IT wasn’t a tango in the literal sense of salsa or rhumba. No! If it were, Nigerians would not have been as shocked as they are right now. It was not friendly fire, either. Neither was it a mistake. This is cold-blooded murder. Simple! And the question is: Why? Many before now had come to the conclusion that nothing really shocks Nigerians anymore. We have seen it all – man as his bestial worst. What could be crueller than cutting open the stomach of a pregnant woman to ensure that not even the foetus survives? Or come to think of it, what could be more brutish than strapping bombs around the waist of a 10-year-old girl and detonating same with some remote mechanism from a distance? Despite all these, there was something about the deadly encounter between officers of the Nigerian army and police in Taraba State last week that many are yet to wrap their heads around

GROWING up, I read Professor Anezi Okoro’s seminal 112-page book, One Week, One Trouble, in which the author, one of the country’s finest fiction writers of his generation, regaled the reader with the protagonist, Wilson Tagbo’s weekly troubles which were majorly run-ins with his secondary school authorities. I have had a cause in recent times to reflect again and again on the 1972 book. Replace the protagonist with President Muhammadu Buhari’s Nigeria and what you get is ‘one day, many troubles’. The similarities are too uncanny to be ignored by any perceptible mind.

THE Biblical anecdote of the rejection of Jesus Christ in his home town of Nazareth, a town in Galilee, always fascinates me. The story, variously told in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, narrates how Jesus went to the synagogue to teach on a Sabbath day, upon return to his birthplace, accompanied by his disciples.

IN any country other than Nigeria, what happened in Abuja on Monday, July 22, would have shocked and dumbfounded many. Any other country, whose seat of government is so violently convulsed as Abuja was, will be shaken and the citizens traumatised.

He is a genius, a man with the Midas touch, who has in only four years made Nigeria a country to be reckoned with globally

ON July 25, 2019, the remains of Mrs Obianuju Ndubuisi-Chukwu will be interred in her hometown, Ihiala, Anambra State. And that may be the end of the story. But it shouldn’t be if Nigeria is, indeed, desirous of being accorded the respect due to sovereign states with gravitas.

ON July 25, 2019, the remains of Mrs Obianuju Ndubuisi-Chukwu will be interred in her hometown, Ihiala, Anambra State. And that may be the end of the story. But it shouldn’t be if Nigeria is, indeed, desirous of being accorded the respect due to sovereign states with gravitas.

I am not a fan of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Here is a man who, despite his golden opportunity to reinvent Nigeria and put the country on an irreversible march to greatness, dealt its fledgeling democracy a blow. Considering the circumstances that led to his civilian presidency on May 29, 1999, even the most unrepentant agnostic, ever doubtful of the God-factor in the affairs of men, grudgingly acknowledged the invisible forces at work in his favour. He missed the opportunity. Most, if not all, of the crises bedevilling the country today, are consequences of his political bad faith.

I MET Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, for the first time on November 7, 2016, at a seminar the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Abuja organised on “Assessing the threats of Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria.”   Also in attendance were the cream of Nigerian security forces, editors and a team from the Atlantic Council African Centre, Washington, led by its Director General, Peter Pham. Buratai was the special guest of honour. 

I DECIDED not to write on this year’s June 12 Democracy Day having written two articles, back to back, on it last year. On June 13, 2018, I lauded President Muhammadu Buhari in this column for taking the bold initiative of “honouring Abiola with Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, GCFR, Nigeria’s highest award, and declaring June 12 Democracy Day. Some have queried the president’s motive. My answer is simple. Whatever informed the decision, it was the right thing to do. And if in doing what is right, he is reaping some political capital, so be it,” I concluded the article, titled, “June 12: I still remember”.

IN less than two years, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has been let off the anti-corruption hook twice. This is not because he has been adjudged innocent. No! Friends in high places, petrified that he may be consumed by the anti-graft inferno, which embers he helped to stoke, came to his rescue.

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari makes no pretence that he is not in a hurry, if ever, to walk away from a narrow political alley or climb out of the dark ditch of provincialism into bright national light.

TO all perspicacious Nigerians, the meeting between the Federal Government and leaders of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, in Birnin Kebbi on Friday, May 3, was bound to be controversial no matter the outcome.

AT a time when self-acclaimed Nigerian political gurus who arrogantly adorn a conceited political sophistication epaulet are calling Ndigbo politically naïve, a fascinating story in the foreign media gladdened my heart this week. While it is true that in the cesspit of Nigerian politics and its asinine leadership recruitment process, Ndigbo, expectedly, are floundering, the story of a 45-year-old man who is making waves politically in faraway Canada rekindled my belief that where merit and track record of performance are the yardsticks for success, Ndigbo will always hold their own by retaining a position of strength in a challenging situation.

By Ikechukwu Amaechi THE allegory of the tortoise that willfully refused entreaties from concerned friends who desperately tried to dissuade him from a disaster-prone journey fascinates me. Asked when he would return, his “not until I am disgraced” retort was both instructive and foreboding. His friends, aghast, must have wondered what would spur him on […]