Can Tinubu Advice Governors On What He Controls? By Emmanuel Aziken
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu may have intended to offer straightforward governance advice when he urged state governors to focus less on grand infrastructure projects and more on addressing the immediate needs of ordinary Nigerians. Instead, his remarks may have ignited a much broader conversation, not only about governors’ priorities but also about the Federal Government’s own choices. The […]
Buhari and Abacha: The matter of double vision
By Emmanuel Aziken The news of the return of another $311m loot linked to the erstwhile military dictator, General Sani Abacha was received by Nigerians with comic relief. With the nation’s economy threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic and revenue inflow diving to unprecedented low levels, an alert at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN of […]
Where Is Osinbajo?
By Emmanuel Aziken Nigeria’s increasingly vibrant twitter community was last weekend enlivened by questions as to the whereabouts of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Though the controversy was apparently innocuously started by some social media activists, it was not surprising that naysayers and partisans of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP saw it as an opportunity to […]
Nigeria’s Life-Term Governor
By Emmanuel Aziken He was named David, apparently after the humble but successful King of Israel. However, humility with power seems to be strange to Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State. Governor Umahi’s live broadcast earlier this week, where he announced the life ban on two journalists, might have spurred many people towards the absurdity […]
Chibok girls: Between Jonathan’s jests and Buhari’s banters
By Emmanuel Aziken There are indeed, few incidents that have defined the relationship between Nigerian leaders and the citizenry as the Chibok Girls affair that happened on us, six years ago. The kidnap of 276 girls from their school by the brutish jihadists was provoking enough to have stirred the passions of many world figures, […]
Has Buhari become lame duck?
By Emmanuel Aziken It is shocking that even with more than three years to run in his second term, that there are insinuations that President Muhammadu Buhari has become a lame duck. A lame-duck is an elected political office holder whose successor has been or will soon be chosen. It is a particularly remarkable period […]
Keep your salaries, return the Camry cars
By Emmanuel Aziken The global coronavirus pandemic has seemingly struck the chord of charity among Nigeria’s ruling class. The members of the House of Representatives said this week that they would donate two months’ salary to the COVID-19 relief efforts. As with everything money concerning the National Assembly, the donation is dogged in secrecy and […]
Buhari’s ‘problems’ with coronavirus
By Emmanuel Aziken The news that a daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari was in isolation following a recent trip to the United Kingdom put many newspaper editors in a quandary. Identifying the particular lady in quarantine was an issue. That was because the First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, who proactively informed Nigerians of the development, […]
Dr. Bola Tinubu’s diagnosis of coronavirus
By Emmanuel Aziken Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s political acumen has been much extolled by his many political devotees. However, whether any one of them would subject himself to the medical diagnosis of a Dr. Tinubu garbed as a medical doctor or take his prescriptions for an ailment is an issue. As Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s political future […]
Political Notes: If Oshiomhole survives
By Emmanuel Aziken The outlook for Comrade as at press time was quite cloudy. Adams Oshiomhole, who had in the past bragged about effortlessly burying political godfathers, was grasping for survival in the face of trenchant opposition to him remaining as chairman of the country’s ruling party. The determined adversaries rubbed it home last Thursday […]
The contradictions in Mallam Nasir El-Rufai
By Emmanuel Aziken When Mallam Nasir El-Rufai recently told a Vanguard reporter that it would be untenable for a Northerner to aspire for the presidency in 2023, he again projected his well-known doggedness to principle. That doggedness was shaped decades ago, and sometimes, at great personal cost. In the early 90s, being one of the […]
