“A blemish may be removed from a diamond by careful polishing, but evil words once spoken cannot be effaced.” — Confucius (551– 479) BCE THE quote above in several respects refers to the situation in which we have found ourselves. On May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu spoke evil words into our economy by unthinkingly announcing the withdrawal of […]

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 […]

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” — Helen Keller (1880-1968) AS I write this, we were in the evening of the first day of protests tagged #EndBadGovernance, organised by several civil society organisations in reaction to the worsening economic situation in the country. The protests were to last from August […]

“An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.” — Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) Growing up, and until just less than 10 years ago, there was no time it ever occurred to me that things could go so deeply down south in our dear country, Nigeria, as they are now. […]

Just last week, I heaped plaudits on the Nigeria Police Force over the way they neutralised nine kidnappers in the Ladipo area of Lagos. Videos of the gun battle and the resultant casualties are still trending in the social media. The Police remain commended, and indeed are to be congratulated on that feat. I hear that the […]

THE downpour of last Wednesday, which left many parts of the country flooded, and the attendant tragedies, is still talk of the town. It is an annual ritual from which we have learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing. The octopoidal Federal Government, whose officials these days, talk more about everything but do little about anything said 21 local […]

EARLIER in the week, there were reports of massive protests in Kenya, an East African country. The protests were actually not new, having begun in 2023, in reaction to bids by the government of Kenya to raise taxes. According to the 24-hour English news channel, Al Jazeera, the protests signify a major shift in Kenya, where, previously, […]

WHEN we move forward by a mile, it seems we always do something that will make us take backward steps for 10 miles. And so, it was alarming and distressing to read reports of cholera outbreak in our country again, especially in Lagos, our most sophisticated showpiece of urbanisation. Many have died, and more are hospitalised […]

LAST weekend, their imperial excellencies, the state governors, finally spoke on the minimum wage, an issue that appears to be a huge threat to industrial harmony in the country in the foreseeable future. The Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, said that the N60,000 minimum wage proposal is not sustainable and cannot fly, saying that if they try it, […]

ORGANISED Labour, comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trades Unions Congress, TUC, and their affiliates made good their threat to go on strike by end of May if the Federal Government failed to conclude negotiations on a new minimum wage. The Minimum Wage Act, signed into law by former president, Muhammadu Buhari, expired in April. […]