AS Nigeria battles, arguably, its worst financial crisis since independence, it is only apposite that the most pragmatic way to pull the country’s chestnuts out of the raging economic fire, to borrow a cliché, is to put round pegs in round holes. The appointment of Ms. Omolola Oloworaran as the new Director-General of the National Pension […]

LAST week I started a series on sentence errors. Let’s take a look at the corrections of the exercises I shared then. Take out your note and compare the answers, and feel free to email me if there are perceived areas of discrepancy. 1. Chukwudi sat at his desk for at least two hours. Writing that […]

THERE is no way democracy can be divorced from elections. In fact, elections are the handmaid of democracy. In advanced democracies of the world, they have attained a level whereby their electoral system is transparent, peaceful, orderly and generally acceptable. Situations whereby electoral officials collude and or connive with discredited politicians to subvert the peoples’ will […]

IT WAS pretty cool last week when the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, BON, made a plea for the survival of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, as it called on the government to adequately fund the organisation to enable it to do its job successfully. The NBC is the regulator of the broadcast industry. Usually the relationship […]

THE concluding paragraph of this column of July 17, 2024 serves as the departure point for this week’s piece. It references what Donald Trump’s abrasive rabble-rousing has made of America and of that country’s global status in the wake of his presidency. Here it is, quoted at some considerable length, with emphasis added: “From January 2016 […]

“I’ve a grand memory for forgetting”- Robert Louis Stevenson THE 30 rights and freedoms out lined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UDHR, of1948 may be varied and touching upon many areas of human life and activities, but they are beneficial by and large to the proper ordering of societies and the establishment of […]

FOR his own purposes, President Bola Tinubu had delayed the appointment of Bayo Onanuga as one of his spokesmen. Ajuri Ngelale, broadcast journalist and Ogoni chief, was presented to give Tinubu’s media office a handsome, though unsmiling face. Many commentators were relieved that elements like Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Festus Keyamo would not be brought […]

NIGERIA is a complex and multifaceted country that elicits various thoughts and viewpoints. Yet, there is some order in disorder. My recent journey through books about contemporary Nigeria or autobiographies of Nigerians brought this reality to light. I have read many books, and in the spirit of Barbara Tuchman, I feel that “books are the carriers […]

From last week, continues the narrative of the transition of the old National Anthem to a new one, the  roles played by different individuals in this process, including Professor Julius Ihonvbere, one of Obasanjo’s speech writers as president. While Mr. Ad’Obe Obe published a book, A New Dawn, in three volumes, Professor Ihonvbere published Standing […]

A lot of media people have been talking to Alhaji Aliko Dangote lately; more would give an arm to be able to reach him…

WOLE Soyinka, WS. Our own WS as distinct from the British WS, William Shakespeare, was 90 on July 13, 2024. As a 31-year-old, he was charged with one of the most audacious seizures of a radio station. On October 15, 1965, a bearded six footer, clutching a beretta pistol had stealthily stolen into the studios […]

AT the end of July 2017, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, and Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, issued a joint report on the public experience of and response to bribery in Nigeria. Among its findings, the report ranked several institutions with reference to public perceptions or experience of demand for […]

In recent years, the Supreme Court of Nigeria has come under withering criticism, because it had left Nigerians skeptical of its ability to reflect, interpret, and deliver justice. Many of its declarations – the judicial imposition of a governor who was not elected on Imo state, and its affirmation of the strange proclamations of the […]

“There are times when a leader must move ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident he is leading his people the right way” – Nelson M“ andela, 1918-2013, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, p 124. Irrespective of any other mistakes his government hasmadeinitsthirteenmonths in office, the decision to remove tariffs on food imports […]

For the better part of the last two decades, I had cause to severally disagree or oppose the viewpoints, statements or actions of Adams Oshiomhole either as President of the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC, or Governor of Edo State or National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress APC. In order not to belabour the issues […]