When Nigerian Afro beat musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti released Zombie by Coconut Records in 1976, one was not sure whether he knew it was going to be a hit.

THE simplicity of the Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, never fails to shock on first encounter. Take this sampler. Sometime in November 2010, The SUN organised an economic summit for the South East in Owerri. It took place at the Hotel Concorde. Obi was to give a keynote address as the Chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum. He came late to the event.

A LINGERING memory from my early child in Ilorin is the shortage of potable water in many homes in the city. During the 60s, there was a standing pipe which served hundreds of families, in a depression where what was then Oyo. Bypass (today’s Ibrahim Taiwo Road), meets the Emir’s Road. People will form long lines of buckets with regular outbreaks of fights as each one desperately attempts to get water for their family use.

By Josef Omorotionmwan NIGERIA reminds us of the case of the smart messenger with a short memory. This messenger soon turned his mother into a money spinning machine of sorts. One morning, he came to the office to announce that his mother was critically ill and he needed money to procure her medication. Out of […]

AMONG Nigeria’s ethnic regions and nationalities, the ecumenical spirit is arguably most at work in the Yoruba West. Unlike Eastern and Northern Nigeria that are respectively dominated by followers of Christianity and Islam, Western Nigeria presents a far more diverse and fluid picture of religion with Christians, Muslims and Ifa worshippers cohabiting and cooperating in relative harmony.

I HAVE known Senator Femi Ojudu for 25 years, since his days at the defunct African Concord. We were co-tenants of General Abacha’s gulag at 15A Awolowo Road and Inter Centre at Obalende, Lagos, until I was transferred to Ikoyi Prison while he remained a ward of the State Security Service (SSS). In all that time, even as a founding editor of The NEWS, I have not known him to be a man given to impulsive speech, sensationalism or self-exhibition. Thus, when he spoke recently of some curious things in the 2014 budget, I was all ears.

WHILE speaking recently on a current affairs programme on Liberty Radio, Kaduna, General Muhammadu Buhari boasted that the APC (All Progressives Congress) will wipe out the insecurity bedeviling Nigeria. The General conveniently forgot to tell us how he intends to do this. Since even the Americans with their military might and sophisticated intelligence outfits have not succeeded in wiping out Al Qaeda in over 25 years, one may well wonder how Buhari proposes to work his magic and wipe out the Boko Haram in Nigeria within four years.

THE day was January 21, 2014. I entered my ‘International Media Systems’ class and introduced myself to about twenty American university students who were eager to learn how the media work around the globe. “I’m originally from Nigeria; who knows where Nigeria is located?” I asked. Silence. I repeated the question.

THE controversial issue of “deportation” of Nigerians to their states of origin reared its ugly head once again in the past couple of weeks. This time, the venue shifted from Lagos in South West to Rivers in the South-South and Imo in the South East. Coincidentally, they are all states under the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors!

Nigerians could be forgiven, if their impulsive reaction to the above comparison is a derisive sneer because of the general perception that the Zimbabwean economy was dysfunctional. Indeed, about five years ago, Zimbabwe was the ultimate butt of universal jokes because of the abiding inflationary spiral that had gone haywire at 231,000,000%!