Opinion

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, probably didn’t know what he was getting into when he directed the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO) not to…

Chidimma Adesthina, a South African of Nigerian descent, was forced to withdraw from the Miss South Africa 2024 pageant following a controversial investigation into her citizenship by the country’s Ministry of Home…

“Corruption remains one of the most significant obstacles to the progress and prosperity of our nations. It undermines the very fabric of our societies, erodes public trust, and impedes equitable distribution…

Indeed all is not well. Grad­ually, we have enthroned, crowned, institutionalised and entrenched absurdities as a way of life. In fact, doing the normal things now look abnor­mal while those who practise…

Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi state set the ball rolling weeks ago. Addressing a group of supporters asking him to join the 2027 presidential race, the PDP governor said he would prefer ex-President Goodluck…

As one of the spin-off effects of the current high costs of several consumables, including the all-important food items, some unscrupulous manufacturers have resorted to the use of substandard materials to produce…

It is not inevitable. But here we are. President Bola Tinubu’s reform on petrol subsidy has come undone. The…

When Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the president-general of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, died last month, it reawakened a topic I had been ruminating over for decades. I had been following the trajectories of politicians who…

There seems to be a huge partition between Nigerian industrialist Alhaji Aliko Dangote and other Nigerian economy drivers. His visionary…

Apart from revenue generation, another important function of taxation is wealth redistribution, which is basically making the richer segments of the economy to pay higher taxes than the poorer segments. This is…

Something has gone wrong. Our elders no longer think of legacy; instead, they wallow in the mud of struggle where virtues like transparency, integrity, fairness, and justice remain alien. Earlier this week,…

The first $15 billion was already spent on Nevada’s Yucca Mountain megaproject until the Obama administration scrapped the project! A total of $65 billion, including damages, was spent on Yucca, and the ground was…

Let’s face it, Nigeria has a problem called Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL. That problem begins with the organization’s rather ambiguous identity. ‘NNPC’ is one of the foremost household names in…

There is a Chinese proverb which is very popular among contemporary economists and leaders: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for life”. The path a government…

One of the first major policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s regime was the floating of the Naira to unify foreign exchange rates and save Nigeria the billions of dollars previously used to defend the…

IN October 2001, the management of The Punch sent me to the South-East, ostensibly to coordinate political reporting for the newspaper in the zone ahead of the 2003 elections. I then made Abia my base, from where…

An American immigration officer caught me unawares with a probing question. I was…

As we await manifestation of a litany of promises of renewed and deferred hope, we can also begin to reflect on where the rain that has been beating us since 1999 actually began. I reflected on the rainmakers…

There you have it. The “hunger protest” that took off in most parts of the country on Wednesday…

The ongoing protests in Nigeria have highlighted a significant issue: the lack of coordinated…

Heart surgeon, Masoud Pezeshkian, was sworn-in as President of Iran on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. His primary concern seemed to be about lifting the unilateral sanctions the United States, US, had imposed on his…

NIGERIA is a hydrocarbon-rich nation. It is ranked by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, as the top crude oil producer in Africa as at May 2023, producing up to 1.4 million barrels of…

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a landmark initiative aiming to establish a…

The politics of monopoly and oligarchy are familiar phenomena in Nigeria and beyond. During General Sani Abacha’s military rule in the 1990s, while working at the Federal Ministry of Finance, I…