Opinion

Did the activities of militants in the Niger Delta qualify as crime? Hell Yes! Militancy and kidnapping were a profitable pursuit in that oil-rich region in the early 2000s. Kidnapping as an organised venture entered our national lexicon at…

The biggest piece of happy-ending news in Nigeria in the month of February 2021 is the endorsement of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) by the United States. The South Korean…

Over the last one week, millions of Nigerians have expressed concern about which direction I am going politically and much has been said.Some have gone out of their way to reach out to me and offered their counsel out of genuine love…

Let me give due credit for the idea of this piece. President Muhammadu Buhari had said recently that elites in the country were not giving due accolades to his administration in terms of where it met the country, what it grapples with, and…

The idea of having a near-perfect country out of a ruptured Nigeria is illusory. The composite parts of the country each contribute to the miasma of confusion that Nigeria is. No single entity is responsible for Nigeria’s problems. All the…

On Sunday, February 14, the Nigerian Presidency in a statement signed by spokesman Garba Shehu reportedly affirmed that President Muhammadu Buhari is determined to ensure the protection of all religious and ethnic groups in the country,…

It is with a heavy heart, worry about Nigeria and a sense of impending doom that I am sending this message to my colleagues in the media.Let me begin with a question, what exactly will we gain if Nigeria descends into war? How does it…

On February 4, 2017, it was reported that the Congress of the United States had cited Nigeria as the worst place in the world to be a Christian.General Buhari’s minister of information, the aptly named Lai Mohammed, denied that this was…

There is more to Lai than meets the eye. He is more controversial than he is understood. And he has chalked up quite a reputation for himself as an unabridged talker. Lai does not mince his words. He says them as they erupt from his…

It is interesting that the leading political parties in the country, the APC and PDP, are completely silent and totally disconnected with the serious national challenges facing the nation.Politically, this is an incongruous aberration.…

Erin wo! The last of the Titans is gone. The glorious exit of the Second Republic governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, fills me with mixed feelings.He was blessed by the almighty with long life and a good and…

Almost everything in our country is accompanied by some sort of furore. You do, you are damned. You don’t do, you are damned. No wonder President Muhammadu Buhari often says in private conversations, when some tumults occur on certain…

Following the report about the controversial attempt by Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode to join the APC and the insistence by many APC members and leaders that Mr. Fani-Kayode is not welcome to join APC because he doesn’t have the values required to…

The rancor that occurred, Saturday, February 6, at the sitting of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry investigating the shootings and alleged killings at the Lekki Toll gate in Lagos in October 2020, in addition to reported cases of…

Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike is not a stranger to receiving awards or attracting commendations and recognitions for his numerous heroic and courageous acts.His visionary leadership, astute, strategic governance and exemplary crusading…

Let’s go back in time to May 2004, when the lands of Yelwa-Shendam, in Plateau State, had turned crimson. Primitive fury and hatred were unleashed, leading to internecine bloodbath. Hundreds and hundreds of people were killed along…

Many Nigerians were understandably shocked, surprised, if not alarmed last week, when they suddenly heard the news that the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari had finally decided to relieve the service chiefs appointed in 2015 of their…

I almost exclaimed "Et tu, Brute?" after reading Ike Abonyi’s piece with the title "Jonathan’s 2023 Selfish Gamble". Because if anybody should accuse former President Jonathan of selfishness, it should not be Ike, for obvious reasons.…

I have deliberately restrained myself from commenting on the issues of the criminality of the operations of some Fulani herdsmen in the South-West, Sunday Igboho,and the varied responses of Gov Makinde and Gov Akeredolu.Amazingly a…

People have very often asked this question whenever I and others who have been in government write something they consider useful or reasonable.Basically, this is because largely members of the public do not understand the intricacies…

After I left the isolation centre last year, I shared my experience and treatment with the public. This was in spite of the fact that at that time some veiled stigma was associated with being infected with COVID-19.The NCDC came out…

In the past week, in the South-Western part of Nigeria, we have been treated to stories of conflicts in Ondo and Oyo States between herdsmen, identified as Fulani, and the Yoruba owners of indigenous communities. In Ondo State, the issue at…

It was in 2009. The Appeal Court sitting in Ilorin ordered a rerun in a number of polling units in the election between Segun Oni of PDP and Dr Kayode Fayemi of ACN.Oni had in the main election and the election petition tribunal that…

Nigeria needs to be restructured. Just look at Nigeria today. This truth is staring us in our collective faces.The current ethnic and religious clashes bedevilling Nigeria are symptoms of the disease. They themselves are not the…

Probably the most irresponsible comment ever made about the Boko Haram tragedy that has been visited on Nigeria is that made by the incumbent Governor of Borno state, Professor Babagana Zulum, whereby he abdicated responsibility for the…

When you read the rhetoric of the honchos of the Buhari regime on the ongoing tensile stress between Fulani herders and the Yoruba, it's hard not to come away with the conclusion that the regime is actually going out of its way to actively…

There’s no year I attend the Wreath Laying Ceremony marking the Armed Forces Remembrance Day Celebration that I don’t shed a tear or two. Secret tears. Yes, secret, as men don’t want to be seen giving way to emotions in public. But why not?…

Rivers State was on the global map for three weeks as eminent citizens of Nigeria joined Governor Nyesom Wike to commission projects in 11 Local Government Areas of the State.This unprecedented development coming at a time most leaders…

On November 2, 2016, a week before the US Presidential elections of Nov. 8, 2016, Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature told a group of students at Oxford University’s Eretgun House that if Donald Trump was elected…