Okupe on Southwest marginalisation (1)
The elders of the Yoruba Unity Forum (YUF), and before them the Young Turks of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), have stridently complained about the indefensible marginalisation of the Southwest. The...
View ArticleOkupe on Southwest marginalisation (2)
Dr Doyin Okupe, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, lit a fire under the buttocks of squirming Yoruba leaders about 10 days ago when he blamed them for engendering the...
View ArticleThe return of Anenih
The return of Chief Tony Anenih as PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman is the most potent indication of the torment and crisis of confidence facing the ruling party. It was a terrible act of...
View ArticleAll Progressives Congress steals Jonathan’s thunder in Maiduguri
It may be too early to begin to speak in superlatives about the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party still in formation but comprising some four political parties determined to challenge the...
View ArticleTurmoil in Governors’ Forum
After the vicious cut and thrust of the past 10 days in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), few within and without the association now expect it to remain the same, either as influential as it was...
View ArticleJonathan infuriates Northeast the more
Given the central position the Northeast occupies in Nigeria’s insecurity map, it was expected that once the crown settled over his ears, President Goodluck Jonathan would dash to the region unsettled...
View ArticlePresident Jonathan’s extemporaneous love note to Borno, Yobe
From what I gathered from the governor of Yobe during my visit, the problem is coming down (abating). It is coming down in Adamawa, in Gombe, in Bauchi and in Niger. But in Borno, we still have some...
View ArticleAhmadu Ali’s fulminatory portrayal of the Southwest
It is easy to miss the Saturday Sun’s interview with Col Ahmadu Ali (retd), a former chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and also former Minister of Education. Often, no wisdom is...
View ArticleThe Alamieyeseigha pardon
I do not expect President Goodluck Jonathan to reverse or revisit the executive clemency he granted his former boss, former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, last week. He will ride out...
View ArticleAchebe departs in a blaze of controversy
I see Chinua Achebe differently from how others see him. Some see him rightly as the grandfather of African fiction, and others simply but also accurately see him as the father of African literature....
View ArticleRetrogression and paralysis in Africa and Nigeria
Less than a decade after most African countries got their flag independence, some of their leaders became acutely aware of the corrosive effects of neocolonialism. To counter this problem, they...
View ArticleThree long goodbyes
First published on December 30, 2012, this essay is reprinted today as a reminder of the salient contributions made to national and world affairs by Mandela, Bush and Thatcher. The three leaders, one...
View ArticleBoston Marathon bombings: Another family tragedy
After what seemed like eternity, the two brothers alleged to have planted the bombs that killed three people and injured more than 180 others at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday have...
View ArticleWhat Jonathan said when he visited Borno, Yobe (March 7-8, 2013)
“…Let me be very frank, because the analogy that oh, when one soldier is killed the soldiers come and kill scores of people, we have always been admonishing that. We always tell the soldiers to conduct...
View ArticleBaga massacre: Jonathan’s words return to haunt him
Two Fridays ago, soldiers of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) swooped on Baga, a fishing town on the shores of Lake Chad, Borno State, leaving in their wake some 185 people dead, many of them,...
View ArticleACN, UPN, pipeline contracts and OPC
Shortly before the inauguration of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, I travelled by public transport to Ilorin. Somewhere in Ibadan, we came upon a band of Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) toughs wielding various...
View ArticleDame Patience states her case
“We wish to say for the umpteenth time that the land matter had been taken out of context in the public domain, to create an impression that Dame Patience tried to take over a land previously allocated...
View ArticleBaga: Satellite evidence turns army logic on its head
Theoretically speaking, no one is certain that the death toll from the clash between the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) and Boko Haram insurgents in Baga, Borno State is as high as locals say or...
View ArticleTurai/Patience: Embarrassing land battle ends somewhat
After more than two years of nasty controversy over the revocation and reallocation of a prime land in Abuja, and an embarrassing court battle between two First Ladies over the same land, an Abuja High...
View ArticleThe fire-eating quartet of Jonathan, Amaechi, Kuku and Asari-Dokubo
The suspicion in many quarters is that President Goodluck Jonathan actually thinks he has done substantially well enough to justify his party presenting him for re-election in 2015. Kingsley Kuku, the...
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