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Is Nigeria now back to military rule?
LAST November, the military deployed its troops in the Southeast for Operation Python Dance I to, as they claimed, tackle all sorts of crimes and agitations. There were protests against the deployment,...
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IPOB, Python Dance and terrorism
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has been listening only to himself and his aides who tell him what he wants to hear. Two weeks ago, this column urged him, in his futile struggles with alienated groups in...
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Lai Mohammed must tone down effusions
THE Information minister, Lai Mohammed, must have heard it said repeatedly that he has not quite successfully and completely transited from opposition party spokesman to ruling party and government...
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Prof Akinyemi on Buhari, restructuring
IN an interview he granted the Sunday Punch last Sunday, former External Affairs minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, suggests that the buck to reorder the country stops squarely with President Muhammadu Buhari....
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Nigeria at 57: The deep calls unto deep
IN an analysis by James Wan published in African Arguments last week and posted on the internet on September 28, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo was at his pontifical and bombastic best railing against...
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Kachikwu’s letter sparks something sinister
In the days ahead, officials of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, like many other analysts, will be tempted to focus almost exclusively on the contents of the August 30th letter written to the president...
View ArticleSweeping the Kachikwu-Baru imroglio under the carpet
As this column feared when the feud between the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti...
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Ajimobi, Olubadan, Buhari and Southwest APC
In his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari last Tuesday, Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State served what looked like a specially brewed Ibadan chieftaincy storm in a tea cup before the inscrutable...
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Austria, France and youth leadership myths
When on May 7 Emmanuel Macron, 39, was elected as the youngest president in France’s modern history, it was thought that it signalled a great generational shift not only in Europe but in the world. The...
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Na’Abba’s theory of accidental leaders
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, two weekends ago reiterated what is universally acknowledged in these parts, that Nigerian presidents and heads of state assumed...
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Justice Salami’s example of character and candour
WHen he was appointed in late September as chairman of the 15-member committee to monitor financial crime and corruption cases, Justice Ayo Salami, who was controversially ousted as President of the...
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Buhari keen on second term
No top politician who has spoken about President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term ambition has been unequivocal. Some of them talk of him with their customary tentativeness, quibbling about “if he...
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Igbo and the magical year 2023
By some general and unexplainable consensus, the Igbo have begun to campaign for the presidency of Nigeria to be vouchsafed to them in 2023. In furtherance of this great scheme, many of their leading...
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PDP and APC’s presidential endorsements
When two Tuesdays ago the power elite of the All Progressives Congress (APC) all but endorsed the unstated second term ambition of President Muhammadu Buhari, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party...
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El-Rufai’s activism and Kaduna teachers
FOR the first time in over two years, Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, has finally happened upon a popular cause befitting his populism. After compelling primary school teachers to take a...
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Obiano and Southeast bask in electoral euphoria
GOVERNOR Willie Obiano’s victory in last Saturday’s Anambra State governorship poll was even more emphatic than pundits had anticipated. By all accounts, he was projected to win, but by a slimmer...
View ArticleDSS, EFCC in intractable tussle
INTER-agency wars and mutual suspicion between establishments whose functions overlap are fairly commonplace in many parts of the world. But the brutal, shameless and continuing war between the...
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The Atiku response
AT 71 years old, former vice president Atiku Abubakar probably thinks 2019 may be his last chance at running for the Nigerian presidency. He will be 72 years old when and if he runs. The oldest man yet...
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FJSC, Court of Appeal’s controversial repudiation of standards
IN January when the then Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, announced a paradigm shift in the appointment of appellate justices, this column, after observing arguments on the subject,...
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Osinbajo, Onnoghen and appointment of justices, March 5, 2017
AFTER the Department of State Service (DSS) raided the residences of some top judges in Abuja, two of whom were justices of the Supreme Court, it was clear that the judiciary was ripe for radical...
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