By Paul Bassey  Telephone rings……. Chief Effiong……Hello who is this? Alhaji Maigari…If I am on to Chief Effiong, I am Aminu Maigari the President of the NFF Chief Effiong….Ah interesting how are you? You are the one who wants to teach me how to manage my son? When I bought him his first ball when […]

By Ochereome Nnanna THE much awaited governorship election in AnambraState has come, though it has not quite gone. The election was declared by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, as “inconclusive”. Chief William Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, established a commanding lead with 174,710 votes, with […]

The Debt Management Office recently indicated on its website that Nigeria’s total debt is currently about N7.93tn ($50.92bn); domestic debt accounts for almost $44bn, while external debt just falls short of US$7bn. Thus, our consolidated national debt may currently exceed N13tn (i.e. about $80bn), if AMCON’s proxy debt of about N5.7tn is also captured.

The Nigerian political left is decimated, or at best lies flat on the ground like the lizard with a belly-ache. This fact itself makes one ask the question, what is the meaning of “opposition” in Nigeria, given that the field is absolutely dominated by politicians with the same fundamental worldviews about society? Extremely socially conservative and fiscally conservative, their political goals are far often too constrained by the immediate gratifications of power to warrant any ideological scrutiny in any case. Very often, a cohort of politicians gather together and call themselves “progressives” – and the term is indeed very ambiguous because no one actually knows from where they are progressing and to what

By contrast, when Nigeria became a republic in 1963, neither the Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, nor anybody else, warned Nigerians in the same vein. It was just assumed that a democratic republic, once pronounced and a constitution written would guarantee and perpetuate liberty. Unfortunately, for our founding fathers (Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo and Azikiwe included), they were the first victims of their collective folly. The democratic republic they pronounced in 1963 was demolished by a small band of armed adventurers; who promptly sent democracy in Nigeria to the dustbin of history. It has remained there till today.