TODAY, my radar is on the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa, who last Wednesday said that the Senate would produce legislation from the tax reform bills aimed at making Nigeria’s economy a trillion-dollar base. Senator Musa, among other things, also said: “And when you look at advanced economies, Mr. President has said […]

Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma was on the verge of an historic victory on November 11, 1989. The votes for the first democratic elections in Namibia, his long suffering country, were being counted. The colonial South African Apartheid regime was billed to grant independence in March 1990. It was night. Suddenly, the lights went off. Nujoma and […]

You cannot quarrel about how a man tells his story. It is his business. However, the pseudo-autobiography of the former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, is more than the retired General telling a story of his own life. A Journey in Service is a long, tortuous journey to penitence, which arrives at its destination, if it does […]

I am chatting online, via zoom, with Zeinab Badawi, the Khartoum-born doyenne of British broadcasting and President of London University’s School of African and Oriental Studies. We are discussing her book – AN AFRICAN HISTORY OF AFRICA FROM THE DAWN OF HUMANITY TO INDEPENDENCE – which became an instant bestseller when it was published in the UK […]

For several years, I wondered whether General Ibrahim Babangida would go to his grave without writing his memoir. He played such epochal roles in Nigeria’s history that he would have done a great disservice to this country had he died without writing his biography and documenting those seismic roles. So, you will understand why I was […]

To be sure, there is no earth-shaking revelation in General Ibrahim Babangida’s 420-page autobiography – A journey in Service. Nigerians have always known about the issues, even as tons of literature have been written on them. For instance, unless for the foolhardy who revel in self-deceit for pernicious reasons, many have come to the inevitable conclusion, […]

Writing in academia can feel like learning multiple languages at once. As you progress from undergraduate essays to graduate work and perhaps doctoral research, the expectations keep shifting. Yet understanding these shifts can make the journey much more manageable. Let’s start with some good news: academic writing doesn’t have to be dense or difficult to read. […]

The publication and formal public presentation of a former military ruler, Ibrahim Babangida’s memoir, A Journey in Service, last week has expectedly opened up conversations and debates around the eight years rule of the retired dictator. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB, now 83 and wheel chair-bound, also used the occasion to raise money for a presidential […]

One by one, the elders are taking a leave of us, perhaps tired of this fetid  putrescence of a noxious earthly abode, to attend a big conference which seems to be happening in heaven, according to a senior colleague with an acerbic sense of humour. The conference is for good people only, he intoned. Just take […]

“Every form of legality is bound to degenerate into oppression”-Joseph Conrad Military coups as alternative transitional processes in government have become topics of discussion once again with the resurgence of the phenomenon in Africa. Sudan has been under military rule for nearly 40 years. Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon are now under military rule. […]