General Muhammadu Buhari, former military Head of state, has been many things: politician, statesman, soldier – and now he has added another plume to his hat: prophet. Come 2015, the General declared this week, there will be a showdown between the dogs and the baboons. That showdown will instigate a bloodtide never before witnessed in the annals of Nigeria. Buhari is an unlikely prophet, but I guess, these are unusual times. Prophecy is all the rage.
Nothing yet speaks more volubly and very pointedly about the crisis of late capitalism than the images out of London this past week, of off-duty English policemen joining in the street protests against the proposed austerity measures by the government of the United Kingdom.
Anybody who is still in doubt about the intentions of Boko to disorganize and take possession of the federal government must observe the pattern of escalation of their insurgency.
Nigerians are obviously by now already too numbed by the reports of public corruption at the highest places. There’s very little that is new about public corruption, nor anything in any scale now shocking or surprising about corruption in Nigeria. News of public corruption which could still scandalize and shock people in other places, and even sometimes make the devil blush with embarrassment, is now considered quite routine in Nigeria.
There is no innocent literary prize just as no writing is innocent and free of value. Every piece of writing is a political act, and every prize made to a writer is an act of validation and an expression of a given value – the specific and subjective value of the awarding institution. It has very little universal meaning.
This past week, a group from the South-South political zone of Nigeria made public its endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan for re-election in 2015. It is all in the larger scheme of things of course, but not unexpectedly, various reactions, some subtle, some more blatant, have accompanied the endorsement from this group purporting to be speaking for the South-South.
Last week I drew attention to this question of the loss of mission and the diminution of the enterprise of the Nigerian university. I pointed to the dire implications of “privatized” universities and university education, particularly in inadequate environments and limited structures, factors which lead to the production of ill-equipped, half-educated, and in fact dysfunctional university graduates.
A friend of mine sent me an e-mail last week, and his question in his mail was both amusing and troubling. He asked me to confirm that “our children in America are planning to build a university in our village.” Of course, “our children in America” are planning no such thing.
Unease continues to trail the Jonathan administration’s decision to cede the control of Nigeria’s strategic waterways to Global West Vessel Specialist Agency, a private company owned by Government Ekpemukpolo, known more generally as Tompolo.
The House Committee Chair on the Capital Market – and I do not know if this is not a duplication of functions that should normally be under the Financial Services committee or if it’s a sub-committee under the general rule, but nonetheless – Herman Iorwase Hembe, is looking to be L’Homme fatale and nothing more, in the drama playing out at the chambers of the House this past week.
It’s been long in the making, but it does seem finally that the future has arrived for oil. Crude oil as the world’s most important source of energy is on the decline. Last Wednesday, the US president, Barack Obama, declared oil so last century that it’s future as a source of energy is now a matter of time ticking: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
Niger State governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu unleashed the bag of storms in his statements recently calling for a more equitable or balanced revenue formula. In his assertion, there is great injustice in the current revenue structure and sharing formula in Nigeria.
Two weeks ago, the political leaders of the South-West and the South-South geo-political zones met with the president and demanded even more emphatically for the conveying of the Sovereign National Conference. It does seem that the president allied himself with that call. And that is a good thing.
It is not compromise. Compromise is a pragmatic means of negotiation. Appeasement is giving in to conditions that equal blackmail. It is unequal exchange. Ultimately, and in the long run, it undermines the goals and the fundamental objective of the enterprise.
News
- Islamists flee as AU, Somali troops seize rebel stronghold
- Nnaji admits “gross deficit” in electricity, promise better days
- FG to conduct survey on energy requirement
- Father of quadruplets gets employment
- South Africa to buy crude from Nigeria – Motlanthe
- Experts call for one world government
- Jonathan inaugurates scholarship scheme for first class graduates

