I agree with the slogans: #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria and #End Hunger, but I also know that some of the sponsors and participants had ulterior motives which I am against. There is definitely increased hunger and hardship in the land. These were worsened by the way the federal government went about the floating of the naira and issues […]

THE thuggish criminality in the United Kingdom exempted, mass protests have been sweeping through many countries with people standing up for their right to decent lives. Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Uganda, Sudan, Eswatini, South Africa and, of course, Bangladesh. They have been sad days in Bangladesh where bloody mass protests, mainly driven by students, under […]

ALMOST everyone thinks they know what is wrong with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his government, except Tinubu himself. And to show that it’s not just bellyaching, there are plenty of examples to beat the president over the head. Headline inflation has risen from 22.2 percent in April 2023 to 33.7 percent one year after – […]

SO, the protests began last Thursday, August 1, and according to the organisers, will last till August 10. That means we can still expect protests tomorrow, even though there has been significant palls in the tempo of the protests in many parts of the country. In the days preceding take-off of the protests, government machinery went into […]

I spent the second half of July in the UK and was booked to return to Abuja at the beginning of August. But almost everyone I spoke to urged me to stay put because the #EndBadGovernance protests were due to kick off nationwide on August l; and violence and general mayhem were expected. Long story short, hardly […]

As indicated here last week, the book, Peace Culture: A Monumental Evidence for Global Co-existence, written by Professor Ola Makinwa et al, will shine a light on our offering in this column today. Many have been badgering me on why I “ignored” the ongoing ten-day #EndBadGovernance protest rocking the country. The protest, now in its […]

Recently, the Financial Times interviewed me for a special report on Nigeria. The FT had interviewed me a few times before. So, when I received a call from David Pilling, the newspaper’s Africa Editor, I knew he probably wanted to interview me again. “I read your article on Tinubu’s economic reforms,” Pilling said. “I want to […]

Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognise, understand, manage, and utilise your emotions and those of others effectively. It involves key components and concepts in navigating social complexities and making informed decisions that affect you and others around you. Emotional intelligence is fundamental in both personal and professional settings because it drives how you are […]

NIGERIA has produced 236 million barrels of crude this year, yet it is unable to supply the 650,000 barrels per day needed by Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals company to run at full capacity.  Consequently, Dangote had to source for crude oil elsewhere, thereby increasing the cost of production.  Some of the factors responsible for these as […]

IT would have been funny if it were not so DANGEROUS! When Muhammadu Buhari was in power, there was ethnic profiling of the Igbo people in the North. Some sponsored “youth coalitions” gave Ndi Igbo quit notice in 2017 because of Biafra agitations in the South-East, which arose from Buhari’s 97%/5% formula of Igbo exclusion. Buhari […]

“LGBTQI+ rights are human rights. And our government has a responsibility to defend them, to promote them – here and everywhere,” “- Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State  WE began this series of articles by referring to the eclecticism of human rights that makes them so diverse and rapidly changing in both their context and their […]

WHEN we were small children still in primary school, we would gather once a week under the big umbrella tree on the left end at the approach of the school compound to tell stories under the auspices of very strict teachers who would later turn out in life to be very good people. Those teachers, they […]

IN commenting on the possible outcome of the ongoing #EndBadGovernance protest when it took off last week, I had in this space made clear that it was as likely as not to end with a whimper rather than the bang that the mostly invisible planners and government officials expected it to be. As I write this, […]

“It is totally false to suggest, as we are apt to do, that Nigerians are fundamentally different from any other people in the world. Nigerians are corrupt because the system under which they live today makes corruption easy and profitable; they will cease to be corrupt when corruption is made difficult and inconvenient….The trouble with […]

WE are witnessing some of the worst anti-government protests in our recent democratic history, fuelled by economic hardship, hunger and a general feeling of disillusionment among many Nigerians. Whatever the arguments are for or against the protests, it suffices that some Nigerians are making public their anger against the system and resolute to demand change. […]