By Donu Kogbara This Wednesday was the 26th  anniversary of Ken Saro Wiwa’s execution by the Abacha regime. Saro Wiwa, an environmental activist, was hanged for inciting the murders of four Ogoni chiefs; but he is widely celebrated as a hero and his supporters are demanding that he be exonerated by President Muhammadu Buhari. In […]

By Donu Kogbara PRINCE Uche Secondus, the suspended National Chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, tried to prevent the PDP convention from taking place in Abuja tomorrow. Yesterday, the Court of Appeal in Secondus’s state capital, Port Harcourt, deferred judgement till today. READ ALSO:Anambra Guber: Police promise to be civil, firm during poll Secondus […]

By Donu Kogbara LINDSAY Barrett, the West Indian media man who has wholeheartedly embraced his African roots, has become a legend in his own lifetime. I first heard of him three-and-a-half decades ago, when I was a young journalist working in the UK, where I grew up. I was in my mid-20s at the time and, […]

By Donu Kogbara THE current power struggle between the governors of some Nigerian states and the Abuja-based Federal Government takes me back to my distant schooldays in Britain, when we were taught, in lessons about the late Mediaeval and early Renaissance periods of European history; about the endless tussles between overbearing monarchs and noble vassals […]

By Donu Kogbara THE annual Independence Day navel-gazing exercise is upon us! Every year, on or just before/after October l, like many other journalists and public affairs commentators, I solemnly contemplate the state of the nation. And – sadly! – there has never been a year when I have concluded that Nigeria is more good […]

By Donu Kogbara THE Forum for Ethnic Nationalities of Niger Delta, FENND, is a newish advocacy group that represents peoples who existed long before Nigeria was created and believes in non-violent pushback against forces that sabotage the interests of the region. Some of you will be wondering how FENND differs from other Niger Delta groups, […]

By Donu Kogbara OUR erudite Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, recently expressed the view, in the September/October edition of a distinguished international publication – The Foreign Affairs Journal –  that banning fossil fuel investments will crush Africa. I agree so strongly with His Excellency that I requested permission to share his thought-provoking article with Vanguard […]

By Donu Kogbara LET me now share with you some excerpts from a paper written by Dr. Uche Igwe, a Fellow at the London School of Economics. Terrorism is an expensive venture. The lifeline of any violent extremist organisation is its capacity to raise funds to finance its operations and recruit members. The sources of […]

In today’s Nigeria, from the Chibok girls to Dapchi to Jangegbe to Kankara, to all other schools in states, children are again bearing the brunt of adult failures to provide an environment for them to live their lives in safety and freedom.

By Donu Kogbara SINCE the Taliban triumphantly marched into Kabul nearly a fortnight ago, many people have gloomily predicted that Nigeria will suffer a similar dire fate at some point in the not-too-distant future. After all, we too have deadly vipers in our collective bosom, as in home-grown and foreign Talibanesque Islamic extremists – ISIS, Al […]

By Donu Kogbara LAST week on this page, I expressed the view that Nigeria could have produced a COVID vaccine if our government was seriously focusing on the need to transform this country into a real Giant Of Africa. Jonas Odocha ([email protected]), a former Group General Manager at NNPC, the state oil company, responded thus: Dear […]

By Donu Kogbara WHEN I was a teenager, my father bought me a poster that I stuck on my bedroom wall. The words emblazoned on it were: “Sometimes, I look at things that are and I ask myself ‘why?’ At other times, I think about things that aren’t and ask myself ‘why not?’” That poster […]

By Donu Kogbara SENATOR Godswill Akpabio, the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, has been controversial and embattled – to put it mildly! – since he became Minister of Niger Delta Affairs in 2019. First, he got presidential approval to initiate a “forensic audit” of the notoriously tangled finances and opaque operations of the Niger Delta […]

By Donu Kogbara I HAVE on this page expressed, more than once, the view that this government is crushing the average Nigerian’s spirit in two ways:Firstly, government has a penchant for managing its practical responsibilities ineptly; and, thanks to rampant insecurity and chronic socio-economic stress, we live with constant, spirit-crushing fear of being killed or kidnapped […]

By Donu Kogbara THE Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, has deeply angered many natives of the oil-producing region. I’ve decided to share the opinions of a Niger Deltan leader who happens to be a member of my ethnic group. Legborsi Saro Pyagbara is Executive Director of the Indigenous Centre for Energy and Sustainable Development, ICE-SD, and a […]