By Dele Sobowale The great Indian leader and liberator made that remark before he was assassinated in 1948 at a time when his country, now divided into at least three nations, suffered from food scarcity worse than Nigeria is experiencing now.  Certainly, it can also be said that there are millions of people in Nigeria today, […]

Why Nigerian budgets often fail “Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle; every prayer reduces itself to this; Great God, grant that twice two be not four.” Ivan Turgenev, 1818-1883 VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ p 198.  No Federal or, as far as I know, state budget since 1999 has been successfully implemented as […]

By Dele Sobowale “Our refinery has recorded 22 incidents of sabotage” — Dangote Nigerian history, since my return from the US in 1974, has always made me to thank God, that I not only read History as an elective subject as an undergraduate in the US; but, that the interest remains abiding. In fact, if I […]

By Dele Sobowale “Sacked workers: PENGASSAN threatens to picket Dangote Refinery” – Report, September 29, 2025 When Alhaji Dangote embarked on establishing the largest single train refinery in the world in Lagos, his intentions could not possibly have included fomenting trouble. He had more exalted aims like ending Nigeria’s perennial and intractable fuel scarcity; saving Nigeria […]

By Dele Sobowale “Nothing is more wasteful than doing with great efficiency that which should not be done.” Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business Review, March-April, 1993. For five years, after being confined to a wheelchair, I now feel strong enough to travel around Nigeria more often. Thus, in August, I was able to touch eight states. What I […]

By Dele Sobowale “The time is a quarter to midnight” — Norman Borlaug, 1914-2009 Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution and Nobel Prize Winner in Agriculture in 1970 opened his address while receiving the prestigious award with those words. It catalyzed governments globally to take the issue of food security seriously. Nigeria briefly embraced it […]

By Dele Sobowale “How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress” – Niels Bohr, 1885-11962 Bohr, a Danish Nobel Prize Winner in Physics was one of the leaders in unraveling the mysteries of quantum theory. Along the line, he discovered that atoms don’t act in predictable […]

By Dele Sobowale I‘m ready to serve, says Mohammed Babangida – Report, July 22, 2025 High fertiliser cost: farmers dump rice, maize cultivation – Daily Trust, July 21, 2025 Over 3.7 million people face food insecurity in North-east Nigeria – ICRC, July 22, 2025  There was never a doubt in my mind that Mohammed Babangida would accept […]

By Dele Sobowale “If you shut up truth and bury it underground, it will but grow and gather to itself such explosive power, that the day it bursts through, it will blow up everything in its way” –  Emile Zola, 1840-1902  Two things are now certain about Nigeria’s so-called refineries. One, President Bola Tinubu will, henceforth, […]

Pause a moment and wrap your mind around the revelation that Nigeria might not have had to borrow one kobo – if only its national oil company had been managed by honest citizens from the Chairmen of the Board of Directors to the gatemen.