Tacking poverty in Nigeria: Onus on crony billionaires, not self-made musicians! By Olu Fasan
Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Nigeria’s irrepressible first lady, recently made two controversial interventions on the country’s socio-economic situation. First, she told the jobless to start selling akara, roasted corn or kuli-kuli to eke out a living. Then, she admonished rich young musicians to help the poor. She received a torrent of criticism for the comments. Yet they […]
Go tell it to Nigerians the optimists are leading
Ordinarily, it would have required up to the second half of the year for those in the minority to start saying “I told you so!” But, fortune and research had combined to provide optimists an early advantage in the competition for the minds of Nigerians. For this writer, this turn of events was expected and the reasons had been pointed out in the December article. But, the pessimists might have ignored it as hearsay and unreliable information, while the optimists might have missed its significance altogether.
More arms, less security
THE good news is that Nigeria has decided to scale up security at its airports; the not so welcome news is that this translates to Aviation security personnel carrying guns. I would have preferred scaling up security to mean greater use of intelligence services, more sophisticated security machines and more vigilance. As it is, we are already saturated with arms which have not translated into better security; rather, it seems the more arms we introduce, the less security in the country.
Still on El-Rufai
The 2019 elections are starting early in Kaduna State and the first slogan of the campaign for those elections is El-RUFIA MUST GO – at least that should be expected from some quarters in the light of the disaster that is Southern Kaduna. He can go and run for President since he is rumoured to be interested in presiding in Aso Rock
Climbing the mount everest of eternal life
Rich men don’t run after passers-by in the street. Nevertheless, in the scriptures, a “rich young ruler” is shown running after Jesus. When he finally gets to him, he does something equally unusual: he falls down on his knees at his feet. What does he want that money cannot buy?
Christmas in’Biafra’ and other stories
As readers of the ‘Orbit” may surely have noticed, this column went on furlough in the last four weeks. I’d chosen silence as a means of introspection and rejuvenation. Sometimes, Nigeria can hit one with such intensity in the gob, and force us to muteness. As every self-respecting newspaper columnist knows, such moments call for self-imposed solitude, and this to avert burn-out. Nigeria is indeed like that hot soup in the stories, which we must learn sometimes to lick from the edges of the bowl.
