When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose this year’s Democracy Day on June 12 to celebrate heroes of the anti-military coalition and other pro-democracy activists his critics, mostly the usual suspects of opposition elements who have turned political criticism into a career in finding faults by seeing nothing good about the President and his government, not only […]

There is something that age does to a man. It doesn’t just equip him with more rags than the Millennials, the Gen-Z or the Generation Alpha, as Chinua Achebe would have loved to put it in one of the greatest books ever, Things Fall Apart; age slows down a man and tempers his views with ancient […]

When Israel launched Operation Rising Lion in the early hours of June 13, 2025, most Nigerians were asleep. The footage came in fragments—precision airstrikes, sirens over Tel Aviv, defiant chants in Tehran. Within hours, Iran responded with Operation True Promise III, unleashing waves of drones and missiles toward Israeli positions. It was dramatic, brutal, and […]

From last week, continues the narrative  of how the General Victor Malu-led military tribunal on Tuesday April 28, 1998 sentenced General Oladipo Diya and other  officers to death for alleged coup plot. Four of the accused persons were convicted of “information gathering” and implication in the alleged coup plot, and sentenced to life imprisonment. They […]

“Even the lion protects himself against flies”— African proverb Politics is notoriously challenging for those who look for particular degrees of certainty or control. Managing power in particular presents its own limitations, even where the obviously strong and the weak square off. Judging relative strength or weakness can be tricky when power dynamics tamper with […]

I was in Ndjamena, Chad in 2014 as the then Secretary General of the African Workers, to meet the labour leaders in that country. There was a major barracks on the road opposite the hotel I stayed. Newly arrived soldiers poured from the barracks towards the hotel. They were Chadian troops that had been expelled by the […]

The legal career of Joseph Chu’ma Otteh, whose mortal remains were committed to earth on 20 June 2025, could easily have been different.

“When a nation has allowed itself to fall under a tyrannical regime, it cannot be absolved from the faults due to the guilt of the regime” – Sir Winston Churchill, 1874-1965 “The face of tyranny is always mild at first” – Jean Racine, 1639-1699 Most African and Nigerian leaders are often too busy hustling to make […]

When God created man, He planned that the man will live for a very long time. The Bible we are told mentioned two lifespans for man: 120 years as a limit set by God in Genesis 6:3, and 70-80 years as a common lifespan in Psalm 90:10. Genesis 6:3 states thus, “My Spirit shall not […]

In August 1985, the military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida IBB, appointed the then Major Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, the military governor of Kaduna State which at the timeincluded the present katsina State. Dangiwa – the more popular of his names was not only a relatively junior officer among top ranking military personnel who held critical […]