When Muhammadu Buhari ran for president in 2011, he made a solemn pledge to Nigerians: “This campaign is the third and last one for me. I will not offer myself again for election into the office of president.”

What is the forthcoming 2015 presidential election about? Let us first identify what it is not about. It is not about improving the economy of Nigeria. If you insist it is, then you will need to tell me what either the PDP or the APC has told Nigerians it will do with regard to the economy. As a matter of fact, the only party whose economic programme we know is the PDP. At least, we can see what it has been able to achieve in the last 16 years. However, the APC is barely one year old. I need someone to tell me the economic policy of the APC. It is non-existent.

It is customary to refer to members of the House of Representatives as “honorable.” In which case, the appropriate title for the current Speaker might be the Right Honorable Aminu Tambuwal. But the activities of the Speaker over the last four years, capped by his recent defection to the APC, shows that such a title would be grossly misplaced if applied to him.

It is increasingly apparent that if Jonathan is “clueless,” his “cluelessness” is the magic that Nigeria needs at this very moment in time. By the time you are reading this, by the grace of God, the 218 kidnapped Chibok school-girls may have been released. If not, their release is imminent. A ceasefire with the Boko […]

In Nigeria, nobody gets elected as president on the platform that he is going to be an anti-corruption crusader when he gets into office.

I am the Chairman of Financial Nigeria International Limited. As chairmanships go, it is an honorary position. All the work is actually done by the Managing Editor, Jide Akintunde, who is really my employer; and his able assistant, Martins Hile. The company publishes Financial Nigeria magazine; a development and finance journal that provides an in-depth digest of the Nigerian economy and other frontier economies in sub Saharan Africa every month. I write a column in this on “Nigeria and the World.”

The English have an expression: “give a dog a bad name in order to kill it.” It refers to the malicious misrepresentation of someone in order to discredit him. This has been strategy of the opposition to Goodluck Jonathan to date.

Everything turns upside down in Nigeria. Logic becomes illogical. Wisdom becomes foolishness. Two plus two becomes seven. Hospitals become mortuaries. Stealing is not corruption. Education is a sin. In Nigeria, so many things fly in the face of simple commonsense.

The fact that Nigeria is a country with some 350 ethnic groups makes it imperative that we must always be politically mindful of ethnic, religious and regional considerations. Failure to do this on the idealistic grounds that the quality of our public officials is more important than their ethnic and religious origin is bound to be problematic.

If you have not noticed it already, a new season has dawned in Nigerian politics. That season is one of carpet-crossing back to the PDP. About a year ago, there was a rash of defections from the PDP to the APC. Nearly 40 legislators left the ruling party for the opposition. Five PDP governors also followed suit. But now the movement is a one-way trajectory in the opposite direction. APC members are having buyers’ remorse and are making their way back as prodigal sons to the PDP.

We need to admit the truth; Nigeria no longer has an army worth its salt. The Nigerian army of today is a pathetic shadow of its glorious past. This explains why it is proving grossly inadequate at checkmating a Boko Haram army of some 10,000 men. As a matter of fact, ranged against the insurgency in the North-East, the army is now staring abject defeat in the face.

In my article on the recent election in Osun State, provocatively titled “How APC Lost the Osun Election;” I was lavish in praising the INEC. I said: “Attahiru Jega is by far Nigeria’s best public-servant. He is yet again, the real winner of the Osun election; and he is doing a fantastic job transforming the electoral-process in Nigeria for the better and even the best. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Jega and his entire INEC team for the excellent job they have been doing.”

I don’t like early-morning phone-calls, but this one was a distress-call from Femi-Kevin. “Do you know that the doctor at First Consultants that contracted Ebola is Dr. Adadevoh?” he asked. He had to tell me this twice because his call woke me up. I tried not to believe it. In a very selfish and foolish manner, I wished it were not her but someone else. But if it were someone else, that someone else would also be somebody.

The Northern Elders Forum, the apostles of “the North is born to rule,” finally played their joker. They maintained that if the government does not #Bring Back Our Girls by the end of October, 2014, Jonathan should forget about running for re-election.

My first impressions are usually mistaken. If I have a good first-impression about someone, it generally turns out to be wrong. But if I have a bad first-impression, it usually turns out to be right. However, if my bad first-impression remains bad; or if my good first-impression remains good; it means my view of the person is bullet-proof.