If the world is full of misery and heart-break, pain, sickness and oppression, it is because we caused it. — Socrates AT a time the National Youth Service Corps is finding relevance again, deaths of NYSC members in riots across the country have provided the latest reasons for calls to end the scheme. Emotions are […]

GOVERNORS are more powerful than most people realise. There are 36 of them and the President makes a point of kowtowing to them on most matters.

JOHN Campbell, former American Ambassador to Nigeria has alleged that the presidential election was rigged in favour of President Goodluck Jonathan. His evidence for this serious allegation is the submission of the Civil Society Election

TODAY is Good Friday, which marks the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross more than 2,000 years ago. On Sunday, Christians will celebrate Easter, the festival of the resurrection of Jesus Christ after a cruel death.

IT is almost impossible for election results not to be contested in Nigeria. The right to contest the results is one that is freely available to candidates. In exploring it, they strengthen the various aspects of our aspirations to an enduring democracy.

THIS is an appeal and an invitation to our people to consider their actions in the days ahead. Riots have broken out in some parts of the country, supposedly over the results of the presidential election.

ONCE we are able to overlook the initial bumpiness of the 2011 elections, there are remarkable differences with previous elections that can make Nigerians more forgiving of the tardiness of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Among them, and most importantly, could be that Nigerians voted, and their votes, in most cases, counted.

THE crisis in Cote d’Ivoire seemed to have gone a step towards resolution with the capture of the former President Laurent Gbagbo who was shown on television on Monday night under the control of economist Alassane Ouattara who the United Nations backed in his claims to victory in the 28 November elections.

THERE must be some expressed concerns about the increasing interest that the Federal Ministry of Health is discovering in contraceptives over more pressing health issues of Nigerians.

SECURITY has become an issue in the elections with more seriousness than had been anticipated. While the expectations were that ballot boxes may be snatched and voters intimidated, bombs started flying around election related venues before voting commenced.

WE are a resilient people. We are patient, most times. We are religious too, ascribing all things, the commonest mistakes inclusive, to the embracing powers of the Almighty.

NIGERIANS are used to rolling plans, master plans, road maps and such assumed indicators of long term planning. What they have not seen in the past 50 years of promotion of these ideas is their execution and the promised improvement of lives based on their results.

FINANCE Minister, Olusegun Aganga boasts about the growth of the Nigerian economy with rates that are better than the rest of the world except China and Indian. Last August, Aganga said, “real GDP has been measuring six per cent or higher in the past five years.” Good news but the grim unemployment figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, stated that national unemployment increased from 11.9 per cent in 2005 to 19.7 per cent in 2009, the highest since 2000.

ELECTIONS in Nigeria are assuming new dimensions – may be not the ones we expected. In the place of the free, fair, and credible elections Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, promised, what Nigerians got on Saturday was no election at all.

ONE of the premises on which former President Olusegun Obasanjo built his case to lead Nigeria in 1999, was that he wanted to finish his grand design for the country which handing over of power 20 years earlier, stopped him from concluding.