Who Eats Who: The Sweetness of Nigeria?
That Nigeria is gripped by unrelenting mass poverty, despair, and desperation is not in doubt. Yet, the most common claim made by Nigerians about their country is that it is “Sweet.” We look at what makes Nigeria so sweet despite the biting hardships. (more…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfrYuuhtjtU An interview of Grimot Nane on the immediate political future of Nigeria by freelancer Opey Sonto, September 15th 2016. SHOW MORE
Osagie Ize-Iyamu Was A Pyrate, So What?
There are few people on record who have been more critical of University Campus Grown Fraternities (UCGFs) in Nigeria, including the National Association of Seadogs (NAS) a.k.a. the Pyrates Confraternity (PC) than myself. I have written a score of articles [on this publication] that question the existence, motives, evolution and modus operandi of UCGFs. The conclusions are damning. I am neither a defender nor a supporter of UCGFs. We may, however, take strong exception to Governor Adams Oshiomhole (APC) using the [former] membership of NAS in a smear campaign against Osagie Ize-Iyamu, from an opposing party (PDP). A ploy just to get him disqualified/discredited in the dying minutes of the (now postponed) 2016 Edo State gubernatorial elections. Such an act hitting far below the belt. Bianimikaley! (more…)
Corruption is essentially a phenomenon that is highly secretive mostly because its perpetrators seek to avoid the consequences of detection, prosecution and conviction. In Nigeria, and for a long time corruption in high places has been both visible and morally-neutral because of the generous guarantee of impunity public officials readily enjoy. However, the impunity guaranteed by government inertia appears to be insufficient for thieving public officials. Nowadays, lawmakers actually enact bills to destroy those who have the temerity to detect, expose or prosecute their very own cases of corruption and enact bills to immunise themselves against detection and prosecution. Is there not supposed to be a “War Against Corruption” (WAC) going on in Nigeria? (more…)
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. Or hold office or get lucrative contracts from the government. Pre-1999, many if not the majority of Nigerian males in the diaspora were quite content to live indefinitely overseas. But after the 1999 return to democracy, it was rare to find a Nigerian male who was ‘away’ that did not want to return to Nigeria to make it big. That was the birth of the “X say make I come home” era. (more…)
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 is a poor man during the election, now he says he is a rich man who can afford to send his children to school abroad.”
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 pervasive profligacy behemoth of PDP while in power. The ministerial appointments Babs Fashola, Timi Amaechi and other ‘gubernatocrats’ that took more than half a year to make that was the start of the negation of support for President Buhari. Many thinking men deserted except the likes of Wole Soyinka turned their backs on and pens against Buhari. But many political miracles were promised by the Buhari government. Where are they? (more…)