It’s not only the poor that are mad, if you get my drift. Even folks who once thought of themselves as middle class, that is, neither wealthy nor poor, are in maddening distress. They can hardly believe how life has come to be what it is today. Perhaps the most frequently asked question is: how did we get here? My mother used to pray that things should never be difficult for her and for those who could help in a time of need. Now, both the needy and the helper are in distress. When you have to think twice to…
Author: Azu Ishiekwene
“Every morning a lion wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death…It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle, you better be running” First attributed to Dan Montano in The Economist, but popularised by Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat. If, 20 years ago, you asked me whether big technology (or big tech) companies were a threat to journalism, my answer would have been an emphatic yes. After all, these companies do our job without our job description. They also disrupt the media space while taking little responsibility…
Elections in Nigeria this year might be nearly over but the war by other means could well receive fresh fire from three state elections this weekend. The year began with general elections in February and March, and is closing with off-cycle elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi on November 11. Conducting elections for three governors after the major round of governorship elections in March that covered 28 states, including the legislatures in dozens of states, and the federal elections before that, might ordinarily look easy. But they are not. These three off-cycle elections are in fact products of either violent…
Former vice president and presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, said on Monday that Nigeria was the bigger loser in last week’s decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. That was a convenient exaggeration to hide his misery. But it was unnecessary. After unsuccessfully contesting to be president six times, it would have been human for him to admit that this loss, on what might well be his last attempt, was difficult to bear. He didn’t need to frame it as a national tragedy, because quite frankly, it wasn’t. It’s the…
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, 60, is a medical doctor and retired army captain. But he has not had a job after retirement 37 years ago. His day job since has been bandits’ advocacy. He has become so used to getting away with saying what he likes when he likes and how he likes it, he hardly knows when he needs help to extract his foot from his mouth. He could use such help. Not only for his own good, but perhaps for the good of those taking him seriously as well. In a rambling no-holds-barred sermon last week, Gumi lashed out at the Minister of…
I grew up thinking that a judicious mix of crime, sex and money might not only help a publisher turn a good profit but could also be the catalyst for a better society. But my friend, the Publisher/Editor-In-Chief of NaijaTimes, Ehi Braimah, subscribes to a slightly different model. When he sent me a collection of the editorials by the online newspaper to review, it was obvious that he believes it is possible to change society – for the better – by using a genre different from my old, familiar mix. Which is a bit of a surprise because in his…
This is the moment the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu always feared with great anxiety. Yet when Hamas launched a deadly attack on Southern Israeli border towns in the early hours of October 7, Bibi and Israel’s elite security forces were unprepared. In a bizarre fabrication intended to complete Bibi’s humiliation a few days into the war, social media claimed, falsely, that an antisemitic crow had given the victory to the Palestinians in a mystic moment of avian fury. The truth is more nuanced and complicated. After over five decades of bloody conflicts, the Israeli-Palestinian war has not produced winners or…
In a country of 133 million multidimensional poor, with youth unemployment at 53.40 percent, it would be a pity if anyone looking for an opportunity to earn a living missed the chance to hear the Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma recently. In a campaign speech for his second term, Uzodimma promised, as my father would have said, what Napoleon in all his extraordinary conquests and ambition could not even have dreamed of. In my humble view, it’s Japa 2.0, a giant leap forward for the youth delivered in a moment of creative genius, the last of which was seen when…
In the Bible, Keren-happuch was the youngest of the three beautiful daughters of Job, who against the norms of a patriarchal society, inherited her father’s vast latter-day wealth along with her two other sisters. But in the sometimes inexplicable twist of fate, this is the story of another Keren-happuch whose sun set before it rose. Her story as told by her mother was hard to follow. Even if I had eaten the head of a tortoise, the fabled medicine for anhedonia, the woman’s story, especially her futile search for justice, would still have broken my heart into many pieces. Perhaps…
Following the G-20 summit held in India, I have been amused by the debate about whether or not Nigeria should be more than a guest again at the next G-20 meeting in Rio, Brazil. If South Africa is a member, why not Nigeria? How do you offer Africa’s largest economy only a complimentary ticket every time to such an important global event, leaving it with the rather humiliating option of begging for a place? I thought that we had outgrown the belief that respect is earned by size or by simply hanging out with the right crowd, regardless of performance.…
It’s not often that you meet Supreme Court justices, serving or retired. I first met retired Justice Sunday Akinola Akintan casually at a reception in Abuja, for my friend and radical lawyer, Yinka Olumide-Fusika, who had been admitted to the inner bar. Then, we met again about one year later, this time, through his book. Years after his retirement from the Supreme Court in 2008, Justice Akintan wrote a book, entitled, “Reminiscences: My Journey Through Life,” which Olumide-Fusika, SAN, asked me to review. What struck me was one of Akintan’s motivations for writing the book. It was an answer to T.O.S Benson’s…
It’s more than one year to the next governorship election in Edo State, which prides itself on being the “heartbeat of the nation”. But in a maelstrom that has forced the state’s heart to beat faster than is good for it, you would be forgiven to think the election is tomorrow. The bad blood between Governor Godwin Obaseki and his deputy, Philip Shaibu, is so bitter and so strong it has spilled beyond Osadebe House in Benin, splattering as far as Abuja courts, and daily smearing the front pages of newspapers. Reports last week said the governor, fed up of…
Abuja is not in a hurry to change. However, in a city famous for its bad habits fostered by wayward politicians, I think the dial may have moved a bit in the right direction. It’s hard to say if this slight movement has been fortuitous, or whether it had anything to do with the threat of the new minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, to tackle lawbreakers with an iron hand. I have noticed that one week after Wike’s swearing in, more traffic lights in and around the Central Business District began to work. More than I can…
It was not meant to be this way. But like a good number of things Nigerian, the story is hardly complete without a twist in the tale. And so it has been for at least three years now with the story of the gas car that was supposed to lessen, if not end, Nigerians’ petrol misery. Sometime in 2020, state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (now NNPC Limited), launched what it advertised as the National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP). The major objective of the programme, according to NNPC Group CEO, Mele Kyari, was to harvest gas for car fuel.…
Engaging Nigerien Military President Is Like Having Sex with Someone You Hate A good number of people, including me, seems opposed to Nigeria leading the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to war in Niger. In one of the most telling anti-war metaphors, a Nigerian columnist and Editor, Lasisi Olagunju, likened military intervention to rubbing buttocks with the porcupine. Doves everywhere are flying the flag of peace. Protesters are also waving placards reminding Nigeria’s President and ECOWAS Chairman, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, not to start a war he cannot finish. As if he lacks awareness, Tinubu has also received reminders,…
If President Bola Ahmed Tinubu hit the ground running, it was because problems chased him into office. Yet, it wasn’t long before he tripped on a matter in which his genius has been acknowledged: forming his cabinet. One of his credentials for eight years as governor of Lagos, and even outside public office for 16 years, has been his gift for spotting talents and putting them to work. He campaigned on this record in the last election. You can therefore imagine the disappointment in some circles when he not only waited 60 days, nearly exhausting the legally allowed time, but…
Again, A Bizarre Joke in Niger Speaks French Not only are military coups becoming frighteningly frequent in West and Central Africa, virtually all of them, it appears, also speak French. For the fifth time in three years in West Africa, soldiers struck again in Niger, Nigeria’s Northern neighbour, where former President Muhammadu Buhari had teasingly longed for refuge from Nigeria’s hostile press. With the recent turn of events, however, it appears that Buhari’s speed train to Maradi, Niger’s ancient city, may have to find another destination. It’s the fifth successful military coup in that country since 1960. Apart from the…
When I first voted in an election in Nigeria in 1983, the Internet was just newly born. It had not even been properly named. Forty years later when I voted for the fifth time, my daughter who attained voting age only 13 years ago and has since voted only once, as far as I know, was telling me from thousands of miles away, where she now lives with her family, how she thought I should have voted and for who. I laughed. This was by no means a unique experience. A very close friend and managing director of one of…
There’s a trending Museveni video from nine years ago. If you watched it casually, you might in fact think that it was done yesterday. It was a clip of Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, narrating what happened in 2014 when a delegation of African heads of state was asked by AU to mediate the Libyan crisis at the time. Museveni’s account of the outcome of the assignment, which has so far not been denied by NATO, was a scandal – an African shame – on steroids. It’s surprising how the incident remained largely unreported until this video resurfaced again recently. It…
You may have seen it. The list, of course. Those who think that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not moving fast enough to appoint ministers have offered to help. They have composed their own ministerial list for him and shared it on social media. It’s trending now. Just one look at it, however, and you would know that it’s an improbable list, even for a Banana republic. It didn’t make sense. Going by the list, not a few commentators are already relishing the prospects of Adams Oshiomhole as Minister of Works; Nasir El-Rufai as Minister of Interior; and Nyesom Wike…
I’m not sure what breaks the heart more: her insistence on her innocence or the prospects of a future that now hangs in the balance. For a young adult with a promising future, the emerging facts only suggest one thing: it doesn’t rain, it pours. Mmesoma Ejikeme was one of the numerous students of Anglican Girls Secondary School (AGSS), Nnewi, Anambra State, who took the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in May 2023. The first child in a family of four whose father eked out a living as an Okada rider, Mmesoma remained not just the pride of her parents,…
It doesn’t make sense to weigh tragedies on a scale. How do you measure them? Leo Tolstoy got it right in Anna Karenina when he said whereas all happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And so indeed it was on June 14 when it was reported that a boat carrying 750 migrants had capsized near Greece in the Mediterranean killing over 500 with dozens missing. It was one of the most horrific tragedies in recent times, claiming the lives of hundreds of migrants mostly from Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan and Palestine who put their lives…
Buhari’s Legacy Puts Tinubu in Tight Spot Those familiar with road travel before fancy luxury buses and jeeps displaced wooden-back Bedford light trucks, famously called mammy wagons, might remember this ubiquitous message in cursive, bright colours scrawled on the rear and sometimes on the sides of trucks plying highways in Nigeria’s South-East: “No condition is permanent.” I’m not quite sure what the motivation was. My guess is that it was a message of comfort to the despairing and a warning to those who take life too seriously: No condition is permanent. True in life as in politics, that message rang…
Plugging Gaps in The Students Loan Scheme Within minutes of the release of the video of President Bola Tinubu signing the students’ loan bill into law, it was trending on Twitter as was the name of Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, who sponsored the bill in his former life as Speaker. Apart from the Nigeria Maritime University which was charging N81,500 per semester in 2019 – the highest in a federal university – the average tuition is about N45,000. State universities charge between N60,000 and N120,000, while polytechnics and colleges of education charge less of course, but only slightly less…
What Does It Mean to Be A Father Today? I’m getting ahead of myself. Father’s Day is still next Sunday. But after the Executive Editor of LeVogue, LEADERSHIP’s Fashion and Lifestyle magazine, Nikki Odu-Khiran, asked me if I could write a piece to mark the day, it got me thinking. If my father, who passed on May 28, 2000, ever had to write on Father’s Day, what would he have written? Of course, he wouldn’t have written anything. A pensioner who worked as a storekeeper at the Apapa (Lagos) Quays of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) before he retired in 1996, Robert…
Tinubu Biting the Bullet from Day One President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is under fire for announcing that petrol subsidy is gone from day one. His inauguration address also touched on a unified currency exchange, high interest rate and power, among others. Of all these, however, the one that got the headlines was petrol subsidy and the most frequently expressed concern, is why now? To say, in his first speech, that fuel subsidy was gone, that a unified exchange rate was vital, and that the current interest rate was anti-people and anti-business, was the economic equivalent of an earthquake. Of the…
After weeks of being at daggers drawn over the results of the last general elections and with only days to the inauguration of a new government on May 29, one of Nigeria’s three biggest pastimes – food – appears to be bringing people together again. On a good day, the country swoons over football or music. In the last two weeks, however, Nigerians up and down the food chain have been flocking to the pot of 27-year-old Hilda Bassey Effiong, fondly called Hilda Baci, who is on the verge of confirmation as the new holder of the Guinness World Records for the…
Two presidents in the last 24 years provide interesting examples of how to relate with the National Assembly. And between the two, the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, can decide how to model his relationship with the 10th National Assembly. The first example is President Olusegun Obasanjo. He was not only head of the executive branch, he was leader of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the de facto head of its Board of Trustees. But it didn’t end there. Obasanjo was also, in a manner of speaking, head of the legislature. That may sound like a misnomer in…
It started like a grudge match. Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, was dealt a bad hand in a failed transaction. Later, he vowed revenge. Not in a pound of flesh, but by venturing to make his own success where he had been ambushed. At issue was the decision of the government of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2007 to reverse the sale of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries (two of Nigeria’s moribund refineries) to Blue Star, the Dangote-led consortium. Blue Star had paid about $670million for the plants in the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, and gone away thinking it…
We have a measurement problem eloquently illustrated in a Yoruba tale about a Mecca has-been. The fellow in this tale had just returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, apparently the first to do so in his community. Upon his return, folks were understandably curious and wanted to know about the Holy Land. Thinking of what would best illustrate the majestic splendour of Mecca, the sojourner decided to use a native fowl as an example. “You all know our native fowl?,” he began. “Of course!,” his curious, attentive listeners chorused. “The fowl in Mecca is as big as a cow, if…
