NIGERIA, like many countries, does not know the exact number of her people infected with COVID-19. What is known is the infection status and number of people that have been tested. Only those tested who returned laboratory-confirmed infections are counted as confirmed cases. Testing is the window into the burden of the pandemic, and a […]

COMPROMISING the integrity of the election is responsible for many political crises in many countries. The civil war fought in Nigeria (1966-1970) was remotely connected to the heavily rigged 1965 elections in the old Western Region. Stealing of votes led to bitter and violent protests, a chaotic situation which some young, adventurous army officers believed […]

THE call by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, for the decentralisation of our correctional administration is a very welcome idea. It is long overdue in view of our overstuffed prisons populated mainly by those awaiting trial. Malami, at the recent National Summit on Correctional Centres Reform in Nigeria in Abuja said […]

THE Federal Government is giving conflicting and confusing signals in its reaction to the recent #EndSARS protests. If this is a “stick and carrot” approach to the handling of the protest and the ensuing burst of burning and looting, then it is being wrongly applied. Only on Sunday, November 1, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari capitalised […]

RECENTLY, the Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, issued a statement demanding a new policing arrangement for the country – one that will allow multi-level policing and what it called homeland security. Afenifere was reacting to the gruesome murder of the Olufon of Ifon, Oba Israel Adeusi on November 26, 2020. It also recalled similar brutal murder […]

ON May 12, 2020, a bill seeking to alter the constitution to legalise virtual court proceedings passed through the first reading at the Senate, raising hopes of decongesting the courts of long-pending cases and removing much of the clogs in judicial proceedings that arise from convening physically in an era of coronavirus pandemic. The bill […]

ON August 26, 2020, Senator Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) swore that 75 elders of his community in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State were rounded up by Boko Haram terrorists, taken to the community’s abattoir and “slaughtered.” He disclosed this at a stakeholders meeting organised by the Senate Committee on Special Duties and […]

IN Nigeria, probe panels have become the classic means of covering up crimes and corruption in government, rather than the means of exposing them and punishing culprits. Even the military panels for the recovery of government funds and property set up by the Muhammadu Buhari military regime in 1984 turned out a mere witch hunt […]

WITH thousands of deaths now routinely linked to the COVID-19 pandemic each day, obtaining a safe and reliable vaccine has been an urgent priority. Thanks to the ingenuity of science, the long-awaited vaccine is finally here. Governments all over the world are already making plans to acquire doses of the milestone vaccine and make it […]

TWO teams set up by Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, to audit primary school teachers and local government workers in the state recently found that a total of 22,556 ghost workers were in the payroll of government. Of the 22,556 ghost workers, 14,762 were discovered at the local government level, while 7,794 were found to […]