Opinion

I have hesitated to weigh in the media frenzy about the HSBC report entitled ‘Nigeria: Papering over the cracks’, which was issued in July 2018. My hesitation had to do with the fact that I had not read the full report in its original…

When shall we meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” asks the First Witch in Macbeth, William Shakespeare’s shortest and grimiest tragedy. The Second Witch replies: “When the hurly-burly’s done. When the battle is lost and won.”…

“A man alone hasn’t got a chance.”Ernest Hemmingway, 1898-1961’ Hemmingway, an American Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1954, wrote several books including The Sun Also Rises and Road to Dusty death. I read all of them because I…

If not that we politicise everything in Nigeria, the Kemi Adeosun saga should provoke a genuine public debate on reforming the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The constitution and other laws are supposed to be living, not embalmed,…

WITH the supersonic speed of social media, it is almost certain, troubled Lagos helmsman Akinwunmi Ambode, would have seen the viral video of Wasiu Ayinde spraying him with straight-from-gutter expletives. The successful but…

WHATEVER decision Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode eventually takes on his botched or controversial second term, he will have to rue the saying “what goes around comes around.” Four years ago, others got disappointed by the godfather so that he,…

My dear Asiwaju, I pray my letter meets you and yours in fantastic spirit. It has almost become a tradition for me to write, or openly express my views, to you periodically on political issues, since about 2007. Before I go into the…

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on December 9, 2017, concluded the most successful and peaceful National Convention in the history of conventions in Nigeria. Honourable Uche Secondus was revealed as the new National Chairman of…

If there is a long history to fears about fake news, there is a long history to fake news too. For example, in 2003, in the run-up to the Iraq war, articles about Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction filled newspaper…

On Thursday evening, I was fiddling with my phone when an alert popped up, announcing the appointment of Mr. Yusuf Bichi as the new director-general of the Department of State Services (DSS). That means President Muhammadu Buhari did not…

“I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude. I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand, because I want it to be the quickest way. Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you, to…

Fellow Nigerians, if you are under the age of 30, you may not readily understand what I have called the “Otedola mythology” in this heading. Let me, therefore, take little time to explain, or describe, the meaning. Otedola is a Yoruba…

Against the background that there is no fresh recruitment in the already over-bloated civil service—at both federal and states—where salaries are no longer guaranteed and at a period most of the private companies are downsizing as a…

There is no question that Nigeria faces a lot of challenges. Growing population and poverty are two of the biggest challenges.  Nigerians have also proved themselves resilient. Occurrences that could potentially have broken up the…

There are very few presidential aspirants who can articulate their plans for Nigeria like Atiku Abubakar. In the lead-up to the 2015 presidential election, Atiku’s media interviews offered plenty food for thought and some interesting…

Does the federal government want to chase foreign investors away from Nigeria? This is one of most frequently asked questions since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) asked MTN to refund the $8.1 billion it repatriated as profits out…

There is tremendous hunger in Rivers State for an end to the bellicose and toxic politics that have seized the state since 1999. Media headlines about the state are frequently about political assassinations, beheadings and inconclusive…

In case you have been out of the loop recently, you may have missed out on the saga involving the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), MTN, and a couple of banks. According to the CBN, MTN in collusion with banks “illegally” repatriated…

Coming a week after leaders of two giant economies in Europe, Britain and Germany, made whistle-stop visits to Nigeria, the ongoing Forum on China-Africa Cooperation at Beijing, China deserves more than a passing glance from Africans.…

At a public dialogue in Abuja organised by #NotTooYoungToRun movement on Thursday, Senate President Bukola Saraki formally announced his intention to run for the President in 2019 on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). By…

I feel compelled to write about this because I had been broaching the issue and writing around it – and I had taken pains to discuss this with the parties that matter. Now that PACT (Presidential Aspirants Coming Together) has…

Speaking in the United States last Sunday, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo queried how Nigerian leaders since Ibrahim Babangida squandered $982.8bn they received in oil revenues. He gave the following breakdown of the revenues as obtained…

As the news broke Wednesday that MTN Nigeria has once more been penalised by another regulator in Nigeria, industry watchers have been wondering if the telecom giant will be able to overcome the challenges it has been faced with in the…

In a world dominated by instant communication and unregulated social media, the politics of who shouts loudest is increasingly the voice that is most widely heard, often with little or no reference to the facts. This is a dangerous…