APOLOGY Please bear with me. The past couple of weeks have been really tough for all sorts of personal and professional reasons. I didn’t write this column last week and can’t write anything this week. So let me please leave you in the highly capable hands of my uncle, Jonas Odocha, who recently penned this […]

TODAY’s edition is the second instalment of the conversation with the above headline. I assert again that our country is currently witnessing a barbarian invasion. As a student of strategic intelligence, I construe a barbarian invasion as a siege laid to a people or group of peoples with distinct, thriving cultures in their territory by armed bands […]

I was in my early teens when I came across the slim novel, Weep Not, Child, by the then James Ngugi. Actually, the novel laid around as it was part of the school syllabus in senior secondary school, and the seniors read it. I found it simple, easy to digest, but most importantly, I identified with […]

Today, May 29, 2025, is exactly two years since Bola Tinubu took the oath of office as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria. And it is more than enough time to assess his stewardship. Even those who said, as Professor Wole Soyinka did in 2023, that the traditional 100 days […]

There are two views about Professor Pat Utomi’s decision to float what he called “Big Tent Coalition Shadow Government, BTCSG”. One is that he should not have stirred up a hornet’s nest with something as “provocative” as a “shadow government”. Another is that any democracy that cannot tolerate a non-violent pressure group, by whatever name […]

The lecture hall falls silent as Chioma’s name is called. Her heart pounds against her chest like a drum, her palms instantly slick with sweat. The PowerPoint slide glows on the screen behind her, but the words she rehearsed for hours the night before have vanished from her mind. As she walks to the podium, […]

The directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, that telecom operators should pay compensation to their subscribers for prolonged network outages and also report such outages on the Commission’s Major Outage Reporting Portal, is a good one which aligns completely with the transparency garb the Commission has adorned over a time.  “By providing consumers and stakeholders […]

Two years after the exit of the clannish and clueless Fulanist, Muhammadu Buhari, I celebrate. His successor, Bola Tinubu, is the Yoruba face of that ugly All Progressives Congress, APC, coin. But Tinubu, for now, is not murderous, neither is he forcing other Nigerians to give up their ancestral lands for a new Yoruba “empire”. Also, […]

“There is no doubting the fact that the era of small things and small people has finally dawned upon us”–   John Buchan Most discussions of the “National Question” invariably and instinctively boil down to one thing only – the “Northern Question”. This was particularly evident in the deliberations of the 2014 National Conference and most utterances […]

The mandate Americans gave to Donald Trump to be their 47th president for a second, non-consecutive term, is all the hubris he needs to imagine he is the president of the world, literally the world’s most powerful man. He goes around with the arrogance of that assurance. Even if his America First policy subsists on an […]

In mature democracies, the time-honoured practice is that the executives obey and follow the law strictly. In fact and in law, it is a convention to obey the law strictly.This week, I will examine some examples from the US, UK, Canada and Germany where Parliament or Congress has checked executive power and then detail Nigeria’s troubling […]

…the 10th National Assembly’s legacy risks being summed up in one brutal statistic—19 per cent.

In promulgating decree 24 on May 5, 1999 as the 1999 Constitution, the then Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, made an addendum to the decree. The addendum was not part of the decree, it was just an explanation on the Constitution. General Abubakar […]

“Two men in a burning house must not stop to argue”- African proverb The choice between a rock and a hard place describes a situation of being between two equally difficult, even impossible options. It is what comes to mind as a number of developments in the country are contemplated by people in a widely […]

Nigeria, this Thursday, May 29, 2025,  marks its 26th anniversary ending brutal military rule, and embarking on the road to democracy.  I am reminded, on this occasion, of three political figures who contributed to this situation. President  Bola  Ahmed Tinubu emerged into  national consciousness in 1992  when he was elected the Senator representing the Lagos West Constituency.  […]