When the row between Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, and his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), spilled onto the streets after the party’s presidential primaries in May, I argued that to solve Wike, one had to first fix the candidate, Atiku Abubakar. In light of Wike’s no-holds-barred interview last Thursday, things may have fallen apart, irretrievably. That interview, perhaps only comparable in seismic scale and onomatopoetic resonance with Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, has shaken the PDP to its foundations. The fallouts may well remain the biggest threat to the PDP’s electoral chances next year. But what was the point, really?…

Almost as if rushing to meet datelines and satisfy a stern Editor, three of the nation’s gems within the media family exited by the front door to eternity. All of this happened within just ten days – Biyi Bandele: 7th August; John Chiahemen: 10th August; and Duro Onabule: 16th August. Of them all, I knew John Chiahemen the most and would like to start these tributes with him. Looking back, I do not even recall when, where, and how I met John. However, whatever little memories I had were further built up through my other friend, Tony Nnachetta, who over…

From today, political parties in Nigeria will be free to flag off presidential, governorship, federal and state assembly campaigns by sticking posters on every wall, saturating the airwaves with campaign songs and noisy messages, holding mass rallies, knocking on everyone’s door, filling up buses and trucks with “supporters” shouting themselves hoarse, floating support groups of women, students and traders, hurrying to the palaces of traditional rulers that they had not visited since the last election, endlessly attending marriage and naming ceremonies, consulting babalawos, endless press releases and conferences, launch tirades and counter tirades on social media, generate an avalanche of…

Decades ago, I remember reading a piece by a writer lamenting the sudden but astronomical shooting up in the price of “garri”, which used to be the staple food of poor and down-trodden Nigerians. For reasons which need not detain us here, “garri” shrugged off its beggarly position in the hierarchy of staple foods and began to rub shoulders with the likes of rice, beans and yam flour. So, the writer, alarmed at what he described as the effrontery of garri and its audacity to join the league of the elites, screamed: “See me, see garri!” Unruffled, “garri” has not…