By Owei Lakemfa INTELLECTUALS, diplomats, social activists, trade unionists and international relations experts across the country gathered in Abuja on Wednesday, November 25, 2020, to dissect the state of Nigerians under COVID-19 as they trudge towards a post-pandemic world. It was an occasion to mark the 10th anniversary of the Society for International Relations Awareness, […]

By Owei Lakemfa THE story of Labour leader, John Enas Dubre, and the transnational oil corporations operating in Nigeria, reminds me of the temptation of Jesus Christ. There were 19 unions in the oil and gas industry before they were merged in 1977 into a mega industrial union called the National Union of Petroleum and […]

By Owei Lakemfa WHEN the old or those who play the role of elders die in Africa, we do not weep. Rather, we celebrate them because they merely transit from the physical to the pantheon of ancestors who watch over the living. Three elders who led the struggle for a better humanity transited within three […]

By Owei Lakemfa I HAVE before me, two statements that speak to our present and future. One is by 78-year old Muhammadu Buhari, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The other is by Rachael Rinu Bolatito Oduala, 22, a student who is no older than the former’s grandchild or great granddaughter. Buhari came to […]

By Owei Lakemfa THE most fundamental human right to the journalist is life, followed by the right to wages or income. These are the foundations on which his profession and the freedom of expression are built. A journalist with a perpetually rumbling stomach cannot be a reliable soldier of press freedom. At best, he becomes […]

By Owei Lakemfa Twenty-twenty is the Year of the Pandemic and Protests; the year of major elections and political upheavals. In October 2020 alone, street protests swept through many countries, making landfalls, with some leaders swept away. The latest is President Sooronbay Jeenbekov of Kyrgyzstan who had claimed victory in parliamentary elections. But the people disagreed […]

By Owei Lakemfa LAGOS State Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, 55, a surveyor-turned-banker was wide awake and at his duty post when the COVID-19 pandemic broke. At that time, the Federal Government was dozing. Not a few praised him for helping to combat the pandemic and saving many lives. A few months down the line, he […]

By Owei Lakemfa In wars,  local or international, where armed combatants engage themselves, prisoners are taken and enemy soldiers are allowed medical treatment. Even in the First and Second World Wars, first aiders and medical personnel were allowed to evacuate the injured and dying. In the Tuesday, October 10, 2020 shooting of unarmed civilians in […]

By Owei Lakemfa The President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Muhammadu Buhari, thinks Nigerian youths are lazy and want to be spoon-fed like babies. Some other arms of the country’s wrinkled leadership believe that the youths are hooked on Big Brother Naija and other inanities. So it came as a shock when the youths […]

By Owei Lakemfa The Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria, ARCAN, Africa’s largest, and perhaps most experienced gathering of diplomats decided on October 6, 2020 to make a prognosis of their country in international affairs 60 years from now. Almost all these ambassadors are above 60 and certainly will not be alive in another six […]

By Owei Lakemfa Nnaji, the President of the Nigeria Union of Traders in Ghana was a pitiful sight last week as he made a passionate appeal to the Nigerian government to evacuate his members. Many Nigerian traders seemed to have come to the end of the road in Ghana after their shops had been shut […]

IT was unfair, except for purposes of clarification, elucidation and mass education, for Nigerian human rights lawyer, Femi Aborishade, to engage in a debate on the International  Labour Organisation, ILO, and politics with former Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Promise Adewusi who also incidentally, is a lawyer. This is partly because as far […]

Ghana, with its being in the middle of West Africa and a seeming gateway to other West African countries, is essential for Nigerian trade. Similarly, Nigeria, with its big market, provides Ghanaians with a lot of opportunities. By Owei Lakemfa MAKING a choice to travel while the COVID-19 pandemic is still ravaging the world, is […]

By Owei Lakemfa THERE have been wailings among the Nigerian political class over visa restrictions placed on some of their members by the United States. The Americans say that the visa restrictions were placed on Nigerians who, it alleged, “operated with impunity at the expense of the Nigerian people and undermined democratic principles and human […]

By Owei Lakemfa The United Nations, UN,  commenced activities marking its 75th Anniversary on  Monday, September 21, buoyed with floods of mainly congratulatory speeches in a world drenched in increasing despair and cynicism. Its predecessor, the League of Nations had been born on  June 28, 1919 under the Versailles Peace Treaty which ended World War I. […]