Zambia’s peaceful and orderly election in August offered a glimmer of hope that Africa’s story might be changing. For the third time in three decades, an opposition leader defeated the sitting president sending a message to the world that the continent may not be the incumbent’s lair after all. Opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema, didn’t just win; the incumbent, Edgar Lungu, accepted defeat and congratulated the winner. But hopes that Zambia’s election could be a turning point have since dissipated, as soldiers in the West African country of Guinea overthrew the civilian government while the continent was still savouring its…
Author: Azu Ishiekwene
One month from now, Nigeria’s last batch of states created in 1996 to bring the total to 36, would turn 25 years old. The last batch of six states – Ebonyi, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Gombe and Ekiti – was created by the military head of state, General Sani Abacha, on October 1, 1996. Post-Abacha, agitation for more states has continued, which is hardly surprising for a country with over 300 ethnic nationalities, where diversity has been disastrously mismanaged in recent times. Till date, no civilian government has created any state and that trend seems set to continue. The…
Last week, while the eyes of the world were on Afghanistan, a fellow in one of Nigeria’s most tradition-bound states attempted the royal equivalent of a military coup. The leader of the Shua Arab in Edo, Idris Adanno, in a curious, latter-day rediscovery of his linguistic and cultural identity, arranged for his own coronation as the “Sultan” of the Shua Arab in Edo. It was a sign of displeasure, if not rebellion, against the current practice of lumping together all leaders of Hausa communities as “Sarkin.” When the epistemology of northern traditional institutions would be written, however, it will…
In journalism proverb, Afghanistan is a convenient shelter, the writer’s fantasy island from topical issues at home. In the current deluge of news from that country, however, that proverb appears to have lost its meaning. There’s no need for escape to Afghanistan; the traffic is the other way, while Afghanistan’s mythical status is being supplanted by lies, damned lies. One of the big, fat lies, for example, is that Afghans are cowards, too comfortable hiding behind their burkas and poppy fields to fight for their country. Why should anyone die for them? That was the essence of US President Joe…
This is not a good time to talk about medical doctors, especially when those in the public sector are on strike to press for better conditions of service. But I didn’t choose this encounter; the encounter chose me. And, in any case, my own experience was not at a public hospital. I have heard of all sorts of patient-doctor stories before and taken a good many with a pinch of salt. Too often, we hardly get to hear of the extraordinary courage and devotion of doctors and other medical personnel who give so much under extremely difficult – and even…
The former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, got himself in soup last week. His offence was saying it is futile to compare Nigeria’s two main political parties – the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Without mincing his words, he said there’s nothing to compare and nothing to choose from and that both were the refuge of scoundrels. That comment has earned him a beating to hell and back at the hands of members of both parties. It’s not new that political parties have rotten roots, but they evolve. America’s founding…
When you find two people from the Benin kingdom talking these days, chances are that they are talking artifacts. That kingdom never ceases to amaze me with the mythical, almost perplexing rootedness of its people to the past, side by side with a modern, avantgarde spirit. Not that bread-and-butter issues have disappeared in Bini talk. Or that safety and security are no longer a concern. It’s just that the news of the possible return of artifacts stolen from the Benin kingdom over 120 years ago has somehow displaced current misery, however temporary. Yet, the conversation is also a statement of…
Kicking the can down the road is government art. Once politicians maneuver themselves into office, they govern by repeating the promises they made and hope that problems would go away. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. For six years we’ve been trying to find an electoral law that works for voters. It doesn’t appear that we’re nearer a solution today than when we first started. At that time, President Goodluck Jonathan had one foot out the door, but his government being perhaps the most tech-savvy in Nigeria’s modern history, was quite open to changes that would accommodate greater use of…
The refusal of the Senate to confirm Lauretta Onochie, President Muhammadu Buhari’s nominee as national commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is a triumph of public opinion. But the Senate has tried to disguise it otherwise. In response to growing criticisms that the National Assembly has become Buhari’s rubber stamp, the Senate has framed the rejection as a violation of the Federal Character principle, and more important, as proof of its legislative independence. The truth is nuanced. It is correct to say that the nonsensical conundrum of where they were born versus where their partner comes from is just…
If the defections from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) continue at the current pace, the only people left in the opposition may be those to pack and return the chairs to storage before the next general elections in two years. It’s not funny. Apart from Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo who bucked the trend one year ago when he moved from APC to PDP on the eve of an off-season election, the drift has been the other way. In eight months, three governors –Dave Umahi, Ebonyi; Ben Ayade, Cross River; and Bello Matawalle,…
In one of my early journalism classes, my teacher, Olatunji Dare, said nothing sells like a judicious mix of crime, sex and money. It’s well over 35 years since he said those words and yet they ring true like yesterday. For over one week now, the country has been riveted on the tragic story of the murder of Michael UsifoAtaga, the CEO of Super TV, a Lagos-based content company. The heart-rending episode appears to have an injudicious mix of all three ingredients that Dare spoke about in one crime scene. It’s a deeply tragic and troubling tale that has produced…
Awkward moments are human, and hardly call attention when mere mortals are involved. But when the high and might trip, they make the headlines. Both experts and lay people sometimes feel obliged to ask if such awkward moments may not indeed, like Freudian slip, mean more than meets the eye. And quite often their suspicions are right. Take former US President, Donald Trump, for example. In his four-year Presidency, awkwardness was not occasional accident, it was the defining thing, the essential Trump. From telling the wife of French President Brigitte Macron that she was “in good shape”, to tossing paper…
There’s a growing feeling in high political circles that the media is too free for its own good, and maybe also, for the good of the country. As a result, there are attempts on multiple fronts to save the media from what, for lack of a better description, may be called diarrhea of freedom. Those worried about this “excessive” media freedom make no distinction between the media as an institution and citizens vigorously – and yes, sometimes, despicably – expressing themselves on social media. They are also not concerned about the constitutional provision that requires the press to hold the…
The Nigerian government thinks Twitter is the greatest source of its misery. After straining at the leash for months, it couldn’t resist swatting the microblogging platform with a ban last week. But what does the ban mean, really? It means that about 40 million users in Nigeria who are mostly young people would be unable to access the service through local service providers. This figure is more than the total number that voted for President Muhammadu Buhari in the last two elections combined, over half the total number of those who voted in the general elections of 2019, and nearly…
Nigeria has been struggling with insecurity for over a decade. Against reasonable expectations six years ago when President Muhammadu Buhari was voted in, things have worsened. Compared with a number of other hotspots around the world in December 2020, however, Nigeria was not even among the three riskiest places. According to global medical and security specialists, International SOS, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan were the deadliest places to be. The group also projected that these places would retain the record by the end of 2021. It seemed so. In April, for example, the United Nations reported that in the first quarter…
It all seems like memories from a distant past. But it’s not. This time last year we were in a lockdown. The world was under the monstrous grip of the Coronavirus. Rumours and speculations about the origin and nature of this invincible foe were rife, leaving data and science in the dust. Fear ruled the world. The situation in Europe, especially in Italy and Spain, was particularly dire as the virus overwhelmed their sophisticated medical systems. While researchers and scientists struggled to crack the pathogen, dead bodies that could not be accommodated in morgues began to spill onto church pews and public…
The list was long and the contents harsh and threatening. The notices may have been issued separately, but they landed like a packaged digital bomb in my WhatsApp inbox. Eight unions, apart from the central body, had collectively declared war on Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai. The die was cast. The unions were the Nigeria Union of Railway Workers; the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees; the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees; the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions; the National Union of Electricity Employees; the National…
These days, it seems all right to play with fire. The blaze started like a solitary spark in Mali in August when the streets, the elite and jihadists banded to remove President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The former president had discarded election results and written a version that tightened his grip on power. How he thought he could reinvent the Mansa Musa legend in a country riven by violence and poverty only he can tell. Outside the capital, Bamako, however, it was clear that Keita’s ambition was dead on arrival, awaiting funeral. And, of course, he didn’t last to tell the…
Bill and Melinda Gates had barely finished saying the “D” word when all kinds of marriage counsellors and grief-mongers besieged social media with suggestions of why they think the couple is breaking up. The sentiments, ranging from the probable to the bizarre, with a sprinkling of fictional tales in between, have defied the couple’s request for privacy. Misery loves company. Some accounts even make you wonder if the composers might have had a bedside view of the 27-year-old marriage. A break-up is a messy thing. You don’t have to experience it to know. But for all those who are outside,…
Everyone has their meal of the day, and mine happens to be dinner. Having dinner, for me, is a ritual, but one that has evolved over the years. Back in the day, I would not dare have dinner without first taking my bath. My mother said it was “unclean” to eat before brushing your teeth in the morning and taking your bath; or to have dinner before taking your bath, as if you had just been rescued from the pits or planned to eat with all parts of your body. I didn’t understand it but asking Mama too many questions…
Something Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said reminded me of British political journalist, Andrew Marr. Journalism, Marr wrote in his book, My Trade, is a chaotic form of earning, ragged at the edges and full of snakes and con artists. Last week, Mohammed, furious at Twitter’s decision to start its first Africa office in Ghana, decided it was time to level the ragged edges and crush the journalistic snakes and con artists in Nigeria by heaping on them the blame for Twitter’s decision. It was hard for him to swallow. He called out journalists for portraying the country poorly…
I was visiting a senior over the weekend when our conversation devolved into the soul of the Nigerian banter: how is the country going, I asked? He paused. After a moment of reflection, he took a deep breath and said, “There is tension.” I thought that was obvious and required no special gift to see. The tension sucks. There is tension between those in government and those who are not. Even among those in government, there is tension between the cabal and the fringe players. Tension between those who think policies ought not to be governed by fear and those…
There was a BBC News story in February that caught me between laughter and bemusement. The news channel reported, in very strong language matched only by the alarming reactions of the persons interviewed, a spate of stabbings across parts of south London that left at least one dead. It’s sad that anyone should take the law into their own hands, and sadder still that even one innocent person should suffer injury or die from such senseless attacks. One of the law enforcement officers interviewed, Ade Adelekan, obviously with Nigerian roots, described the south London incidents as “shocking” and went on…
Brazil has proved a disaster in the management of COVID-19, but there are other areas where we can use their examples. Like what to do about failing refineries. This hot-button topic returned to the front burner after the Nigerian government recently announced plans to repair the Port Harcourt Refinery. That refinery and the ones in Warri and Kaduna have a combined refining capacity of 410,000 bpd, an output far less than the local daily demand, but which all three refineries have only struggled to meet since they were installed. According to a recent report in The Guardian,Nigeria has spent $26.5billion…
It wasn’t planned. I was seeing off my neighbour and friend on Thursday evening when one of the officers of our estate residents’ association called out to me. He was in knickers and shirtsleeves, with his right hand clutching his left shoulder. “I’ve just been vaccinated,” he said. “Would you like me to put your name forward for it tomorrow?” After what I have seen in the last one year – COVID-19 related deaths first becoming statistics, and then statistics becoming people, and people having faces, and faces becoming friends and relatives – news of the discovery of vaccines was a huge…
Last week, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Mohammed Babagana Monguno, stripped the government bare in public only to try hiding the ugly sight with fig leaves shortly after. The pathetic damage control didn’t work. Monguno, a retired major general, told the BBC Hausa service in an interview that billions of naira voted by Buhari’s government to fight insurgency could not be accounted for. Stopping short of naming names, Monguno pointed a finger at the last service chiefs who after overstaying their tenure as insecurity worsened, still earned promotion as ambassadors. They now join the ranks of ambassadors still waiting to be…
It would seem harsh to judge the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) solely by its intentions, especially in the last four or five years. In a weak, fragile and chaotic system where a number of the main actors are either half-asleep, distracted or indifferent, the zeal of the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, could be a good thing. His largely unconventional approach has its benefits, especially with the rapid – sometimes unforeseen – changes in the global financial system and the beggar thy neighbour policies of rich, industrialised countries. But the recent announcement by the bank of a two-month sales promotion…
There’s a model for managing rebels in government that the American political drama, “Designated Survivor”, teaches so well. In one of the episodes after the horrific death of President Richmond, his speech writer, Seth Wright, had a chance meeting with incoming President, Tom Kirkman, in the toilet. In a soliloquy which wafted over the toilet partition, Wright said the US would regret Kirkman’s candidacy because he was incompetent and unfit for office. How can a man on the verge of punitive redeployment suddenly become president? He didn’t know that Kirkman, who was in the next toilet recovering from the shock…
As the World Trade Organisation (WTO) formally announced the appointment of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Director General this week, a Swiss newspaper received her with a disgraceful headline: “This Grandmother will become the boss of the WTO,” with her photograph under the headline. The headline sparked an outrage, forcing the editors to modify their position: “This 66-year-old Nigerian will head WTO.” At least, three Swiss newspapers – Luzerner Zeitung, Aarguaer Zeitung and St. GallerTagblatt – fetched their headlines from the gutter, making slight changes only after they were called out for racism. They removed the sting but left the poison.…
The fight against terror in Nigeria has been a theatre of the absurd. What began as a tiny spark of itinerant fanatics taking a pledge against western education mutated into a full-fledged non-state army currently ranked as the third deadliest globally. Yet, banditry is another fast-growing franchise. State response has also been as bewildering as it has been absurd. It has ranged from denial to extra-judicial killings and from regional joint task forces to the use of prayer warriors and mercenaries. And when you thought absurdity had reached its limits, a new idea has been added to the toolbox: compensation…
