Nigeria must protect the classroom
“Can Education Survive Attack: The Resilience of Human Communities” is the theme of this year’s International Day to Protect Education from Attack, marked on 9 September. This is very apt for Nigeria as schools reopen for the 2026/2027 session. For a country where children are abducted from schools, the occasion is a painful reminder of […]
Insecurity not declining, Mr President
IT is said that if a candidate is allowed to mark his own examination papers, he will give himself straight “A’s”. Politicians are fond of giving themselves pass marks no matter how abysmal their performance is. President Muhammadu Buhari, who is fond of making sweeping promises is also very adept at giving himself unmerited praise […]
Tackling our wrong beliefs in money rituals
UNKNOWN to many Nigerians, there is a greater evil silently ravaging the country now than the prevailing insecurity – the killing of innocent people, including family members, for money rituals. Why are cases of this scourge rising every day? How did we get here, and what are the solutions? Only recently (and it has almost […]
Avoiding another shutdown of varsities
UNLESS sanity prevails, the nation might be plunged into another round of strikes by university staff unions, the second this year. The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, after waiting in vain for nine months for the Federal Government to fulfill its agreements with the Union, has served a three-week strike notice. Also, the Joint […]
Lessons in the life and times of Archbishop Desmond Tutu
AMONG the many sayings attributed to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, there is one that best captures the totality of who he was: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
LASEPA’s ban on single-use plastic commendable
Last week, when the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, officially banned single-use plastic among its staff members, it was probably following the footsteps of the 400-staff members of the United Nations Climate Secretariat in Bonn, Germany, who chose to endure the heat instead of enjoying the ozone-depleting, energy-guzzling comfort of air-conditioners. At Bonn, it […]
Rising food prices: Declare war on hunger now
SEPTEMBER last year, the House of Representatives, acting on a motion moved by one of its members, Ibrahim Isiaka (APC, Ogun), decided to set up a special committee to investigate why the “prices of food items, commodities, goods and services have skyrocketed by as much as 100 per cent in many parts of Nigeria in […]
Doing justice to Development Plan 2021-2025
In the frenzy of the 2021 Yuletide and 2022 Appropriation Bill legislative actions, the Federal Government had quietly rolled out the National Development Plan 2021-2025. This is the latest economic blueprint of the President Muhammadu Buhari regime, even as it begins to wind down in 17 months time. Nigeria has had over a dozen development […]
Giving ‘direct primaries’ a chance
IN passing the contentious Electoral Act Amendment Bill, the National Assembly took two decisions which have gone down well with the people as they will promote our democratic practice and enhance the search for better quality leaders, especially in the 2023 general elections. The first of these is restoring the power of the Independent National […]
Electoral Bill: Ball in Buhari’s court
NIGERIANS deserve congratulations for winning the epic legislative battle for electronic transmission of their votes in future elections. This should be a lesson for us to pay close attention to proceedings in our various legislative houses. It has been proved, times without number, that our so-called representatives often do not represent us but themselves. Under […]
Why we must rid our media spaces of violence
NIGERIANS were outraged on New Year Day, January 1, 2022, when the story broke of a 23-year-old suspect, Ayobamidele Kudus Ayodele, who was arrested by the police for abducting a six-year-old boy, Ebube Eze, from Remson Group of Schools, in Ojo Alaba area of Lagos.
Soot pollution in Rivers, Bayelsa: All hands must be on deck
Reminiscent of the George Floyd saga, the people of Rivers State are finding it difficult to breathe due to the environmental challenge of soot scientifically known as black carbon. Floyd, it must be recalled, choked to death when he was pinned beneath three police officers who were trying to arrest him in Minnesota, United States […]
A thought for the less-privileged in the new year
THE Christmas and New Year festivities are never complete without crowds of children, led by their parents or guardians, visiting amusement parks and other playgrounds in search of fun to which they are entitled. It is heartbreaking, however, to observe that while a few of these children move about in their parents’ private cars, others […]
Buhari must address our petrol subsidy morass
THE All Progressives Congress, APC, Federal Government must accept the blame for the fact that after six years in power, we are still deeply mired in our intractable petrol subsidy regime. As the leader of the then opposition party, Muhammadu Buhari had intensely argued that there was no fuel subsidy; that the subsidy which the […]
Expiring vaccine doses at a time of rising infections
LAST week, the Federal Government authorised the destruction of over one million doses of expired Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
Expiring vaccine doses at a time of rising infections
Last week, the Federal Government authorised the destruction of over one million doses of expired Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccines. Faisal Shuaib, Head of Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, explained that the doses which were donated to the country with short shelf life, could not be used before their expiration date. He blamed the development […]
