IN describing the Muhammadu Buhari administration as dumb I do not wish now to be understood as referring to what many commentators increasingly call the administration’s or, in fact, the president’s cluelessness (Is it not amazing that this administration has so quickly frittered away its goodwill in less than two years, to the extent that it’s now being described in the same unflattering register as the Goodluck Jonathan administration?)

IN just 24 hours since he became president of the United States of America, Donald Trump has been bombarded with a series of protests in the US and around the world. Over one million women, it is estimated, in the US alone and tens of thousand in many European capitals from London, Melbourne, Paris and Madrid among others, have marched against what they called the anti-women stance of the new administration in America. Although not all Americans, they fear they would be negatively impacted by the ultra-nationalistic and anti-women poise of the US government under Trump.

HE was young and good-looking. He was also confident and his rousing rhetoric got everyone eager to be part of his train. Starry-eyed, his words would rekindle the dying embers of a nation at a moral crossroads. It set the youth alive and got them chorusing the song for the rebirth of their country.

IT’S indeed a pertinent thing to ask when a leader should respond to a crisis situation. Perhaps, a more pertinent question is why a leader should respond at all. The simple answer is that by responding a leader shows he/she care for and understands his/her duty by their people.

IN less than five months from now President Muhammadu Buhari would have spent two years in office. His four-year term would be half gone by then. The full impact of what his government has achieved in the previous 24 months should by then be clear. In most places, the first one hundred days is the benchmark of assessment. If by that time a government hasn’t got its bearing, it can begin to regard itself as a potential failure.

OVER the Christmas weekend, news finally came that Sambisa forest, stronghold of the Boko Haram insurgency, has fallen to the superior might of the Nigerian military. The actual time of capitulation was the afternoon of Friday, 23 December. Report of the fall of Sambisa forest has been confirmed by President Muhammadu Buhari, and this should call for some celebration.

THE refusal of the Nigerian Senate to consider for confirmation the nomination of Ibrahim Magu as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, points to the clash of interest among the minders of President Muhammadu Buhari, and foreshadows the crisis that may yet undo his administration.

THE above question probably sounds very unfair and it’s probably in order to address what makes it so before going on any further. The first thing is that the question gives the impression we are under the control of a leader, a pilot or a driver of a vehicle who has lost his sense of direction.

IT’S been more than a week since Fidel Castro, Cuba’s revolutionary leader for nearly half a century, died.  As I write this in the afternoon of Sunday 4th December, 2016, the people of Cuba are in the final stages of the burial ceremonies of their leader whose ashes are to be interred in Santiago de […]

DURING his talk at the first Akintola Williams Annual Lecture, former President Olusegun Obasanjo x-rayed certain aspects of governance in Nigeria. He beamed his searchlight on the state of the economy, the judiciary, the legislature and the fight against corruption.