The city of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital gathered on Tuesday,16th February, 2021 to celebrate the life and times of one of the country’s all-time amazon and great patriot, Hon (Amb) Bolere Elizabeth Ketebu. When she passed exactly one month ago on 16th January 2021 at the age of 66, an avalanche of tears and lamentations came in overwhelming quantities from allover the country and around the world. But having passed the initial shock and sharp agony of her exit, all have come to appreciate more poignantly, her life of unusual achievements which was multifaceted. Mrs. Ketebu was a Medical Doctor, a…
Author: Godknows Boladei Igali
(Protocol) INTRODUCTION Let me start by appreciating the organizers of this conference for creating this forum to enable us parley and exchange ideas on the journey which we have embarked upon during the last half century and also chat a way forward for our children. I specially would like to appreciate the Nzuko Umunna (the Igbo Think Tank), Ovation International, Njeje Media, and our own indefatigable Professor Pat Utomi, the Chairman of the Conference Planning Committee for putting this together; especially in creating an auspiciously convivial atmosphere and bringing in such a distinguished array of speakers and participants. I would…
More poignantly, day-to-day, the crimson truth sinks deep, that “no man knows the day or the hour”. None! So the date 19th November 2020 may not elapse nippily in the memory of many Nigerians of present day. If for nothing, for the fact that one of the nation’s most fanatical patriots, Albert Egbaroghene Okumagba, suddenly checked out of this realm. Born on the last year of baby-boomers (4th April, 1964), he was merely 56 years old at death; way too short from even the Biblical nethermost of “three-score and ten”. He was still bubbling, ebullient and characteristically of highest cognitive…
For an Armed Forces ranked as 42nd in global military strength and considered the largest standing army in Black Africa, the passing of a “mere” Captain, in the midst of so many decorated Generals in Nigeria would normally be titling. However, the death of Captain Samuel Timinipre Owonaro at the age of 76 on 16th June 2020, and his final laying to rest on Saturday 28th November, 2020 following the relaxion of Covid-19 protocols, has attracted attention in different quarters for some curious reasons. The riddle around this wartime Captain arises from the fact that he is the lone survivor…
In what is obviously one of the greatest moments of cold chills which any human community could have felt, the Niger-Deltans and Nigerians are, this season, reminded of man’s pitiable duel with mortality as they set to lay to final rest, Nigeria’s first Minister of Petroleum Resources Dr Mofia Akobo, and leading leftist intellectual Professor Kimse Okoko, back-to-back on 10th and 17th October, 2020 respectively. These two sombre events come against a backdrop of a year of unprecedented losses ran riot by Corona Virus (Covid-19) or varied natural causes, which afflicted both great and small, royalties and simple, political hierarchy…
The closing days of the month of September each year will, for a long time to come, be moments of perpetual memorial for the Nigerian Supreme Court as an institution and its members, past and present. This is understandably so, as the lives and times of two of Nigeria’s most eminent jurists, moralists and pathfinders, the late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa (1924-2014), and his younger colleague and brother, Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte (1932-2020), will for related reasons be remembered and celebrated. For Justice Oputa, this time of the year particularly 24th September, marks his birthday and on this occasion, it was the…
One of Nigeria’s most outstanding military-diplomats, General Ike Omar Sanda Nwachukwu, turns 80 years today, 1st September, 2020. Born in the “Garden City” of Port-Harcourt, this urbane-debonair-cavalier and gentlemanly former military officer, stands tall and celebrated as the man with the mida’s touch, who brought aggressive economic engagement to define Nigeria’s foreign policy. A SOLDEIR AND NATIONAL SERVICE Ike Omar Sanda who joined the Nigerian army in 1963 alongside other very eminent military leaders such as Generals Y.Y. Kure, A.B. Mamman, amongst others, is renowned for his patriotism. While speaking at the Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference in Ibadan…
The progressive march of human civilization, especially in science and technology in the last two centuries had seemed to make the world in which we live fairly foreseeable and predictable in almost all spheres. As a matter of fact, humanity, at certain times, had been tempted to crow, quite deafeningly about already living in the future. How untrue. “The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways, we are, in some ways we are not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence”,…
It is simply implausible but real, that ten odd years have passed, exactly on last 5th day of May, 2020, since Nigeria found itself in the deep melancholy of laying to rest its 13th President, Umar Musa Yar’Adua. He was overtly pious, humble and was rather beatific. He called himself a Servant Leader, a euphemism that forebode his short, but impressive high national service. But then, he was fifth on the line of former leaders of the country to have died while in active service. OUR NATIONAL PATRIMONIAL HEARTBREAKS In retrospect, Nigeria has had a fair share of deaths in…
The 2020 celebration of the March 8 International Women’s Day in Nigeria had an added significance and flavour, as the country was awakened to the news of the appointment of one of its highly valued daughters, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as a member of South Africa’s Economic Advisory Council. Considering the sophistication and global standing of the economy of that sister African Country, most Nigerian women, enlightened enough to understand what was going on, shared a feeling of great euphoria. Well, the appointment of this Nigerian woman to serve in a high position of trust in a kindred African country is…
