In 2015, Governor Fayose told us about his 74 year old mother and her diapers.  He was desperate to paint the picture that a 73-year old would be too frail, too demented, to be president.  He bought front pages of  some national newspapers. He made  Buhari  the butt of deathly geriatric  jokes. In a few months, he would  return to the soap box.  Fayose would ( tell people to vote  for  a 73-year-old Atiku. Atiku would be 73 in 2019.  I  believe Atiku is fit. But  the Fayoses of the PDP would have to repackage  their tales.

Alex Ekwueme : A great man that lived in a mad country

Mugabe, Museveni , Biya and the stench of White hypocrisy – Dr. Ugoji Egbujo

Amina Mohammed came in 2015. The  trade was already flourishing. Ware houses in Lagos, Shagamu, Ijebu Ode were filled with logs of  rosewood (Kosso). Trucks plying interstate  roads sagged with heavy logs. Everywhere was all littered with wood.

The nation is in darkness. It needs stable Power. Mambila  Hydro Plant is a major plank in our power plans. Our contribution is 15% of the total cost. That contribution is 312 billion naira. We budgeted 18 billion naira for it in 2007. In 2018, we have proposed 9.8 billion naira.  Rome was not built in a day. 

Look away NERC, till the DISCOs have had us to their fill.  National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), you can pretend to be asleep.  After all they were all sleeping while  fugitive Maina  went around town in pomp and ceremony. If they wake you, tell them you  have not received any complaints. You don’t have to admit  you  know. You don’t have to confess  that  the  Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) have been reaping what they, and their ancestor, didn’t not sow.  The ordinary people have no stamina, no courage.

He was picked  to reform pensions. Yes, he hasn’t always been the face of corruption.  He discovered pension ghosts and their living cohorts. They had been draining the sweat and blood of  Nigerian workers.  He brought innovation.  He became an  anti corruption Czar. Monies were recovered, many were prosecuted. His sun looked like it would never set. 

We all know Rochas Okorocha.  I like him. He believes he is an orator. He believes he is on a political rescue mission. We know he is expansive, talks, and takes, on big things. We know he thinks Imo State is too small a stage for him. We know he is burdened by a  perhaps  […]

Malu, the General, is dead. He won many battles but succumbed to diabetes at 70. Reputed for hard work and professionalism, Malu was the ideal soldier. He went into the Nigerian Defence Academy  (NDA) when military fervour was at its peak, in 1967. He was commissioned in 1970. Biafra had surrendered. But life had other battles lined up for him.

Ministers often can’t see presidents, for many months. It’s common in Nigeria. It didn’t start today. Some ministers get fenced out. They attend executive council meetings like houseboys. They  run around their offices with air of exaggerated importance. They are mistaken as men of power.  They  servilely praise the president at every opportunity. They walk around with a façade of importance. But nothing more. They can’t see the president. They can’t confide in him.

It’s been so since the ages. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Victory or defeat eventually, unfortunately, decides the abiding epithet.  Mandela was once labelled a terrorist. Nnamdi Kanu, can take heart. That baptism could be reversed by history. Mandela won and became a world acclaimed freedom fighter. 

Biafra was justice and freedom. But Biafra has become a tool for charlatans, a toy for dissipation of youthful exuberance. Biafra once evoked Igbo unity and enterprise. But Biafra has now been appropriated by jobless opportunists who exploit the frustrations of their poor brothers. Biafra was Igbo fellowship. But this their  new Biafra  thrives on  cannibalizing  fellow Igbos. Biafra was consultation, consensus. This Biafra is now  extremism, hallucination, egocentrism. 

My President. We are still in the season, so happy Eid Mubarak. I had wanted to send you this message in Igbo. So that you get the message. But I hate tit for tat.  And I know you will never give us a Sallah message in Hausa again.

Nothing baffles the public anymore. A senator accused the Inspector General of Police of corruption. He painted a picture of money for postings and promotion. No one felt enough repugnance to demand an inquiry.  Zero tolerance for corruption is a mere slogan. He announced that the police hierarchy leases policemen to companies and individuals and feeds on the returns.

It’s not impossible Lord Lugard is laughing in his grave.  It’s not often that  a man’s selfish and commercial adventure   come to be venerated as a moral ideal. When he strapped the southern and northern protectorates together in 1914, he did it to meet British colonial interests.