I RECALL a phone call I had with elder statesman and South-South leader, Chief E.K Clark in 2009 when then President Umaru Yar’Adua mooted the idea of a Niger Delta Ministry when agitations from the oil-producing zone reached its crescendo. I did say that Niger Delta should not think that a ministry would address its concerns as the Ministry of Education has not given us education and that we lack electricity despite the Ministry of Power.

By Yinka  Odumakin WE spoke the whole truth that restructuring Nigeria back to Federalism will not solve all our problems but we cannot solve any of the nationhood crises comforting us today without it. Mallam Garba Shehu’s faux pas on Sunday proved us right once again as he spoke from the abundance of the heart […]

IN a season when Nigerian seers and prophets are either not hearing from God or are afraid of maximum rule to declare “thus sayeth the Lord” over the country, the spirit of prophecy came over Alexander the son of Ogomudia who made undiluted pronouncement over a country driving carelessly to the edge of the precipice on the first day of December.

WHAT appears to be an obituary of literate Nigeria was pronounced on Saturday when one of the greatest men of letters Nigeria ever produced, Prof. J.P. Clark, asked a pregnant question. It was over lunch at the country home of his elder brother, Chief E.K Clark in Kiagbodo, Delta State shortly after the end of the maiden convocation of Edwin Clark University, ECU.

GREAT artists sometimes get prophetic and often more accurate than some professional prophets who engage in guesswork to remain relevant or bind their flocks. Upon reading an advance copy of Chinua Achebe’s novel, A Man of The People, Achebe’s friend, Nigerian poet and playwright, John Pepper Clark, declared: “Chinua, I  know you are a prophet. Everything in this book has happened except a military coup!” Nine days after the novel was published the first coup in Nigeria took place. Were it under the fertile minds of Nigerian crude order, the novelist would have been arrested for being accessory before the fact of the military interregnum.

Recently, I have been involved in advocacy in Ekiti State on strategies to keep girls in school. The trends in Girl-Child education across Africa at the moment indicate that enrolment levels are way up than where they were years ago, but a common problem is retention of girls in school.

THE lust for power seems to be bringing out a stupefying unreasonableness in some of our compatriots that is sure to become a source of disequilibrium for the fragile polity.

ECE Temelkuran is a  writer who commands attention for her investigative journalism and principled stand against the authoritarian slide in Turkey.

By Yinka Odumankin Nigerians want free and fair elections but they really don’t need it. I know what I am saying. Description A need is something that is necessary for an organism to live a healthy life. Needs are distinguished from wants in that, in the case of a need, a deficiency causes a clear […]

THOSE who know history will not find it very difficult to put a string to the lullabies of leading Arewa voices lately. Second Republic House of Representatives member, Dr Junaid Mohammed and former Vice-Chancellor of ABU and Convener of Northern Elders Forum,Prof Ango Abdullahi have lately been leading voices in the unfortunate “Araba” orchestra from the land of DanFodio.