University Campus Grown Fraternities (UCGFs) in Nigeria are usually a ‘dead-end’ for the benignly ambitious and serious man but for those gifted with niggardliness, low cunning, meanness with a heavy dose of unrealistic dreaming they are “El Dorado(s)” exemplified in the highest. The main goal the fraternity member who cannot make better than his job…
Month: March 2016
The Nachi Lake “Miracles”: Poor People, Poor Society, Poor Governance
The Nachi Lake emerged ‘spontaneously, out of the ground in Nachi, Enugu State, Nigeria in 2011 and has since become a “health spa” of sorts. It is right to assume that if there is no explanation for the emergence of a natural earth phenomenon in Nigeria, “The Gods are to Blame” or “To Be Praised”…
Are Buhari’s Fears a Signal of the End of Nigeria?
In December 1984 my late father made a remark that I could not understand at the time, he said, “the leaders of Nigeria will know no fear till the [oil] money runs out”. It was not until July 2000 that my father told me that the idea was proposed by his friend, the late Claude…
Political Ambitions in Diaspora: ‘Obasanjo Say Make I Come’
Between 1999 and 2007 there was an acute frenzy of political aspirations occurring among Nigerians in the diaspora; it was quite an evident wave. The frenzy was about Nigerians seeking to return home to go successfully into politics and hold office or get lucrative contracts from the government. Pre-1999, many if not the majority of…
The Niger Delta “Overlooked” by Government
The Niger Delta has been exclusively the undisputed source of Nigeria’s vast but plundered national wealth for five decades. When President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, his first “tough actions” were exacted on the Niger Delta with the bombings of illegal refineries and bunkering assets. It was an utterly senseless strategy that created…
Mr President ‘Changes’ From Poor Man to Rich Man
Femi Aribisala is undoubtedly one of the brightest and most effective journalists and bloggers writing out of Nigeria. He is one writer who indeed never seems to disappoint with his pen, be it a tweet or an essay for Vanguard or elsewhere. In a recent tweet, Aribisala emphatically states @femiaribisala – March 13th 2016; “Buhari said he…
Buhari’s Choice and the Expected “Fashola Miracle”
When President Muhammadu Buhari won the 2015 general elections, he did so largely with the support of neutral and anti-PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) commentators. Everything bad in Buhari’s life history was to be forgotten and everything good was in ascendance. From another perspective, it was very difficult for practitioners of competent thinking to justify the…
Nigeria’s “Medical Mail Brides”: Part 2
Not all medical professionals (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, radiographers, medical laboratory technologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists etc.) married from Nigeria into diaspora (especially the USA and UK) are “medical mail brides”. Female medical professionals are human and just like other professional and non-professional women; someone will desire them, court them and marry them where the possibility…