What Ishaq Oloyede’s tenure says about JAMB, by Azu Ishiekwene
If the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was sick when Professor Ishaq Oloyede was appointed registrar 10 years ago, it might have been said that even great institutions have their difficult times. That’s not unusual. But JAMB wasn’t sick. It was dying and becoming so irrelevant that those it was supposed to serve were wishing […]
Africa and the deadly dust from Iran, by Azu Ishiekwene
These are sad times. Who could have believed that after the US and its allies destroyed Iraq in search of “weapons of mass destruction” and found none, history would repeat itself as a farce? In neighbouring Iran, 35 years after Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. has launched a consequential war, only this time without even the […]
El-Rufai: What a good turn didn’t deserve, by Azu Ishiekwene
My mother used to warn me that the words of my mouth could claim my head if I weren’t careful. She should have saved that warning for another man: Nasir el-Rufai, former minister and governor of Kaduna State. I’ve often joked that even if you beheaded El-Rufai and minced his skull, his tongue would still be […]
The Road to a Doctor’s Nigeria, by Azu Ishiekwene
There Was a Country, lamented Chinua Achebe, Nigeria’s literary icon and one of the world’s greatest storytellers. Achebe’s title evokes many things in the mind beyond its primary thematic concern – a journal of the author’s experiences of the Biafran War, which raged between 1967 and 1970. Among other things, it raises the question: What happened […]
To catch an election thief, by Azu Ishiekwene
Nigerian elections never end. But the cycle gets into overdrive roughly one year before a fresh general election. This is somewhat understandable. Politicians seeking re-election and those who want to displace them are high on political testosterone. It’s their season of sowing wild oats, casting nets, hosting conclaves, joining covens, and forging alliances for the good, […]
Can we quench the fire that might start in Mali? By Azu Ishiekwene
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – three rogue states that have formed an Alliance of Sahelian States, AES, to resist external pressure from ECOWAS on military rule – have just won the biggest diplomatic jackpot beyond their wildest imagination. Not even a sorcerer would have guessed that, as a reward for their delinquency, this trio would […]
