The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) must be ‘commended’ here for standing up to the clueless federal government led by the underwhelming President, Muhammadu Buhari. Commended not because we are unaware of the consequences of their on-going 7-month strike action but because they are determined to make education a priority in the budget of the federal government. Inside many university campuses there is this decay of infrastructure; the salaries and emoluments of the lecturers are nothing tangible to write home about. No one in his sane mind would blame the academic staff for embarking on the strike given the…
Author: Ozodinukwe Okenwa
From London where he held official meetings with Nigerian politicians (including ‘Baba’ Olusegun Obasanjo) the Labour Party presidential candidate in the forthcoming presidential poll of next year’s February, Peter Obi, flew to the Americas, (Canada and the United States), for some lectures, town-hall meetings and interviews. Before the USA/Canada trip he had stopped over in Germany and Italy to interact with Nigerians living in the two European countries. Obi has since returned to Nigeria to continue with the ‘Obidient’ movement. As September 28 approaches, a date set aside by the Independent National Electoral Commission for the official commencement of electioneering…
Kenya and Nigeria have few things in common. Like Nigeria Kenya is an Anglophone country where English language is generally spoken. Like Nigeria the east African country is an economic ‘superpower’ as Nigeria in West Africa. Like Nigeria Kenya had experienced politico-social turmoils and bloodshed in their chequered national history. Like Nigeria ethno-religious politics is often used nefariously by depraved politicians to divide and rule the people. Unlike Nigeria, however, Kenya has enjoyed certain relative political stability post-independence. Though political violence had reared its ugly head following disputed presidential poll results the country has never experienced a military coup –…
It had happened before in the city of Onitsha, Anambra State. Months ago the Nollywood popular actor, Chiwetalu Agu, popularly known as ‘Ogwu’, wearing the Biafran flag colours, was arrested by some patrolling military personnel. He was almost manhandled as he was picked up along the ever-busy Upper Iweka Road while distributing money and food items to the needy. He had stopped by to play charity only to meet a bad fate. From Onitsha Agu was flown to Enugu and from the Coal City to Abuja where he was detained for days. His only ‘offense’, nay crime, was his temerity…
Ninety six years on earth and seventy years on the throne! If that milestone is not remarkably historic then nothing would. For a powerful woman who exercised power without complex, for a graceful great grand-mother who believed in the resurrected Christ and His power of community and love towards everyone, for a modern Queen who had seen it all, from World War II to the revolutionary advent of the Internet, from COVID-19 pandemic to the smooth transition from Empire to independence by many countries colonized, the United Kingdom’s longest-serving monarch was an epitome of greatness and ‘stateswomanship’. The Queen of…
The United Kingdom has a new Prime Minister, the youthful 47-year old Ms Mary Elizabeth Truss, (Liz Truss), who replaced the controversial Boris Johnson at 10 Downing Street in London. The former Foreign Secretary defeated the dour Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a keenly contested election to become the ruling Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister. She polled 81,326 votes to Sunak’s 60,399 comfortably coasting home to victory with 57 per cent of the total votes cast. She is the fourth Conservative leader to occupy 10 Downing Street since 2010 when the Tories took power from…
Comrade Omoyele Sowore, the indefatigable Publisher of SaharaReporters and popular human rights advocate, is one great Nigerian who needs no introduction. Right from his eventful years at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), decades ago, as a firebrand radical student union leader Comrade Sowore had made up his mind on what the future represented and his crucial role in the emergence of that bright future. Instead of choosing the easy convenient way he chose the hard way — imprisonment, torture, inconvenience and confrontation with the aging corrupt elite making our collective lives a living hell! Comrade Sowore is the official candidate…
Libya in north Africa means many things to many people — Libyans, Africans, Europeans, Asians and Americans. For the Libyans themselves, following the tragic demise of their long-reigning dictator, Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi, it was like a ‘paradise’ of a beautiful country lost. For other Africans (Nigerians included) Libya represents a state torn apart between organized terrorism, chaos and anarchy. To the Europeans and Americans Libya is a failed state without any strong institution still left standing. The former French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose NATO-sanctioned military intervention in Libya saw to the demystification and liquidation of the maximum eccentric leader, was…
Lately, London is playing host to a whole lot of meetings involving Nigerian politicians. The British glittering royal capital city is already known as a cosmopolitan city hosting some famous great universities in the world including Oxford and Cambridge. Great Britain has many things, colonially-speaking, in common with the emaciated giant of Africa, Nigeria. Apart from being indirectly blamed for the current politico-social mess in Nigeria (the Lord Frederick Lugard infamous 1914 amalgamation in mind) London is not intervening strongly in the current struggle to liberate Nigerians from the Buharian Fulani killing spree. Indeed, it is inconceivable that the late…
Earlier this week the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) held its 62nd Annual General Conference. It took place at Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. The Conference, themed “BOLD Transitions” was scheduled to hold between August 19 to 26 this year. Special guests included the PDP presidential candidate in the February’s presidential poll, Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi. The APC flagbearer, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu sent in his vice-presidential partner, Senator Kashim Shettima, to represent him. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP was conspicuously absent. But the former Kano State Governor had since issued a statement explaining…
Without mincing words the current National Assembly in Abuja (NASS) under the rudderless leadership of Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has shown itself shamefully to be unpatriotically underwhelming in terms of legislative performance. The last Senate under the able leadership of Bukola Saraki had been patriotic, professional and fiercely-independent. Though the former Governor of Kwara State has many baggages bordering on graft he displayed quality leadership as he piloted the affairs of the upper chamber of the federal parliament. Before Saraki was another former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, under whose effective…
Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born British/American famous author, has grown gradually old attaining the ‘golden’ age of 75 lately. He was still in his early 40s when he wrote ‘The Satanic Verses’, a hugely controversial literary work, nay ‘bloody’ book, that threw him into international fame and limelight. Before authoring ‘The Satanic Verses’ considered widely as ‘blasphemous’ to the Islamic faith the great bespectacled academic had penned ‘Midnight Children’, his first book that sold millions of copies globally. An atheist the man had been described by many of his Islamic traducers as an ‘apostate’ who should not live but die! Just…
Recently, the presidential flagbearer of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, met with the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, in Prof. Jerry Gana’s residence in Abuja. Reportedly, the meeting went well and in the end a Committee was set up by both parties to find a lasting solution to the feud involving the Governor and his group on one hand and the former Vice-President and his loyalists on the other. It is no longer a secret that there is no love lost lately between Atiku and Wike, the latter having suffered defeat at the PDP National Convention…
Sam Omatseye, the Editorial Board Chairman of the Nation Newspaper based in Lagos and its weekly Columnist, made a dubious name for himself lately following his vicious essay last week Monday entitled ‘Obi-tuary’. Since the publication of the offensive defamatory piece Omatseye has been at the critical receiving end of angry reactions from the ‘Obi-dients’ and non-Obi-dients alike. Omatseye had desperately sought to kill Obi politically by announcing his untimely ‘obituary’. However, what he was getting thus far must have rankled him to no end since it has gone beyond his expectation. No article of his for years had generated…
Professor Okey Ndibe is a great intellectual I hold in high esteem. We had communicated in the distant past via email. He happens to hail from Anambra State just like yours truly, him Amawbia and me, Ihiala. We both wrote in an online platform, Nigeria Village Square, many years ago. He was a voice of reason, a great patriotic Nigerian with rich academic credentials. We shared a principled stance about how Nigeria, our country, had been run aground by a rapacious elite and how, through our collective interventions, we could give a helping hand towards her redemption. Prof. Ndibe recently…
Penultimate weekend at wee hours of the night I was deeply asleep when a good friend of mine based in the States gave me a rude awakening as it were. The call came pleasantly surprisingly and unexpectedly. Usually I sleep early in the night to be able to be awake at dawn early enough for some physical and mental exercises but on this particular weekend my beloved daughter had kept me awake late into the night. We were watching a movie and she never blinked her eyes until the thriller ended. Her mother and junior brother had long slept but…
Recently, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the upcoming presidential poll of February next year, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presented his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, to the public at the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja. The unveiling of the former Governor of Borno State has since been mired in national controversy over the cassock scam that went with it. After the presentation the APC duo, accompanied by the party’s executives, visited President Muhammadu Buhari at Aso Villa. While there, the embattled underwhelming President had assured Shettima that he would be handing over power to his boss (Tinubu)…
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party lost the recent gubernatorial poll in Osun State. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won the election with a wide margin. Senator Ademola Adeleke trounced the incumbent Governor, Gboyega Oyetola. He garnered 403,371 votes to defeat Governor Oyetola who polled negligible 375,027 votes. With Osun State as the latest addition the PDP boasts of two frontline states in Yorubaland (Oyo state included) leading to the general elections of next year. Indeed, it was a refreshing victory worth celebrating. And the triumphant victor danced happily in a blissful atmosphere of ‘revenge’ and triumph of…
After attacking and denigrating the detained Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the notorious ex-Niger Delta militant leader and founder of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, Mujaheed Asari Dokubo, (58) seems to have shifted his venomous attention towards the Labour Party presidential hopeful, Peter Obi, lately. He had described Obi as a “big scammer”, in town. And followed it up later by saying that the former Anambra State Governor was “a total misfit, a Glorified Yahoo-Yahoo”. Dokubo concluded by declaring that Obi had not what it takes to defeat both the PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and the…
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate for the February next year’s presidential poll, recently announced the former Governor of terror-ravaged Borno State, Senator Kashim Shettima, as his running mate. Since that announcement was made public following Tinubu’s Sallah homage to President Muhammadu Buhari in his Daura country home, reactions had trailed it. Asiwaju knew that his choice would definitely elicit positive and negative responses. Many were pleasantly surprised by the Tinubu decision. And many more had been very critical of same. Let us examine together the pros and cons of that historic decision and…
President Muhammadu Buhari, in his junketing best element, was among the Commonwealth Heads of State and government that attended the Commonwealth Summit in the city of Kigali, Rwanda, recently. The British Crown Prince, Charles, was present as well as the representatives of the two Francophone countries newly admitted into the fold, Togo and Gabon. The lately-embattled British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, equally made the trip to Rwanda. The Queen, Elizabeth, could be said to be too old and frail to preside over proceedings, so she stayed behind in England. Attaining nearly a century and celebrating over seventy years on the…
Among the declared candidates for the presidential poll slated for February next year controversy continues to trail the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu. As a former Senator and Governor of Lagos State Tinubu has indeed left a legacy, positive or negative, worth remembering and talking about. Tinubu is not afraid of controversies and he continues to court same given his antecedents and ‘life-long ambition’ to become President by hook or by crook. As a ‘kingmaker’ who made even the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, President it remains to be seen how far he would go in…
Interesting times await Nigerians as we march inexorably towards the 2023 presidential poll. The poll, for all intents and purposes, would be interesting in so many ways. For one, the fumbling ailing incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, would not be participating in the poll. The constitution bars him from taking another shot at the presidency having done two consecutive terms. And he had responsibly declared his intention to abide by that constitutional exigency. Therefore, the incumbency factor would not be playing itself out, sometimes fostering electoral crimes and impunity. In Nigeria in particular and Africa in general incumbency factor plays a…
Dr Ifeanyichukwu Arthur Okowa was born in 1959 at Owa-Alero in Ika North-East Local Government Area of Delta State. He is presently the Executive Governor of Delta State. A member of the Peoples Democratic Party, he is the party’s vice presidential candidate in the upcoming February next year’s presidential poll. Okowa had worked very hard indeed before becoming the Delta State Chief Executive having started his political career as a Secretary in his local government area. He is both affable and gentle, qualities that are in sharp contrast to politicians back home who see themselves as gods playing personality cult…
The Nigerian Senate is reputed to be the most expensive legislative institution of the state. They produce little but are rewarded abominably! Concerned Nigerians (including the radical presidential candidate of the AAC, Comrade Omoyele Sowore) are calling for the scrapping of the upper and lower legislative chambers. The huge resources invested in maintaining the two parliament should ordinarily be channeled towards other developmental needs of the nation. The Senate and the House of Representatives are notorious for the outlandish emolument and other constituency projects shelled out by the federal government for their maintenance. We would not be party to the…
The Spiritual Director of Adoration Ministry, Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), and Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka is a Catholic Priest who courts controversy and sees himself as an ecumenical ‘star’ awaiting heaven. Unlike a rock star who cares less about heaven Mbaka hopes to have his paradise both here on earth and hereafter, in heaven! No one is sure who would make heaven whenever Armaggedon happens. God operates in an unusual way that baffles mortals. But He remains a God of justice, love and kindness. The mundane rock star like a prostitute could make heaven whereas those shouting ‘hallelujah’ hypocritically could end…
For many Nigerians, the 2023 general elections present an important opportunity for a change in trajectory, owing to the aimless drift of the Nigerian state under the incumbent administration. The election will take place amid devastating levels of insecurity, a deteriorating economic situation, endemic corruption, increased poverty levels and a growing discontentment with the government. With political parties concluding their state congresses and national conventions to pick their candidates for legislative and executive branch offices, intense political activities have commenced and the campaign for Nigerians to get their Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) is ramping up. Women are told to deny…
I must start this piece by confessing that I have never met Comrade Omoyele Sowore in person before. While it is true that for the past decade I have been writing on his SaharaReporters website we only communicated via email. I hold Sowore in high esteem because when he was in the University of Lagos doing his higher education I was in Benin City equally pursuing a better future academically. I began respecting him because as the UNILAG student union President (then) he stood for democracy and the rule of law even against grave risk to his young and promising…
Mrs Ukamaka Ejezie, popularly called ‘Mama Biafra’, was arrested outside the Federal High Court premises following the appearance of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in court weeks ago. The 80-year old grandmother’s offense for which she was whisked away remained in the realm of imagination. Neither the DSS nor the federal government had made any declaration to that effect. She is still languishing in solitary confinement! The octogenarian-grandmother is said to be the foster mother of Kanu acting as his biological mother since his parents died few years ago. She has been in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS)…
The former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, is not a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) but Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is said to be the ‘National Leader’ of the party. Fayose still belongs to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Like the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, Fayose is a PDP man at heart. He cannot, in all fairness, be said to be a political prostitute jumping from one political bed to another with strange bedfellows. If every politician in Nigeria were like him and Gov. Wike then politics of ideology and principles would be…
