Nigeria’s spectacular crises in almost every facet of its national life are inescapable. They cling like your skin. And for your sanity, you must detox from time to time. I hope this trip to Grenada, through Afghanistan, helps. Instead of writing about killings of the most bestial variety up and down the country, an economy on life support, insecurity, ASUU strike, men fighting for Allah and those defending them, the politics of 2023 that has left even politicians confused and enthroned delegates as royalty, I’ve decided to comment on a topic in which I recently renewed interest. In a recent…
Author: Azu Ishiekwene
Parents, students, and indeed anyone with a conscience is still shocked at the killing of Deborah Yakubu in Sokoto over allegations of blasphemy. The brutal termination of the life of a promising young Nigerian in a school, will again pass with lamentations and condemnations as has become the norm, but most likely, without the consolation that justice would be served. As we flip over this page and move on, we would most likely overlook the real problem that led to this tragedy. The small cause, the little speck, that has produced a big effect, an explosion and other unintended consequences. In spite of the curfew imposed by the Sokoto State government, many residents…
After emerging as the consensus Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, was faced with a major crisis. Healing the deep divisions in the party was urgent but it was not even the most serious concern of the 75-year-old senator, former governor and former member of the opposition party. Nor was the dilapidated, rudderless state of the party organs the most pressing task. His problem was more severe. In vehicular metaphor, he had just inherited a car without an engine. And this happened ahead of a major race in which his party is not only hoping to do…
The statement by the leader of the Yoruba Cultural Group, Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, that the South East should get the next turn at the presidency has ruffled quite some feathers. This comes at a time when nearly half a dozen of his kinsmen have shown interest and almost nothing seems certain anymore because the two major political parties, having just discovered the virtue in merit, are now disposed to an open race. The only thing that is certain is where the presidency may not go: the South East. When you hear top politicians talking about power shift, and insisting that…
I think the most frequently asked question today is, who will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari? With over 35 aspirants openly declaring their interest as of today, a few still in the closet and more coming out, the field has never looked more crowded. And last week, the decision by former President Goodluck Jonathan to put one leg in the ring, while pretending that he is being dragged, got party and non-party members even more confused. Of course, those who are pressing him into the race – Governor of Yobe State and former All Progressives Congress (APC) interim Chairman, Mai Mala…
Most parents like to think that their generation’s burden was the heaviest. And that today’s children are too soft and spoilt by the easy life to be up to any good. Well, I disagree. Or let me put that a bit differently: I don’t agree completely. The debate about just how far astray today’s children have gone was sparked afresh by the juvenile sex video of students of Chrisland School, VGC, Lagos, who had gone for the World Schools Games in Dubai between March 8 and 14. Since that video was leaked a few days ago, the “Dubai Five”, the…
Azu Ishiekwene A good number of those I have spoken with since the news of her tragic death broke on Friday night, said Nigerian gospel artiste, Osinachi Nwachukwu, 42, should not have died. She was such a tremendous gift to millions of people and inspired even millions more through her songs, yet she had not even reached the peak of her potential. During the COVID-19 lockdown when many struggled with anxiety, boredom and depression, a famous song in which she featured prominently, “Nara Ekele”, was repurposed by Tim Godfrey and Travis Greene and rendered in over 10 local and…
On March 26 at the Eagle Square, Abuja, the All Progressives Congress (APC), reinvented a version of consensus politics that ancient Rome and Greece would have been proud of. After years of in-fighting and decay, and fearing that the opposition might rebound, the ruling party finally called its overdue convention. It rounded up aspirants who were jostling for its executive positions and told them, at gunpoint, that it was time to try something new: consensus. Different tendencies in APC had run amok. President Muhammadu Buhari had to put his foot down and cut a deal with governors that conceded the…
I thought there was a mistake. The headline said Nigeria’s former ambassador to Spain and wife of Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, Bianca, slapped the outgoing First Lady of Anambra State, Ebele Obiano. In my head, however, the news read differently. This was not the sort of thing you would associate with Bianca, a former ambassador and beauty queen. In spite of what I was reading as the news broke, I told myself that the reality was the other way round: Ebele Obiano must have slapped Bianca Ojukwu. If you know Ebele, you will know why in spite of the news, it…
In the midst of our current misery, the Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu thought we needed something to cheer last week, so he offered a joke, which was telling and disturbing. In the row between the Governor of Yobe and interim chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mai Mala Buni, and governors who wanted to overthrow him, Akeredolu, who was on the side of the protagonists, reached into the gutter for words to describe his enemies. He plumbed the depths, far below the sepsis reached by the sarcasm of Salihu Lukman, the former director general of the Progressives Governors…
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) looks determined to set itself on fire, even though the story out there is that the match box has been snatched from the hand of its interim chairman and Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni. The danger still looms. After toppling the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, the APC turned on itself, feasting on its own entrails. Of course, the winner-takes-all factor in a presidential system can tempt winners to lose their heads. In the case of APC, however, the party lost its head even before it was…
There’s a severe, earth-baking drought in the Horn of Africa. About 13 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti are in the grip of acute hunger. The rains have failed in three consecutive years, prompting the driest conditions experienced in the region in 41 years. This ought to be one of the heaviest burdens on the minds of African leaders: how the continent can rally support and assistance for people in that region. At the moment, it is not. It’s just another item on the news left for the World Food Programme under the United Nations and the international…
Loving Nigeria’s national soccer team, the Super Eagles, is like being in a bad marriage. Your heart is broken many times, yet it’s hard to walk away. There’s a lingering, almost redemptive feeling that just one more try, and it’s going to be alright. But it never is – or has not been for nearly a decade. It happened again. Hearts were broken on Sunday and millions of fans are still trying to pick up the pieces after Nigeria was beaten 1-0 by Tunisia in the ongoing African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cameroun. It was an unlikely outcome. Nigeria…
My wife occasionally jokes that my stressful, high-strung lifestyle could mean I’ll die before her. I’ve hardly paid any attention, until recently. Three weeks ago, we both visited a friend who lost his father on New Year’s Day. The deceased was over 90. We went in company with my friend and neighbour who also came along with his wife. We met two other friends at the home of the bereaved family. Before we departed, the five men – including our bereaved friend – took pictures. I didn’t make anything of it until the next day when I got a call…
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, would like to close the case of the suspicious death of Sylvester Omoroni Jr., and simply move on to something else. He’s surprised there’s pushback and can’t understand why. Crime Scene Odumosu said the state Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had advised that the evidence provided was insufficient to charge the suspects for murder. Why hang suspects merely on public sentiments when five weeks of police investigations, arrests and detention of the suspects, and autopsies in two different states have not established a prima facie case against them? On the face of…
This is a local story and it’s personal. I’m involved. And because I’m involved, I thought the best way to tell it is to hear it from persons who have a more intimate knowledge of the story; those who have lived in Magodo Shangisha GRA Scheme II, Lagos, for well over two decades. The three respondents, the first of whom is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, have asked that their names should not be used. I’ll simply describe them as Respondents I, II and III. Keep in mind as you read this, that land title in a Government Reserved Area…
No, it’s not what you think. I have read Bisi Akande’s feather-ruffler, entitled, “My Participations.” Perhaps the only connection between the memoir and what you’re about to read is a borrowed inspiration to re-purpose the title. So, relax. I laughed my way through the book. If you knew Akande, you would probably guess why. He writes not only the way he talks; he writes just the way he is: direct, ruthlessly guileless and almost without a sense of danger. For the past two years, or so, I have taken on the hazardous job of popping my head around the incoming year…
After four weeks of delay, confusion and indecisiveness, President Muhammadu Buhari finally refused on Monday to sign the Electoral Amendment Bill, citing a raft of reasons which took him so long to improvise you could clearly guess he wanted the cup to pass over him. But every leader must, at some point, face their demon. President Olusegun Obasanjo was in a similar position 20 years ago, when he refused to sign the NDDC Bill on the grounds of a disagreement with the National Assembly over what percentage of statutory allocation the commission should get. While he proposed 10 percent and…
It’s not been a merry run up to Christmas for many Nigerian travellers. It all started with Canada, Saudi Arabia, and then the UK, red-listing Nigeria (and 10 other African countries) for the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in spite of relatively low reported cases. If there were any remaining doubts about COVID-19 racism, these countries shed it and showed the world they could not help wearing bigotry on their sleeve. Countries that were rightly opposed to labelling COVID-19 the “China virus”, were quick to target Africa, which is not the original source of the new variant, for detecting it among…
I still remember that night like yesterday. Our lives had been turned upside down by the resurgence of the second wave of Covid-19. Like most people, my sleeping pattern was no longer regular; which is to say, out of fear and boredom, I was now learning to sleep before midnight, and waking up without any idea of what to expect. On that Friday, I had drifted off to sleep when my son rushed into my room with a phone. “Dad”, he said, “I think there’s a problem.” I grumbled that except if the world was about to end, there was…
The last two Mondays, two newspapers – Daily Trust and Nigerian Tribune – have published data on the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) in the first eight months of 2021. The reports have shed more heat than light. On Monday, November 22, Daily Trust published an exclusive story entitled, “Kano beats entire five South East in VAT collection.” In the tradition of the newspaper, the story was a serious attempt to explain, in numbers, the tangled mess that VAT sharing has become in recent times. The newspaper said that in the first eight months of 2021, Kano State collected more in VAT than the…
Last week, the country was engulfed in a mutiny across party lines. After members of the National Assembly surreptitiously inserted a provision in the Electoral Act Amendment Bill calling for direct party primaries, governors, who rarely agree on anything except money, cried foul. They loaded their guns and opened verbal fire on members of the National Assembly for being clever by half. The governors know what they are doing. The Senate, for example, is their unofficial retirement home and the road to this lair begins with the party primaries. Roughly half of the 22 second-term governors have their eyes on…
The cold blast of the air conditioner from the room hit me by surprise as I opened the door. I wasn’t expecting a draught from inside at eight on a damp morning. But there was my cousin under the duvet, hugging what seemed like a pillow as he snuggled diagonally across the bed, deeply asleep. I grabbed the electric iron from the floor right next to the standing fan, which was purring at a speed that made the room even cooler, and left quickly. How could he be sleeping so comfortably with the AC at a cold blast on a…
Just hours before voters in Anambra State decide the next governor, a party not on the ballot is getting serious attention. The Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), the separatist group demanding an independent homeland, has declared there would be no election on Saturday not only to press its separatist demand, but also to demand the release of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, currently in his 17thweek in detention in Abuja for alleged treason among other charges. IPOB is not a political party and Kanu, its leader, is not on the ballot. But the leaders of the 18 political parties, especially the…
Vanguard, like many businesses, has had difficult moments and one that I remember clearly was the exit of its iconic editor, Frank Aigbogun, in 1998. After about seven years at the helm, Aigbogun left behind such huge pair of shoes it seemed unlikely that revered publisher, Sam Amuka, fondly called Uncle Sam, would easily find a fit. Toye Akiyode, Aigbogun’s predecessor, had tried to steady the brand from the teething problems of its founding days. Aigbogun built rapidly on Toye’s successes and made Vanguard a household brand, especially favoured among women. After Aigbogun’s tenure as editor, the task of his successor was…
This topic reminds me of two recent personal incidents. I was in the office on the morning of Tuesday, July 13 when a colleague rushed in with his phone. He seemed quite animated, but there was also an edge of anxiety about him as he thrust his phone forward, stopping mid-speech, and asking me to speak with the caller. I didn’t know who it was. So, I motioned to my colleague to end the call first and sit down. He did, collected himself, and spoke. A federal minister, one of the very influential ones in this government, had just…
On October 3, 2020, I watched a video of a policeman attached to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) shooting a young man in front of Wetland Hotel, Ughelli, Delta State. Initial reports after the young man was shot said the shooter and other policemen in his company drove off in a car belonging to the victim, leaving him in a pool of his own blood. Another version of the story emerged later that the young man was not dead, but was injured after he jumped out of a moving police van operated by the Delta State local security network.…
There is no greater evidence that Nigeria’s political elite are cut off from citizens than the disconnected, cold portrayals in the news headlines. While citizens are fighting existential battles – skyrocketing prices, insecurity, striking doctors and rising unemployment – politicians are busy fighting over party chair. They are worried about where the next president will come from, and also the size of the red carpet for Nigeria’s most cringeworthy political rolling stone, who returned to the ruling party last week with a baggage of mush. The two groups – the political elite and citizens – are in two different…
Zambia’s peaceful and orderly election in August offered a glimmer of hope that Africa’s story might be changing. For the third time in three decades, an opposition leader defeated the sitting president sending a message to the world that the continent may not be the incumbent’s lair after all. Opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema, didn’t just win; the incumbent, Edgar Lungu, accepted defeat and congratulated the winner. But hopes that Zambia’s election could be a turning point have since dissipated, as soldiers in the West African country of Guinea overthrew the civilian government while the continent was still savouring its…
One month from now, Nigeria’s last batch of states created in 1996 to bring the total to 36, would turn 25 years old. The last batch of six states – Ebonyi, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Gombe and Ekiti – was created by the military head of state, General Sani Abacha, on October 1, 1996. Post-Abacha, agitation for more states has continued, which is hardly surprising for a country with over 300 ethnic nationalities, where diversity has been disastrously mismanaged in recent times. Till date, no civilian government has created any state and that trend seems set to continue. The…
