Most people say that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has vied for president of Nigeria six times over 30 years (1993 – 2023). For me, it’s seven times. In 2003 when he was President Olusegun Obasanjo’s deputy, his failed “Mandela Option”, aimed at limiting Obasanjo to one term, was meant to clear the way for him […]

Former Vice President and Waziri of Adamawa, Atiku Abubakar, will never be President of Nigeria, unless some unforeseen miracle happens. Having tracked his political odyssey as a reporter and columnist since his 1992 debut under the tutelage of the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua’s People’s Democratic Movement, PDM, I have isolated two terminal character flaws […]

The North of Nigeria is a land of paradoxes that have finally turned poisonous. It is a region that organises and meets more fervently and asserts its political will more aggressively than any other part of the federation. From the Northern State Governors Forum, NSGF, to the Northern Elders Forum, NEF; Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF; and […]

Every new helmsman at the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, deserves a window of time to demonstrate their worth before the gavel of public opinion falls. We have seen, throughout the convoluted arc of our national history, that the character of a Chief Electoral Umpire can become the pivot upon which our democracy turns. Character is […]

For me, the legacy of the late President Muhammadu Buhari remains the most profound failure of Nigerian leadership. It was a tenure defined by a litany of institutional abuses. Chief among these was Operation Safe Corridor, OPSC. Initiated almost as soon as he touched the levers of power in May 2015 and fully activated by September […]