The conspiracies against President Goodluck Jonathan are no longer hidden from the public glare. These plots started several months ago, even before INEC fixed the election time table. Foremost amongst the plotters are : 1) General Olusegun Obasanjo, (1) Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (3) The Northern Elders Forum (4) Boko Haram and now Chukwuma Soludo, among others. These people or group of persons have not hidden their hatred for GEJ and the Federal Government.

Now that there is a break, half time break, in political campaigns or a postponement of the elections by six weeks, it is time to take stock of the various political activities, and possibly prepare for a more refined, purposeful and positive approach contrary to what some have taken as “do-or-die”.

FOLLOWING the postponement of the 2015 elections, now scheduled to commence on March 28, rather than February 14, 2015, questions have arisen as to the possibility of the Nigerian Army and its allies from the neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroun and Niger defeating Boko Haram in six weeks.

ELECTION 2015 is very crucial. It was predicted by a Director of CIA some time ago, to be the last Nigeria will have as one nation. Although some may want us to believe that it never happened, we know it was said, and some Nigerians weigh the stand of America over our national survival issues against that prediction. They also watch and follow political developments to see how they fit into that prediction. From developments so far, one disturbing question remains, what becomes of Nigeria after these elections?

Couple of days ago, one of the national newspapers published what it headlined: S’South Got Lion’s Share Of PTF Projects Under Buhari, struggling as it were to give an account of the stewardship of former head of state and Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, retired General Muhammadu Buhari in his four years as Chairman of the defunct Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund.

“No form of society can be reasonably stable in which the majority of the people are not fairly content. People cannot be content if they feel that the foundations of their lives are wholly unstable.” -James Truslow Adams (1878-1949) ECONOMIC prosperity, peace and progress are the rewards which the people get in return for their […]

NOT since the days of Awo and the Action UPN has Nigeria witnessed the level of enthusiasm that we see these days when Buhari shows up for a campaign rally. I was at the Lagos rally of the APC at the Teslim Balogun Stadium. What I saw and experienced was nothing short of euphoria and […]

The joint report by the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on illicit financial flows from Africa has made good headlines. Some have described the report as “a turning-point”; others said its recommendations are “game changing,” and capable of addressing the problem both within Africa and globally.

BY March 28, Nigerians will go to the polls to elect the person that will govern the country for the next four years. Although fifteen political parties are fielding candidates for the presidential election, the two parties to watch are the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APC and their candidates. However, some factors are emerging that may influence the outcome of the presidential election in different regions and states of the country.

THE frenetic race to the aborted February 14 election, which has now been shifted to March 28, during which the choice of 109 senators will be made across the country had reached feverish pitch before the shift of date.

I WAS shocked to read the editorial of February 16, entitled “Nigeria’s Miserable Choices.” First, it was the Independent National Electoral Commission, not President Goodluck Jonathan, who decided to postpone the election, a power it exclusively has under our constitution. INEC Chairman, Attahiru Jega, said publicly “nobody has coerced us… to take this decision.”

IN the past few weeks, there has been a lot of peace accords along with the attendant media hype. The first of these was the Abuja accord where the leading political parties and their presidential candidates signed an agreement essentially against election violence.

THAT politics is the branch of social science that deals with the allocation of power to a few individuals, to use as they deem fit, on behalf of the majority of the people is no longer news.

POOR Attahiru Jega! The distinguished Professor of political science and Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is once again in the dock. Indeed, the first salvo against Jega in the court of public opinion is that he is biased. Those who say that Jega is biased cite his now aborted plot to create 30,000 polling booths eighty per cent of which would have been located in the North as evidence of his ploy to give his side of the country an edge over the rest of the country. Another charge against Jega is to the effect that the umpire has kowtowed to pressure from the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to disenfranchise voters who are seen to be sympathetic to President Goodluck Jonathan and his ruling Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP). The story making the rounds in Lagos is that INEC, in solidarity with APC, has denied the Igbo who constitute more than 46 per cent of the population in Lagos the Permanent Voter Card (PVC).

The struggle for power in Nigeria has always been accompanied by violence, intimidation and sometimes total war. The 1965 general elections, marred by fraud and violence, led to the collapse of the democratic process.