I am fully persuaded that what President Muhammadu Buhari needs at this juncture is not sycophancy – that not a few are offering through the social and traditional media at the moment. The Nigerian leader who is not enjoying robust health needs encouragement by way of honest critique of his policies and suggestions on how to succeed on apparently two-point agenda of his government generally believed to be very slow almost two years on. There is nothing in the convoluted APC-Buhari manifesto that is being implemented apart from security especially in the North East and war on corruption. Though resurgence…

Very early in the life of the Buhari administration, a crisis broke out in the presidential Villa over who should be responsible for the president's safety. The disagreement led to an exchange of memos that found their ways into public domain, between the Aide de Camp to the president and his Chief Security Officer. While the general public was so eager to move beyond trivialities as it anticipated the promised change, it was nonetheless an early sign that the transition period hadn't been enough to sort out simple internal issues such as who should do what, talk less of setting…

Popular columnist and convener of Every Nigerian Do Something, Perry Brimah, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is “chronically ill” and in need of urgent rest. Brimah, in a statement on Friday, alleged that the President was being kept locked up in Aso Rock by some “selfish cabal” instead of receiving best therapy. The columnist flayed Nigerians for their uncompassionate reaction to Buhari’s health status despite seeing his “asthenic figure now no more than skin-and-bones as he sat down for the Jummah service” with Kaduna state governor Nasir el-Rufai last Friday. He wrote, “There can be no denying how chronically…

Nigerians are incredibly gullible! They believe anything they read in a newspaper; they believe anything their government tells them; and they believe anything their Pastor, Imam or Ifa Priest (make that last one dibia or marabout depending on geography!) tells them! I may ignore for today’s conversation the propensity to believe our religious intermediaries since faith is supposed to be the “substance of things hoped for…the evidence of things not seen” but what of the unquestioning swallowing of any information from journalists and government? Unlike Almighty God, both of these institutions and the individuals comprised therein are nowhere near divinity,…