No governance without consultation: Demilitarizing and demythologizing the Nigerian Government, by Owei Lakemfa
I did not expect my column ‘When uneducated minds change the education system’ to attract so much reaction. A parent said that in my review of the new education curriculum imposed in September 2025, I did not draw sufficient attention to some facts. The most fundamental, she said, is that government imposed new trade subjects on the […]
My democracy is not your democracy
By Owei Lakemfa WE were gathered. Some intellectuals, social activists, journalists, serving and retired diplomats. The primary issue was democracy. Is it universal and is there just a single, or multiple roads to democracy? Is the British democracy which calls itself the Mother of Parliaments, superior to the American version; is the latter better than […]
Nigeria, Africa’s giant advancing backward
By Owei Lakemfa Census is very serious business as it requires the general mobilisation of the populace. In many cases, the nation is placed under an emergency. One of the earliest accounts of census was given by Dr Luke in his Gospel in which he wrote that Emperor Caesar Augustus issued a decree for a […]
Harry Belafonte: Unconquerable warrior marches on
By Owei Lakemfa Harry Belafonte did not seek social justice; social justice sought him out. When they met, he was ready for a life-long struggle to bring justice to the United States or more correctly, to bring the United States to justice even when he knew this might cost him his lucrative career, if not […]
Elections as crime scenes: Decriminalising the electoral process
By Owei Lakemfa TWICE did I hear Aisha Dahiru, alias Binani, of the All Progressives Party, APC, declared the winner of the Adamawa State gubernatorial elections and the first female to be elected governor in the country. Twice did this turn out to be a hoax – a sick joke played on Nigerians. The first […]
When the American fox complains about the Mexican dog
By Owei Lakemfa MEXICO has drug cartels which can also be violent. One of the most infamous drug lords, Joaquin Archivaldo ‘El-Chapo’ Guzman, former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel is serving a life sentence in the United States, US. The drug cartels are a problem to Mexico which has other related challenges. First is the […]
Bola Ajibola departs and traducers sing late Nimi Brigg’s praises
By Owei Lakemfa Prince Bolasodun Adesumbo ‘Bola’ Ajibola, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, and ex-judge of the International Court of Justice, ICJ, passed away on April 9, 2023 at 89. Deservedly, lots of encomiums have been showered on the late founder of Crescent University and former Nigeria High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. […]
Iran – Saudi Arabia: Winning world peace with wrong peacemaker
By Owei Lakemfa THE world seems unaware that a peace process of seismic proportions is under way. Islam is a religion with over 1.8 billion followers but its two broad movements, the Sunnis led by Saudi Arabia and the Shiites led by Iran have been in disagreement for long, sometimes leading to violent confrontations. A […]
A nation that lost its way
By Owei Lakemfa AS an aspirant in 2022, the President of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, Yakubu Chonoko Maikyau, made a pilgrimage to Keffi, Nasarawa State. He needed the blessings of one of the most consummate and influential law professors the country has ever produced: Onje Gye-Wado. The latter from 1999, was for four years, […]
Oladipo Diya: The man who rode on a tiger’s back
By Owei Lakemfa IN the rascally days of the military, when generals were wedded to coups, a military officer arose in their ranks called Oladipo Donaldson Oyeyinka Diya. He was unknown to the public until January 1984 when the coup plotters led by General Muhammadu Buhari, who had overthrown the Shagari administration, announced him as […]
The way of the world
By Owei Lakemfa LAGOS, the most cosmopolitan and politically progressive state in Nigeria on March 18, 2023 engaged in the degenerative politics of exclusion. The debilitating disease of campaigning that a non-full-blooded native cannot be governor, is an incapacitating one. Ten days later, a different philosophy of politics evolved in Scotland where the parliament elected […]
Absent from duty
By Owei Lakemfa AT the weekend, after my ear drums had been continuously assaulted for few weeks about how well the government has done, especially on security, my mind went back to one of its ‘success’ stories. The Tanko Salihu Islamic School is in Tegina, a densely populated town in Rafi Local Government Area of […]
ICC: Europe’s lapdog in a theatre of the absurd
By Owei Lakemfa THE International Criminal Court, ICC, on March 17, 2023 added a comic dimension to the tragic war in Ukraine by issuing warrants of arrest for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC, a body notorious for the persecution of people in the bad books of the […]
A nation where everyone is oppressed
By Owei Lakemfa Nigerians have the next 70 days to survive a regime that has chastised them with whips and is promising to further chastise them with scorpions. Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, last week not only renewed the Buhari regime’s threat to increase Nigerians heavy burden by piling far […]
Challenges of a new African Ocean and Continent
By Owei Lakemfa AS we sleep, nature is ever awake, working. Even if we snore, it cannot be as loud as the rumbling Mount Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo which this week, is threatening to blow out as it did on May 22, 2011. The tragic flood Freddy which is ripping through […]
They sell the needy for a pair of shoes
By Owei Lakemfa I woke up at the weekend to a letter by Professor Ibrahim Adamu Yakasai of the Bayero University, Kano. He had on March 25, 2023 performed a civic duty as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Returning Officer for the Tudun Wada/Doguwa House of Representative elections. He had announced with his professorial […]
