […]

In the last two weeks, four events have occurred in Rivers State to raise red flags relating to insecurity and electoral violence. The first was the slaughter of 24 persons in one day at Omoku in Ogba Egbema Ndoni LGA of Rivers State. The second was the attack on the military at Yeghe town in […]

Apparently in response to the crisis surrounding the 2016 budget; different versions of which remain stuck before the National Assembly, President Buhari took a walk of shame the other day, firing the Director-General of the Budget Office, Yahaya Gusau and replaced him with Tijani Abdullahi. With a new budget czar, expectations were high that the […]

There is no denying that the democracy we practice in Nigeria came through military fiat. Writing in his latest book, The House My Father Built, Adewale Maja-Pearce has the following words on the subject: “Things reached a head on Saturday, 29 May 1999. I remember the date because I was watching the parade at Eagle […]