“I wish the farmers could go and stay in their farms so that we can produce what we need sufficiently so that we don’t have to import. In any case, we don’t have money to import so we must produce what we have to eat”. PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari sounded this urgent “call to arms” to […]

THE Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, is seen as one of the most corrupt federal establishments. The common impression is that those appointed to commanding positions in the organisation routinely go there to acquire enough financial “war chest” with which to actualise political ambitions in their states. Today, the NDDC, which was set up by […]

TAKING it from the regime’s three-point agenda: revival of the economy, securing the country and fighting corruption, it can be safely said that nothing has really changed (except in many cases for the worse). The economy was sagging when he took over in 2015. It went into recession later that year and marginally broke the […]

TODAY, Friday, May 29, 2020 is the fifth anniversary of Muhammadu Buhari’s ascent to power as an elected President. We will assess this era by examining the two sides of the coin. First, the obverse side: What are the contributions the administration has made towards leaving Nigeria better than they met it? The first is […]

THE Ese Oruru saga is a photographic image of the kind of society Nigeria has become in recent years. It shows that as far as the citizen is concerned government is virtually irrelevant since it has continued to prove unwilling and incapable of protecting the ordinary person from evil forces prowling boldly in the open. […]

IT is said that to whom much is given, much is also expected. So much has been given to our successive elected and appointed government officials in Nigeria over the years. Our politicians who have controlled the wealth of the nation can hardly point to many tangible things they have done with our money other […]

IT is a sad irony that our security agents mobilised to man our checkpoints and state boundaries have become perhaps the biggest facilitators of community and nationwide spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria. In addition to the policy of social distancing between individuals, governments also sought to establish barriers between the states and communities […]

ON Sunday, May 17, 2020 the Minister of Aviation, Alhaji Hadi Sirika, tweeted information that made the headlines both on the traditional and social media platforms. According to him, a British-registered airline, Flair Aviation, flouted the terms of its mandate to fly into Nigeria. It was permitted to conduct humanitarian operations but “regrettably, we caught […]

IT has been eleven weeks since the war on the new coronavirus diseases was declared at the Federal level by President Muhammadu Buhari on March 30, 2020.  As the pandemic rages, some of the most sophisticated healthcare systems in the world were made to look ordinary, with millions of people infected and hundreds of thousands […]

DESPITE broad hints by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 that President Muhammadu Buhari would make his fourth pandemic national broadcast on Sunday, May 17, 2020, nothing of the sort happened. It was Boss Mustapha, the Chairman of the Task Force, who informed Nigerians of what might have been the President’s address during PTF’s routine […]

IF you tell an average Nigerian that our country’s healthcare system ranks 187th out of 192 countries he or she will not be surprised. Evidences of our shambles of a health system abound everywhere you look. Even our leaders who have the mandate to change the sordid state of affairs in our social sectors such […]

WHEN President Muhammadu Buhari made his second national broadcast on the coronavirus pandemic on April 13, 2020 and said that the regime’s Homegrown School Feeding Programme, HSFG, would continue even after schools nationwide were shut for the pandemic lockdowns,  Nigerians were shocked. People wondered how school children could be fed by the Federal Government while […]

THE Integrated Payment and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, the Bank Verification Number, BVN, and the Treasury Single Account, TSA, were technology-based instruments to fight corruption and money laundering at source and sanitise government spending. IPPIS, in particular, was meant to digitalise the payroll of the Federal Government and eliminate the ghost worker syndrome whereby corrupt […]

THE appetite of our government officials for all things foreign has continued even in the face of our gloomy economic prospects arising from the new coronavirus pandemic. We have repeatedly called on the authorities to seize this moment and start looking inwards for solutions to most of our problems, but apparently our calls have met […]

WHEN considering those who make up the “poorest and most vulnerable” members of our society who should be eligible for palliative packages being distributed by governments and public-spirited individuals, women (especially widows) children, destitute and elderly primarily come to mind. After about six weeks of restrictions and lock-downs many more people are becoming poorer and […]