I HAVE a friend with an acerbic tongue and a caustic pen that cuts straight to the bone. Although much more reputed as a sports journalist, his cosmopolitan knowledge about just everything around him can be humbling. His writings can make anybody feel uncomfortable, especially if you belong to the band of those who stand truth […]

“…I reflected that there was something to be said for birthdays and began to look forward to mine. My only worry now was whether I would have recovered sufficiently to go to school and invite all my friends. Sending Tinu seemed a risky business, she might choose to invite all her friends and pack my […]

“”Failure is the mother of success”- Chinese Proverb  Multilateralism and the collective resolve of the international community to deal with the growing challenges facing the world today, will be put to the test, especially in ending conflicts and the suffering of vast numbers of people in Africa, in Palestine and the Ukraine. Other issues taxing humanity’s […]

From last week, continues the narrative of the roles played by different individuals such as Prof. Fela Sowande and Dr Ekundayo Phillips, in the adoption of Nigeria’s first national anthem UNDER Phillips’ tutelage, Professor Sowande earned the Fellowship Diploma, FRCO, from the Royal College of Organists. At that time, he was also a bandleader, playing […]

IN the past ten years, the South-East and North-East geopolitical zones, more than other geopolitical zones, have been sites of experiments on insecurity and militia reign. Either terrorists, kidnappers, or militias were testing the will of the government to see how long it would take for a determined state to take charge, or it was just […]

JUNE 2024. Festivity was in the air. Professors and students, staff and high class visitors were in attendance. The highlight was a first class dinner. Africa’s book factory, Professor Toyin Falola, flew into the country to deliver the farewell lecture. It was all in honour of Professor Abd-Rasheed Na’Allah, out-going Vice Chancellor of the University of […]

IN the last week of April 2024, Pastor and Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, swore that he would “resign as EFCC chairman if embattled former Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, is not prosecuted.” Unaccompanied as it was by any calendar or deadline, this undertaking cannot be regarded as having been […]

‘FG rolls out N1tn palliative, massive construction projects’ – Report, June 28, 2024. The report, similar in every respect to what other media reported, went on to say that “President Tinubu gave all the state governors seven days to provide concrete feedback on their plans to rev up food production in their respective states.” That […]

 During Nigeria’s First and Second Republics, not many people had faith in the country ’s judiciary. To start with, court cases dragged on for too long; making it practically impossible for litigants to enjoy the fruits of judicial victories. In other cases, many criminals were set free on account of some technicalities couched in Latin […]

Nigeria is in dire straits. That is no longer news. It is not even news anymore that Nigerians are going through the worst economic crisis of their lives. The very lean Structural Adjustment Programme years – the SAP years – may not even compare. Ihavebeentoldthatthekindof desperation seen now in Nigeria is apocalyptic. It is strange […]

In the book of Ecclesiastics, chapter 10 and verse 10, the Holy Bible says that wisdom is profitable to direct. The key word there is “direct”, which connotes ‘to proceed to suc- cess.An African Proverb also says that ‘What an elder sees sitting down, a child will not see it even if he stands on […]

When I started an FM radio station two years ago sited in a town so small on the map of the world that it almost does not exist, it was such an ‘insignificant’ step

On Wednesday, we published tributes to mark our 40th anniversary as a newspaper. Here’s the conclusion of a piece I did on Vanguard as a family. It was cut off from my story on Wednesday due to space constraints.

Sometime in December 2023, a bunch of Rivers State legislators woke up from sleep and decided to defect to another party. On the floor of the state legislature, before TV cameras, they gleefully announced their defection to the APC. Speaker Amaewhule, the megaphone for the giddy and pulsating others,  prattled to justify the defection. He was conversant […]

Leadership goes beyond moving around in convoys, waving from air conditioned bullet proof wonders on wheel and attending wine sampling parties from tropical Africa to choice locations across Planet Earth. The South – East Geo Political Zone has suffered enough, from within and without. I am glad that governors and other leaders of that very blessed area […]