“I saw not victory after the war, but a new and happier world after the victory” – John Buchan EVEN while prosecuting the Civil War, General Yakubu Gowon was thinking about how to win the peace that would inevitably ensue. In a radio broadcast to the nation on October 1, 1970, he outlined a nine-point programme […]

“I saw not victory after the war, but a new and happier world after the victory” – John Buchan Nation-building is an arduous task requiring great patience, intrepid courage and sagacity. It also requires an expansive disposition that accommodates diversity and differences of viewpoints and ideas. Aggregating diversity and achieving uniformity marks the culmination of a […]

“The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents”, –  Edward Gibbon Knight-errants in shining armour do occasionally canter out of the horizon, not from the pages of some romantic fantasy novels, but from necessity and historical vicissitudes, to rescue not maidens in distress, but their countries from calamities and ambitious adventurers. It was precisely […]

“But for General Gowon, Nigeria would not have been as it is today” –   Major-General Paul C. Tarfa  THE role of the individual in history has been explored by historians and philosophers alike over the ages. Thucydides, Polybius, Tacitus, Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun, Ahmed Ibn Fartuwa, Edward Gibbon, Georgi Plekhanov, Thomas Carlyle, and many others, have […]

“More haste, less speed”” –  English proverb THERE are no quick fixes in respond ing to a calamity of such a magnitude. Deliberate and systematic approaches must be taken towards remedying the situations as they unfold. Cool heads, stout hearts and solid visions of the future are needed, especially from the leadership and all those […]