Today is St. Valentine’s Day. St. Valentine’s Day is an elephant. There are varied accounts of its origin and how people view the day. Many people see it as a day of romance and love. But what is romance and what is love? The definitions and views are divergent. That is partly why I said St. Valentine’s […]

An associate once claimed that Senator Godswill Akpabio initially aspired to be a comedian before fate and fortune nudged him toward law and eventually politics. If that early ambition ever existed, one might argue that the comedic streak never entirely left him. As presiding officer of the Senate, he often peppers proceedings with humour, laughter, and playful […]

One of the most frequently asked questions (FAQ) about dear our country by those in the diaspora is on insecurity. My general answer has always been that the state of our insecurity is not as bad as what it is being orchestrated to be. While it is a vague answer, deliberately so, it is not […]

Nigerian elections never end. But the cycle gets into overdrive roughly one year before a fresh general election. This is somewhat understandable. Politicians seeking re-election and those who want to displace them are high on political testosterone. It’s their season of sowing wild oats, casting nets, hosting conclaves, joining covens, and forging alliances for the good, […]

SOME readers of this column would be absolutely right if they conclude that writing on corruption in Nigeria is a waste of time. It might be, but what prompted a fresh interest in a national problem that has defied solutions forever are two developments earlier in the week. First one was a report by Transparency International, […]

Information filtered through a few weeks ago, that “a small team” of  United States, US, soldiers were in Nigeria. On Tuesday, February 10, 2026 an additional information was that 200 American soldiers areA being deployed to provide security for the small team. I am sure that soon these 200 would need a thousand US soldiers to […]

President Donald Trump regularly insults and     discriminates against black people; and I don’t understand why African heads of state are not giving him much – or any in some cases – serious pushback. When racists closely linked to Trump depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes on his social media account, he refused to apologise […]

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s Marmite president, is by no means a religious bigot. He is a moderate, even liberal, Muslim, who is surrounded, including in his immediate family, by practising Christians. However, for self-interested political calculations, Tinubu played the religious card to become president in 2023 by picking a fellow Muslim, Kashim Shettima, as his running-mate. […]

If you’ve ever sat in a Nigerian exam hall—whether it’s JAMB, WAEC, or those brutal university finals—you know that feeling. The air is thick with tension. You can hear pens scratching furiously across paper, the occasional cough, and the sound of your own thoughts racing faster than you can write. Outside the hall, parents and family […]

Nigerians love clichés to bits. More often than not, you hear them regurgitate the famous “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried” quip by former British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. The idea that democracy is the best form of government is a widely held principle in […]