Opinion

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…

By TUNDE OLUSUNLE Whenever I'm privileged to visit Ilorin the Kwara State capital, I include in my itinerary a visit to the University of Ilorin, Unilorin, as is popularly abbreviated. My passion, maybe obsession with the institution is informed by a number of reasons. Principal among these is the fact that I had two academic excursions to the revered school, during which I obtained a bachelors honours and a masters degree in English, respectively. I was graciously offered a place on the doctorate programme by the university but had to weigh up the cost of shuttling between my home in…