Talking Point

It’s a straight fight between Jackson and AMBO, by Rotimi Fasan

It’s a straight fight between Jackson and AMBO, by Rotimi Fasan

The so-called off-cycle governorship election slated for August 15 in Osun State is billed to be a straight fight between the incumbent governor, the ever-ebullient, happy-go-lucky Nurudeen Jackson Adeleke, and a former finance commissioner in the cabinet of Adeleke’s predecessor, Asiwaju Bola Munirudeen Oyebamiji, popularly called AMBO. He is an acolyte of the self-respecting, easy-going Gboyega […]
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Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian economy and our politicians, by Rotimi Fasan

Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian economy and our politicians, by Rotimi Fasan

Nigerians may be struggling to survive at this moment as they have been in the last two and half years since President Bola Tinubu unmoored the economy from the burden of a criminal petrol subsidy regime that benefitted none of the poor Nigerians they were meant for. He abolished a dual foreign exchange system that left […]

 Between the separatists and the builders of Lagos, by Rotimi Fasan

 Between the separatists and the builders of Lagos, by Rotimi Fasan

When I made the point that those who chose to criticise the Bariga LCDA for renaming some bus-stops in Lagos without looking at the action that provoked that reaction were being one-sided, I was merely calling for fairness in our evaluation of that episode. I affirmed the right of the LCDA to make that decision and […]

The Igbo claim on Lagos, by Rotimi Fasan

The Igbo claim on Lagos, by Rotimi Fasan

A Yoruba saying has it that when siblings leave a family gathering smiling, they have obviously not spoken the truth to one another. We are in such times of a family indaba and some truths, no matter how inconvenient, are in order. It was just last week that Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca […]

Peter Obi and his kurukere moves, by Rotimi Fasan

Peter Obi and his kurukere moves, by Rotimi Fasan

Nigerian politicians thrive in chaos and take pleasure in gaining the unfair advantage. They would sooner violate extant conventions, regulations and laws that guide electoral contests than abide by them. There’s hardly any aspect of Nigeria’s electoral practice that is not spelt out in the guidelines provided by the Independent National Electoral Commission and these guidelines […]

The teachable moments that were Buhari’s passage, by Rotimi Fasan

The teachable moments that were Buhari’s passage, by Rotimi Fasan

As would be expected of a public figure, the death of former President, Muhammadu Buhari, has dominated the news in the last few days. Report of his passage first came to me on Sunday evening from Arise TV’s Reuben Abati who suddenly deviated from the subject of discussion on the programme he anchors every Sunday […]

Atiku, Obi, Amaechi and El-Rufai: Much ado about a coalition

Atiku, Obi, Amaechi and El-Rufai: Much ado about a coalition

The camp of the Nigerian opposition parties, made up largely of a mix of disaffected and/or expired politicians, has been in a ferment of excitement in the last few days after they came together under the umbrella of the African Democratic Congress, one of the lesser known political parties that make up the country’s political landscape. […]

Sim Fubara’s comforters, by Rotimi Fasan

Sim Fubara’s comforters, by Rotimi Fasan

Like Job’s friends who chose the worst moments of his grief to berate him, pouring insults and scorn on him in the name of moral support, the suspended governor of Rivers State, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, has never been short of  supporters and so-called friends who have been either screaming on roof tops or whispering their kind of […]

The June 12 heroes’ list, its traducers and the revisers of history, by Rotimi Fasan

The June 12 heroes’ list, its traducers and the revisers of history, by Rotimi Fasan

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu chose this year’s Democracy Day on June 12 to celebrate heroes of the anti-military coalition and other pro-democracy activists his critics, mostly the usual suspects of opposition elements who have turned political criticism into a career in finding faults by seeing nothing good about the President and his government, not only […]

Questions for the opposition as Tinubu goes to Yelewata, by Rotimi Fasan

Questions for the opposition as Tinubu goes to Yelewata, by Rotimi Fasan

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be arriving Makurdi, the Benue State capital, sometime today on a condolence visit to a people who have suffered under terror groups that have massacred families and sacked communities across the state and the wider territories of the North- Central region. Given how long the attacks have continued and the […]

Tinubu, the politics of defection and Nigeria’s opposition, by Rotimi Fasan

Tinubu, the politics of defection and Nigeria’s opposition, by Rotimi Fasan

Nigeria’s political landscape still looks like a confused field of play with politicians running around like headless chickens bound for the cooking pot. The political parties are in disarray and their members pretend to be hard at work with their avowed plan of moving the country in a new direction. They are full of motion even […]

President Tinubu’s mid-term score, by Rotimi Fasan

President Tinubu’s mid-term score, by Rotimi Fasan

The earnestness with which many opposition politicians and the disaffected conclave of commentariat (not the actual mass of hungry Nigerians that are more with the real but mundane issues of bread and butter) looked forward to the mid-term performance evaluation of the Bola Tinubu administration gave the impression that he has completed his first if not […]

Donald Trump’s Oval Office Kingdom, by Rotimi Fasan

Donald Trump’s Oval Office Kingdom, by Rotimi Fasan

The mandate Americans gave to Donald Trump to be their 47th president for a second, non-consecutive term, is all the hubris he needs to imagine he is the president of the world, literally the world’s most powerful man. He goes around with the arrogance of that assurance. Even if his America First policy subsists on an […]

JAMB and its ethnic traducers, by Rotimi Fasan

JAMB and its ethnic traducers, by Rotimi Fasan

Now the hurly burly surrounding the fiasco that marred a part of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, is beginning to settle down with the retake of the exam and release of the result sometime today, I hope the ethnic warriors and closet bigots masquerading as thought and political leaders will, if they still have any […]

Nigeria’s opposition in disarray, by Rotimi Fasan

Nigeria’s opposition in disarray, by Rotimi Fasan

In less than two weeks the All Progressives Congress-led government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would mark its mid-term in office. Which is the same thing as saying that the emergence of the winner of the 2027 presidential election is still more than a year away. But there is palpable confusion in the camp of Nigeria’s […]

Between Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan and Prof Mgbeke, by Rotimi Fasan

Between Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan and Prof Mgbeke, by Rotimi Fasan

Readers may still remember my concluding thoughts from the second of my two-part series on the Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and Senator Godswill Akpabio’s saga on March 19 this year. Whatever direction the saga ended, the career of the two combatants, either in manipulative conduct or making inappropriate comments, was about being terminated, I said. The twist […]