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Opinion

Friday, 26 May 2017 17:11

50 years after Biafra: Reflections and hopes - John Nnia Nwodo

I am grateful to Shehu Musa Yar Adua Foundation, Ford Foundation and OSIWA – the co-sponsors of this event for your kind invitation. I commend your foresight in convening this conference, the first major conference discussing Biafra outside of Igboland. In hosting this conference, the Yar’Adua Centre, which is best known for promoting national cohesion, honours the legacy of a great patriot: Shehu Musa Yar Adua. He died building bridges of understanding across our nation. I salute his family and associates for sustaining the legacy of Shehu through the works of this Foundation. It is significant that you have chosen…

Thursday, 25 May 2017 17:10

Nigeria: Why a military coup is unlikely - Jideofor Adibe

Many Nigerians have been expressing understandable outrage at suggestions that there might be military coup in the country. It is obvious that despite the current challenges, most Nigerians who were old enough to know what happened during the long period of military rule in Nigeria, will not wish another forward to our inglorious past. But the tensions and intrigues generated by President Muhammadu Buhari’s illness and absence are raising rumours of a possible military intervention. The speculation was legitimated when the Chief of Army Staff (CAS), Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, claimed that that there were attempts by politicians to influence his…

Thursday, 25 May 2017 03:22

King Sunny Ade and the Orpheus option - Dare Babarinsa

Juju music is the wine of Nigerian parties and no one serves it better than the maestro himself, King Sunny Ade. On Saturday, May 20, King Sunny Ade was again on the band stand with his men, dishing it out to the Nigerian glitterati at the Iyin-Ekiti country home of the late Major-General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo, former governor of the defunct Western State, who died last month at 89. It was a grand event, not only to pay homage to the departed patriarch, who until his death, was the oldest living Nigerian army officer, but also to honour his children,…

Thursday, 25 May 2017 03:20

Edwin Clark at 90: Tribute to an icon and a living legend - Kayode Ajulo

To say Chief Edwin Clark is an inimitable icon, would be an understatement. He is not only a father of nations, he is also an enigma of detribalized intercontinental leadership. His affection for Nigeria's development dates back to his early 20s, when he served his primary constituency, Burrutu of the the Mid-Western Region as a headmaster and community development officer, giving significant contributions to the development of education and the mobilization of the people for community development. He has served in various local, regional and national capacities, including as a Commissioner for Education, Finance and Establishment in the old Bendel…

Tuesday, 23 May 2017 17:00

Buhari and the marabouts - Reuben Abati

“Have you read Lauretta Onochie’s latest post?” “Lauretta. Lauretta. Who is she?” “She is a social media assistant at the Presidency. She shoots straight and direct. She defends President Muhammadu Buhari with the passion of someone the President treats like a daughter.” “Not a son, this time, a daughter! Interesting. Of power, fathers, wives, sons and daughters….” “She spits fire, particularly if the person involved is in any way related to either the People’s Democratic Party or former President Goodluck Jonathan.” “I see…” “I try to pay attention to the many battles of the spin community in Nigerian politics.” “Well,…

Monday, 22 May 2017 02:51

What happened to transparency? - Simon Kolawole

I need your help please. At the annual Nigerian jamboree to the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, the minister of state for petroleum resources, told a “world press conference” on May 5, 2017 that Nigeria’s refineries would soon have new investors. He said 26 investors had indicated interest in the epileptic refineries. “By September, we will unveil the investors for the refineries,” the minister said smoothly, typically. “When we came onboard, the refineries were not working but as we speak, we have sizeable investment portfolio for them to an extent that we don’t know who…

Monday, 22 May 2017 02:49

Congratulations, President Macron: Now we oppose you - Yanis Varoufakis

Prior to the second round of the French Presidential election, DiEM25 (the pan-European movement of democrats, mostly of the left, that I helped to found) promised Emmanuel Macron that we would “mobilize fully to help” him defeat Marine Le Pen. This we did – incurring the wrath of many on the left – because maintaining “an equal distance between Macron and Le Pen,” we believed, was “inexcusable.” But there was a second part to our promise to Macron: if he “becomes merely another functionary of Europe’s deep establishment,” pursuing dead-end, already-failed neoliberalism, we “will oppose him no less energetically than…

Sunday, 21 May 2017 16:49

Assessing FFK's narrative on trust issue in Nigeria - Israel A. Ebije

I watched a video clip published by an online media organization where Femi Fani Kayode (FFK), a former minister of the federal republic and Nnamdi Kanu, leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) had chitchat and I couldn’t help pondering on the future of Nigeria. I don’t know when the video was made but my guess would be about two weeks ago after Kanu was released on bail. What FFK hinted on in that video is instructive, as mistrust, dishonesty, hate have become our vanity, our bane in Nigeria. In the video, FFK revealed the position of a prominent Nigerian…

Sunday, 21 May 2017 02:44

Karl Marx has a lot to teach today’s politicians - Economist

The shadow chancellor's comment provoked scorn. Yet Marx becomes more relevant by the day An unofficial rule of British elections holds that you don’t mention big thinkers. On May 7th John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, broke this rule by mentioning not just any old big thinker but Karl Marx. “I believe there’s a lot to learn from reading ‘Capital’,” he declared. The next day Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party leader, described Marx as “a great economist”. This produced jubilation on the right. The Daily Telegraph dismissed Messrs McDonnell and Corbyn as “the Marx brothers”. The Daily Mail reminded its readers of…

Saturday, 20 May 2017 15:23

They learnt nothing, and forgot nothing - Femi Adesina

They showed their pernicious hands again last Sunday, and have been on the prowl since then, roaring like a lion, seeking who to devour. Purveyors of death they are, and they have killed President Muhammadu Buhari many times over, cloned the websites of international media houses to announce the hoax, but their wishes did not become horses, so they remain stranded, with nothing to ride. Between January 19, this year, when the President first proceeded on vacation, and March 10, when he returned, they had announced his demise many times. They even created apocryphal images and footages to back up…

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Saturday, 20 May 2017 15:21

Adesina: Diligence of a long distance runner - Tunde Ogunesan

Two years to the change of guards in Oyo State, the stakes have gone so high on who would succeed Governor Abiola Ajimobi and how he or she would emerge. Some candidates are already openly in the race, with posters, banners and all the elements of a clear campaign for the office. Some are busy consulting elders and sounding out their constituents. Others have surrogates in large numbers at work all over the state while advocates of their cause are mounting the soap-box on their behalf, asking the people of Oyo State to look in their direction. Oke Ogun, the…

Thursday, 18 May 2017 15:30

What if Buhari does not want to continue...? - Jideofor Adibe

Secrecy as they say, creates confusion and opens up the space for wild speculation and conspiracy theories. Nigerians believe fervently in the adage that nature abhors a vacuum. So the more secretive the government becomes about President Buhari’s health status, the more some Nigerians move in to fill the void with their own theories and speculations. Traditionally African culture forbids people from engaging in any form of speculation that might implicitly suggest that one is wishing death on anyone, even if the person is terminally ill. Our belief is that only God gives and takes life, and that in His…

Wednesday, 17 May 2017 16:03

This Awo, when is he coming? - Dare Babarinsa

Thirty years after his departure from the terrestrial realm, the mystique of Obafemi Awolowo still endures. On Tuesday, May 9, the faithful gathered at the Ikenne, Ogun State home of the Awolowos, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his death. I too would have been there, but my wife and children insisted I stayed home to celebrate for May 9 is my birthday. Awo, as he was known, was a larger than life figure, who dominated the politics of Nigeria for many decades. He fought against personal and public vicissitudes and triumphed. He was a man of extraordinary courage and…

Wednesday, 17 May 2017 03:13

The complacent economy - Feyi Fawehinmi

Two stories in the papers in the last week ought to serve as a wake-up call to policy makers in Nigeria. They illustrate the challenges facing the Nigerian economy that are capable of restricting the country to low growth and making it an innovation-free zone for years to come. In the first, a big poultry farmer complained openly in the papers that there was a glut of eggs in the market. And his solution to this problem? He wants the government to pass a law that makes it ‘compulsory’ for students in the state to be given an egg a…

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