Popular song star, Stella Monye of Oko Mi fame is no doubt a polyvalent artists. Apart from her very ambitious 1000 mics women empowerment NGO that aspires to change the musical career of Nigerian women artists, Monye, also recently added fashion brand to her large and growing creative talent through the introduction of a cloth line called, Samba Clothes. In this interview the Delta State born artist spoke to arts on Sunday about her new found pet.

Against all odds, the four year old, Life in My City festival last month held in the coal city of Enugu; and from a ll candid estimations, the show came out stronger both in organization and in the quality of works that scaled through regional contests held across the federation to make for the national grand finale that held at Nike Lake Hotel, Enugu.

The month of November is a very bad month for the people of the Niger Delta States of Nigeria. It was the month in which in 1995 that vibrant writer and environmental activist, Ken Saro Wiwa was murdered by the dictators of the Nigerian State. Since after that primitive wasting of a creative voice, the Nigerian literary community has decided to honour the month of November as some kind of memorial in honour of the departed writer.

Many societal problems have defied solution in Nigeria. Poor public power supply and failed elections are among those which easily come to mind. But the king of them all is the issue of corruption- a phenomenon which has been part of our national life from time immemorial.

It’s not easy to get people to see the blessings in their lives, but many ladies responded positively to our view that, even though there’s still room for a lot of improvement in all areas of the lives of Nigerian women, we also have reasons to celebrate emancipation on several fronts since independence .
Understandably, those who are convinced that we can raise our glasses and cheer, are the older ladies.

This petition would not have become necessary if the President of Nigeria, who is a candidate, and you, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had not vowed to conduct a free and fair election.

President Goodluck Jonathan has broken his silence on the controversial Executive Bill to amend the Electoral Act rejected by the Senate, saying he did not smuggle any clause into the bill to favour his presidential bid.

Last Wednesday, the nation had to contend with a national strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), over national minimum wage. As usual, interest groups, anxious to be in the good books of the government of the day, made appeals to the labour unions to call off the strike even before it took off.

I do not like the negative points our law makers are earning for themselves. If what they are doing is in line with the behaviour and mindset of those who govern, then theirs draws more angst than what people think of the executive and the judiciary.

Having discussed in previous essays some pertinent issues arising from recent conflicting judgments of different courts with respect to corruption charges and electoral fraud preferred against some prominent Nigerians, I think it is appropriate to investigate the role of morality (if any) in Nigerian politics.

Elsewhere in several previous pieces I had discussed, especially when the Lars and the Ganas were steeped in spiritual stupor of, the ‘divine’, the ‘providential’ and in one or two titles of this column, even of the indefensibly zodiacal.

Nigeria’s national security doctrine has long been based on a theory of good-neighborliness. This doctrine is based on assumptions that Nigeria as a nation is no threat to her neighbours and therefore has no reasons to fear external attack.

It is a sad fact that we can’t get all we want in a partner in just one package, making a chunck of women to choose a husband for ‘sensible’ reasons – momentarily forgetting the passion of the hot lovers they’d had in the past. Why is it that men who are studs seldom make reliable husband material?

A middle aged man takes a walk with an attractive woman in a beautiful European city. They walk hand in hand and seem just like any other couple. They walk effortlessly with the assurance of the confidence in themselves and their feelings, nothing new, no big deal; the world is full of couples!!

Fitch Ratings recently lowered its sovereign credit outlook on Nigeria to negative from stable, citing the depletion of its windfall oil savings and heightened political uncertainty ahead of elections next year.