It has been ten years since the self-styled “strong man of Ibadan politics”, Chief Lamidi Ariyibi Akanji Adedibu, died. He died on June 11, 2008. I do not recall seeing many tributes or advertisements in the newspapers or other media commemorating his life and legacy.

The paradox of the Nigerian education system is that the most competent teachers in terms of professional skills and credentials are employees of public schools

PROFESSOR Imran Oluwole Smith SAN  is a Professor of Law of the prestigious University of Lagos, a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (U.K) and also a Fellow of the Institute of Taxation of Nigeria. He is currently Professorial Associate, School of African and Oriented Studies of the University of London and a member of the inner Bar, otherwise described with the accolade “Senior Advocate of Nigeria “.

THAT central bank is of crucial importance to national economic health cannot be overemphasized. It is the supreme monetary authority in every country and the heartbeat of the economy. As the heart pumps blood to give life to the body, so does the central bank pump and regulate money supply in the financial system to maintain a healthy economy. Central bank policies can either make or mar the economic life of a people, thus the need for in-depth economic research, formulation of rationally comprehensive policies and strategic sensitivity for sharpness of perception.

Although participation in “bourgeois politics”—as we used to call electoral politics—has never been absent from the Nigerian Left’s general programme, it has also not been made a “categorical imperative”. I am, however, now persuaded that it has become generally accepted in the ranks of contemporary Nigerian Leftists that intervention and participation in the country’s electoral struggle—for office or for power, as an organized political force and in alliance or acting separately—have become both categorical and urgent.