Author: Jideofor Adibe

The PDP Convention which began on Saturday, October 30 2021 and ended in the early hours of the following day saw a total of 21 people elected into the party’s National Working Committee – with all but three of these positions being by a consensus arrangement. It should be recalled that following the crisis that rocked the Uche Secondus- led National Working Committee of the party, the PDP had suspended Secondus and announced a special convention to elect a new set of national officers – a decision challenged by the suspended national Chairman who argued that the conduct of the…

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“Good morning brother Max and I hope this finds you well? Quite unlike you, we haven’t heard from you – almost two weeks since they submitted a revised PDF. I hope you are OK?” This was my email of October 6, 2021 to the hugely popular Somali novelist and playwright, Dr Maxamed Daahir Afrah (popularly known as Max’d Afrax). Through a mutual friend and brother, Professor Ali J. Ahmed, (who until this year was one of the co-editors of one of our journals, the Journal of Somali Studies) our company, Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd ( www.adonis-abbey.com) was persuaded to…

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In this interview with Professor Jideofor Adibe of The News Chronicle, Auwal Rafsanjani, Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and head of Transparency International (Nigeria) who was recently elected chairman of the board of Transition Monitoring Group, a leading election monitoring civil society group, answers questions on a variety of national issues: TNC: First let me congratulate you for your recent election as the new chairman of the board of Transition Monitoring Group, a leading election monitoring civil society group in Nigeria. You are also the head of the Nigerian wing of Transparency International as…

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In this interview with Professor Jideofor Adibe and The News Chronicle (TNC), National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, INEC, Barr. Festus Okoye harped on the commission’s preparation for the November 6 2021 Anambra governorship election. JA/TNC: Thank you for granting us an audience: First, I will want you to explain to readers INEC’s preparations for the Anambra State governorship election which has been slated for November this year. In particular, I will like you to explain your readiness in terms of voter registration, logistics, voter education, security and protecting the votes. BFO: Well, you know the Anambra…

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In this interview with Professor Jideofor Adibe and The News Chronicle (TNC), aspirant for the 2021 Anambra gubernatorial election under the platform of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Ben Etiaba, shared insights on why he is running for the state’s topmost position. JA/TNC: Thank you for making out time for this interview. You’re quite an accomplished individual, a chartered accountant among many other accomplishments. Why do you want to become a governor? BE: I am running for governor in Anambra because I am frustrated. Things are not going right in my local government, state, country, and in Africa. I am…

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The political space is increasingly dominated by the discourse over which part of the country should produce Buhari’s successor as 2023 draws closer. The central question is: should power be rotated to the South after eight years of Buhari’s presidency, and if so, which part of the South should it go to? Different groupings and tendencies have their own arguments. In the North for instance, while some have argued that in the “spirit of fairness, equity and justice”, power should rotate to South after Buhari’s tenure, there are others who use the same “spirit of fairness, equity and justice” to…

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The circular issued by the Central Bank on March 5 2021 informing all banks, International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) and the general Public of a new Naira-for-dollar policy has been generating interesting discussions. Under the policy, which took off on March 8 2021 and will last till May 8 2021, in the first instance, the Apex bank said it would give N5 for every $1 remittance. In essence, under the policy, if one is transferring $1000 from the USA through the IMTOs, besides getting the money in cash in US dollars or have it transferred to the person’s domiciliary account,…

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In this interview with Jideofor Adibe and Stanley Ugagbe of The News Chronicle (TNC),  Osita Okechukwu, the Director-General of Voice of Nigeria, spoke on sundry national issues. TNC: First of all let us congratulate you on your appointment, and we believe also on your re-appointment as the DG of Voice of Nigeria. Though it was founded in 1961 as the External Service of the then Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (now Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria), not many Nigerians know about VoN or what it really does. Can you briefly explain what the VoN is all about? Okechukwu:  We are the BBC,…

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The recent announcement that the UK would slash the funding for overseas aid from 0.7 per cent of its Gross National Income to 0.5 per cent has generated angst in some quarters.  Though the British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab promised legislation after admitting that the cut would be unlawful without it, vote on it at the Parliament was shelved and may actually not take place at all. It should be recalled that the country had in 1970 pledged to spend 0.7 per cent of its national income on aid as part of a United Nations pact in which 30 wealthy…

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Dr Junaidu Mohammed, a Second Republic Member of the House of Representatives, who transitioned to the great beyond in February this year, was as controversial as they come. A stormy petrel, he died,  aged 71. I had first met him at a seminar organized in Jos in about 2012 by Professor Isawa Elaigwu, my oga at the top. We didn’t strike a great friendship but we exchange pleasantries and messages once in a while.. About one year ago, precisely on January 22 2020, I cornered him for a no-holds-barred telephone interview which lasted for over one and half hours. The…

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It is quite humbling when a distinguished academic you read his works as an undergraduate asks you to review his book. That was exactly what happened when Professor Tunde Adeniran asked me to review his book, Africa’s Security Challenges in the 21st Century: Power, Principles and Praxis which was presented to the public on November 24 2020. And when he told me I would have just 15 minutes to review the book, a tome of 478 pages, I remembered Professor Robert Chambers, the British academic and development practitioner. Professor Chambers in one of his works tried to make a distinction…

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Dr Chidi Amuta’s elegantly captioned article ‘2023: Igbos and the Politics of Moral Consequence’ (ThisDay, August 23 2020) and Bishop Kukah’s rejoinder, ‘Of Igbos, 2023 and Politics of Moral Consequence’ (ThisDay, September 2 2020) have perhaps opened up the space for robust, unemotional conversations not just about the current clamour for a President of Igbo extraction in 2023 but also for the whole project of nation-building in the country. Dr Amuta’s basic argument on which geopolitical zone should produce a successor to President Buhari in 2023 is that “national history has a moral arc”, which bends inexorably in “the direction…

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The recent call by the United Nations for the federal government to combine dialogue with the deployment of force to combat insecurity in Nigeria made headlines. The UN was quoted as saying that Nigeria’s security crisis is complicated by a conflation of banditry and terrorism in the North-west, which makes a purely military solution unlikely to succeed.  Briefing State House reporters on August 24 2020 after leading a UN team to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr. Edward Kallon reportedly posited that given  the complexity of security conflicts in Nigeria,  a…

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Recent reports about the trajectory of the COVID-19 in Madagascar shows an uptick in the rise of infections and deaths. According to reports, public hospitals in the country are only admitting patients with severe symptoms because the surge in cases has simply overwhelmed the healthcare facilities of the Indian Ocean island nation, which lies   approximately 400 kilometres (250 miles) off the coast of East Africa.  In fact the region where the capital, Antananarivo, is located has been placed on a temporary lockdown following a spike in new cases. In what may amount to eating the humble pie, the country’s President…

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Nigeria’s wordsmith extraordinaire and master of quotable quotes, Professor Wole Soyinka (born Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka on July 13 1934), turned 86 last Monday. Coincidentally Wole Soyinka became the first black Nobel Laureate in literature in 1986 so his birthday this year has a special significance. Though I have never met Professor Wole Soyinka one-on-one, it is difficult for anyone with even a passing interest in the written word not to have met him through his works – whether as a playwright, essayist, novelist, poet or social critic. The closest I came to meeting Wole Soyinka was when my publishing firm…

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Much has been written about the suspension from office of Ibrahim Magu, former Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Magu was reportedly arrested in front of the EFCC office in Abuja by security officials on Monday, July 6 2020, over sundry allegations of corruption, insubordination and abuse of office. He was reportedly driven to the Presidential Villa, where he was grilled by a presidential panel, chaired by Justice Ayo Salami, a former president of the Court of Appeal. The panel was set up to probe various allegations against Magu allegedly following a petition by the Minister…

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The latest round of crisis in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has reportedly led to the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Adamu, ordering the seal off of the party’s National Secretariat. The crisis was triggered by the intractable face-off between the party’s (suspended?) National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole and his successor as Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, Shortly after the Appeal Court upheld a lower’s court ruling suspending Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as APC’s National Chairman, the party announced the Deputy National Chairman (South), Abiola Ajimobi, as the Acting Chairman of the party. The following day, the Deputy National Secretary of…

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I was impressed with the first few paragraphs of Buhari’s Democracy Day speech. I thought they were quite good, unifying and inspiring. The speech started this way: “Fellow Nigerians, the 2020 celebration of Democracy Day marks 21 years of uninterrupted civil administration in our dear country. This day provides us an opportunity to reflect on our journey as a nation, our achievements and struggles…. “Sustaining our democracy thus far has been a collective struggle, and I congratulate all Nigerians and particularly leaders of our democratic institutions on their resilience and determination to ensure that Nigeria remains a shining example of…

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It is gratifying that despite opposition from the United States, the Buhari government not only remained resolute  in its support for the re-election bid of  Dr Akinwumi  Adesina as President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), we were told that with the aviation sector in both Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire (where Adesina is based) still under lockdown, Buhari “reached out to the Ivorien authorities for special landing permit, and despatched a presidential jet to fetch the AfDB president” to hear his own side of the story in the allegations levelled against him, which the bank’s Ethics Committee investigated and dismissed.…

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May 29, 2020, marked Buhari’s five years in office –  or the end of the first year of his second term in office. How has Buhari fared so far? And what is likely to be his legacy? Answering either of the above questions may not be as straightforward  as it seems. There are several issues that will predicate the answers: One, Buhari’s greatest strengths are also his Achilles heels: One of these was his first coming as military Head of State (December 31 1983 – August 27 1985). Some of his core admirers nurse a nostalgia of an unsmiling 41-year…

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President Buhari’s Executive Order Number 10, signed on May 22, 2020, in which he sought to grant financial autonomy to the 36 state Houses of Assembly and the judiciary, has been praised by some, and condemned by others. Part of the Executive Order states: “The Accountant-General of the Federation shall by this Order and such any other Orders, Regulations or Guidelines as may be issued by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, authorise the deduction from source in the course of Federation Accounts Allocation from the money allocated to any State of the Federation that fails to…

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The extension by two weeks of the current ‘easing of the lockdown’ in Lagos, Abuja and Ogun States by two weeks has raised a number of fundamental issues. Speaking at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force, Secretary to the Government Boss Mustapha, said a lifting despite small gains would amount to a risk. “The measures, exemptions, advisories and scope of entities allowed to reopen under phase one of the eased locked down, shall be maintained across the federation for another two weeks effective from 12.00 midnight today (18th May, 2020 to 1st June, 2020)”, he was reported to…

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Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, (and previously known as the Malagasy Republic), an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately 400 kilometres off the coast of East Africa, has been making waves recently with its claim of a herbal cure for COVID-19. The country’s President, Andry Rajoelina, 45, claimed that the herbal syrup, known as Covic Organics (CVO), led to the recovery of some 105 COVID-19 patients in his country. Officially CVO was developed by the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research (IMRA) and is being distributed to the country’s citizens free of charge. In what is clearly an influence…

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As we all speculate on the nature of a post COVID-19 world order, one thing seems certain – the altercation between the USA, the world’s largest economy, and China, the second world largest economy, will take centre stage. The ripple effects of this will cascade down the various nation states. The immediate post COVID world will usher Cold War 2, in which China, Russia and many of the countries in the Pacific will be on one  side while the USA and its allies, united largely by the fear of China’s rise,  will be on the other side. Relations between Washington…

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Since the death of Abba Kyari, Buhari’s Chief of Staff, there have  been speculations on who will succeed the man famously regarded as Nigeria’s de facto President and the Head of the ‘cabal’. We are told that intense lobbying for the position has started, not just among certain individuals but also among the various contending centres of power within the presidency. A crucial question is whether the appointment of a new chief of staff could fundamentally change the trajectory of governance in the country? There are several issues involved here: One, was Abba Kyari an epitome of ‘cabalism’, an evil…

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Farooq Adamu Kperogi, 47, Associate Professor of Communication at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, USA, is a non-apologetic critic of the Buhari government – as he was also of the Jonathan government. The Kwara State-born media scholar had been a reporter and news editor at various Nigerian newspapers including the Daily Trust, where, until sometime last year, he wrote two weekly columns.  He was between 2002 and 2004, one of the speech writers of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He currently writes a column for The Nigerian Tribune. Kperogi, who has a huge social media followership, is extremely popular with the opposition…

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In this interview with The News Chronicle’s Jideofor Adibe, Farooq Kperogi, University Professor, newspaper columnist, political gadfly and encyclopaedic wordsmith, explains why he has been a non-apologetic critic of the Buhari government, the philosophy that drives him in his engagement with the various Nigerian governments, his views about some creative writers and public intellectuals and how he thinks the COVID-19 pandemic will affect perceptions of USA and China. He also compares race relations in the USA where he lives with ethnic relations in Nigeria under Buhari and explains why he thinks Buhari’s media aides have largely avoided attacking him frontally.…

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COVID-19, a strain of Coronavirus, which the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, has been slow to take root in Africa but the number of cases is now growing. With about 1,500 people testing positive globally as of Wednesday April 8 2020 and some 83,000 deaths; Africa’s has a relatively low share of these figures – 10,712 infections and 533 deaths as at midday Nigerian time  on April 8 2020. In Nigeria, the total number of confirmed cases was 254 and 6 deaths.  In contrast, the total number of infections in the USA alone stood at…

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Has the world as we know it changed inexorably because of a virus that was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019? This is the big question many people are grappling with as the Coronavirus epidemic sweeps through the world, with more than 181,000 people testing positive for the virus around the world, and a global death toll of over 7,100 as of this week. There are several ways the virus has impacted the world so far, and may, depending on how long it takes to tame or eliminate it, possibly change the world as we know it: One,…

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The dethronement of Alhaji Muhammad Sanusi as the 14th Emir of Kano did not take many people by surprise. The surprising thing for some people is that he lasted as long as he did on the throne. In fact there were rumours that Rabiu Kwankwaso, who as Governor of Kano State made him the Emir in 2014, issued four queries to him before his term of office expired in 2015. Predictions that Sanusi would not last long as Emir had nothing to do with his ability – for he is without any doubt a very gifted man. I will like…

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