Opinion

The first civilian governor of Abia State and former Minister of Science and Technology under President Muhammadu Buhari, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, is dead. He was aged 71. He has been in an Abuja hospital for the past month for the treatment of an undisclosed ailment. Details of his death are still sketchy but sources close to his family confirmed that he suffered a stroke last month and died today, Thursday, in Abuja. Ogbonnaya Onu was a lecturer at University of Port Harcourt before he made a foray into National Politics during the scuttled transition to civilian rule of former president…

While we continue to luxuriate in foolhardy work lethargy, idling away in the name of needless public holidays, serious nations are ramping up production in anticipation of increases in product demand from us – the revellers. By IKECHUKWU AMAECHI As you read this, Nigerians are still at home ‘savouring’ the Federal Government’s ‘magnanimity’ in awarding them extra public holiday for the Eid-el-Fitr celebrations that mark the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset Ramadan fasting by the Muslim ummah. As it is always the tradition, the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, on Sunday, April 7, declared Tuesday and Wednesday public holidays for…

By Ikeddy ISIGUZO MAJORITY of our leaders act like aliens in their scramble for Nigeria. They inspire each other with their uncommon craving for everything, including things they already have and will not need. They are not greedy. Their conduct is vastly worse than greed for it harbours an unquenchable desire for more at the expense of everything. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is sacrosanct. They appropriate the law. They would cuddle lawlessness if it is the path to their famed unimportance. Then they brag about it.Their motto appears to be to grab as much as they can before the party…

By TUNDE OLUSUNLE Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT), is an extremely lucky man. The fact that he has remained a permanent fixture at various levels on the nation's political canvas has been very well established. From the nondescript corners of a local government chairman and chief of staff to his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi in Government House, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Wike has consistently hugged the klieglights of provincial and national politics. As President in 2011, Goodluck Jonathan appointed Wike his Minister of State for Education. He subsequently functioned as "Supervising Minister" of the ministry when…

Akpabio should stop ridiculing his high office and embarrassing Nigerians, which is exactly what he does each time he puts his foot in his mouth. It is high time someone told him for his own good that his lack of emotional intelligence rankles. By IKECHUKWU AMAECHI  After my February 22, 2024 column on Godswill Akpabio’s holier-than-thou sermon on Godwin Emefiele, the embattled former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), who is being projected by equally sullied officials of the President Bola Tinubu administration as the poster boy of corruption in Nigeria, I had no intention of coming back…

By TUNDE OLUSUNLE Fela Anikulapo-Kuti the innovative Afrobeat musician, irrepressible composer, untiring activist, consummate artist, multi-instrumentalist and public intellectual it was who popularised the expression "basket mouth." His career as a performer straddled four decades, most especially between 1958 and 1997 when he transited. Within the period he turned out dozens of hits and albums which earned him accolades at home and abroad. His demonstrated leftist radicalism engendered repeated confrontations with the state, especially during the heady days of military rule in Nigeria. He battled the khakied administrations of Olusegun Obasanjo, (his kinsman from Abeokuta by the way); Muhammadu Buhari…

By SHEDDY OZOENE On Monday, November 11, 2019, I wrote a very critical article on the government of Kogi State at the time. In my opinion, the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello had not done enough to lift the poor condition of the state’s infrastructure and nearly 30 years after the state was created, the capital, Lokoja, still looked like a fishing settlement. The piece, published in TheNEWS, went with the title ‘Ajaokuta: The tragedy of Yahaya Bello’s misgovernance’. My concern was the poor manner in which the government in a state reeling with unemployment, lack of any visible industrial…

One attitude Muhammadu Buhari, the former military General who was Nigeria’s president from 2015 to 2023, brought into his presidency was the disdain for public opinion. He treated public disapproval of his actions and policies with so much contempt. However strident the criticism, Buhari turned a deaf ear to it and carried on as if the people did not matter. If the people mattered, they chose not to show their anger when it should count. How else would anybody explain Buhari’s reelection in 2019, and what has become the victory of Bola Tinubu of the same All Progressives Congress in…

The danger in trooping out willy-nilly to vote during elections knowing full well that the votes will not count is that such folly unwittingly validates INEC’s larceny and unbridled purloining of the people’s mandates. In a country where the judiciary dispenses injustice, until Nigerians begin to take deliberate actions such as election boycott, neither INEC nor the rogue politicians will change for good. By IKECHUKWU AMAECHI On the eve of last Saturday’s re-runs and bye-elections, I had an interesting chat, or if you like debate, on WhatsApp with a prominent Nigerian, whose identity I would rather keep under wraps. A…

By TUNDE OLUSUNLE There was almost always a familial disputation between his friends, about the most appropriate moniker to prefix to his name, at every point in time. He aggregated quite a number of them over several decades of leading his organisation to deliver global standard, durable public infrastructure as commissioned by an avalanche of government ministries, departments and agencies. Most famous of his references were the chieftaincy titles Ochendo Awka-Etiti and Eziafa Amaka Ahaba. He was also a Knight of the Anglican Communion who was at liberty to prefix the honorific "Sir" to his name. He was also the…