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Opinion

Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:44

The political economy of COVID-19 - Kayode Komolafe

Two days ago, Cuba gave permission to a British cruise ship with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) patients on board to dock within its territorial waters. By this exceptional act, the struggling Caribbean Island is teaching the rest of the world some lessons about our common humanity. These are profound lessons that cannot be explained by narrow political and economic calculus. In fact, the nation of Cuba is rewriting the diplomatic rules in its own humane way. On the British cruise ship are five passengers among 600 voyagers who have tested positive to coronavirus. Several countries that are friendly to Britain had…

Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:43

Still on Sanusi and elite conspiracy... - Bola Bolawole

Elites are powerful, very powerful; especially so the political elites otherwise also called the power elites. Philosophers, political theorists and thinkers posit that the history of all societies is the history of elite rule. Elections do not abolish elites but merely replace one set with another. What even a revolution achieves is the replacement of one set of elites with another. The people never ever rule; elites do! Geraint Parry, in the introduction to his Political Elites, began the discussion thus: Ever since the issue of the political role of elites – small minorities who appear to play an exceptionally…

Monday, 16 March 2020 05:08

Sanusi and 2023 conspiracy theories... - Bolanle Bolawole

Seeing the fate that last week befell Emir of Kano, Mr Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Oluwo of Iwo, Mr Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi, must thank his stars for escaping a similar treatment weeks’ ago. The suspension for six months slapped on him by Osun State council of chiefs must now look like child’s play; in fact, a slap on the wrist as opposed to the pummelling he reportedly dealt a fellow Oba. APC national chairman, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, on his own is still at his wits’ end trying to cling to his APC throne. Can his god-fathers save him this time…

Sunday, 15 March 2020 05:25

Sanusi: Where are the akalamagbo birds, the bullet-biters? - Festus Adedayo

The last Monday sack of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, erstwhile Emir of Kano, by the Kano State governor, Umar Ganduje, sent shock waves round the whole of Nigeria and I dare say, to every nook of the world where Nigeria in issue. Though many Nigerians wear anti-shock and anti-depressant shields from the shenanigans of Nigerian governments, the world was terribly shocked by Sanusi’s sack. Perhaps, the world shouldn’t have been shocked after all: Since Ganduje surprisingly broke the lien to emerge as a second-term governor of Kano last year, he had shelled Sanusi with a ferocious artillery. At a point, billowing…

Sunday, 15 March 2020 05:24

Ganduje is a monster, but Sanusi is not a victim - Farooq A. Kperogi

Governor Abdullahi “Gandollar” Ganduje is no doubt a contemptibly philistine monster of avarice and debauchery who dethroned Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Emir of Kano because he couldn’t stomach the former emir’s disapproval of the electoral fraud that brought him to power. There is also no doubt that Sanusi’s unrelenting public censures of the rotten, if time-honored, cultural quiddities of the Muslim North discomfited many people who are invested in the status quo, and this became one of the convenient bases for his ouster. But Sanusi isn’t nearly the victim he has been cracked up to be by his admirers and…

Sunday, 15 March 2020 05:22

Baba Lekki mourns a great pan Africanist - Tatalo Alamu

As soon as the passing of Areoye Oyebola, former Editor of the Daily Times, author, teacher and community leader, was made public Baba Lekki had gone into a protracted mourning mood lamenting the gradual disappearance of great men and genuine visionaries from this society. In his peculiar admixture of fact and fantasy, the old Alekuso contrarian had let it be known to anybody who cared to listen that he was a childhood buddy of the great man. Drawing inspiration and hellish fumes from his massive pipe brimming with prohibited weed, the old Trotskyist narrated how he used to hunt rabbits…

Saturday, 14 March 2020 05:02

The politics of pandemic: All governments will struggle. Some will struggle more than others - Leader, The Economist

To see what is to come look to Lombardy, the affluent Italian region at the heart of the covid-19 outbreak in Europe. Its hospitals provide world-class health care. Until last week they thought they would cope with the disease—then waves of people began turning up with pneumonia. Having run out of ventilators and oxygen, exhausted staff at some hospitals are being forced to leave untreated patients to die. The pandemic, as the World Health Organisation (who) officially declared it this week, is spreading fast, with almost 45,000 cases and nearly 1,500 deaths in 112 countries outside China. Epidemiologists reckon Italy…

Friday, 13 March 2020 04:50

Sanusi’s fall shows limits for traditional rulers in Nigeria - AFP

An outspoken ruler mired in conflicts is ousted without warning from his palace and banished under armed guard into an uncertain exile beyond the borders of his realm. This is not the plot of a Shakespearean tragedy, but the real-life drama that has played out in northern Nigeria's influential Islamic emirate of Kano as traditional leader Muhammadu Sanusi II was unceremoniously deposed by the local governor. The sudden fall of one of the country's most revered hereditary rulers on Monday rattled the 1,000-year-old kingdom -- and has shown the difficult balancing act facing the ancient monarchies of modern-day Nigeria. Sanusi,…

Friday, 13 March 2020 04:48

For Sanusi, it is a long road ahead - Dare Babarinsa

The Sanusi Lamido Sanusi saga has not ended but it has reached an important denouement. As the Emir of Kano, Sanusi was a leading member of the establishment. In the hierarchy among Fulani princes, he was second only to the Sultan of Sokoto, the direct descendant of Usman Dan Fodio, the Fulani revolutionary who led the war that ended the centuries –old Habe dynasties in the Hausa country. Sanusi himself is a member of the Fulani clan that put an end to the reign of the Hausa Sultan in Kano, got him killed along with his leading nobles and sent…

Friday, 13 March 2020 04:47

The loquacious Prince and the sacred scarecrow - Tola Adeniyi

I thought I should let my mind wonder in the body of Aba Saheed this week and give my readers a taste of the Abasaheedic satiric elegance of the days of yore. Two prominent figures presented themselves for lampooning this week: one, a most talkative, vengeful and reckless individual, the other a most provocative, frightful and controversial individual who has assumed the fabled character of one Mrs Virginia Bottomley in Tola Adeniyi’s classical play; Deaths in the Thighs. Mr Loquacious was never my candidate for the exalted position which Federal Character awarded to him. We must concede to him that…

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Thursday, 12 March 2020 05:48

A noisome ‘troika’ - Bola Bolawole

A proverb of our people admonishes us to tread gingerly because the ground under our feet has eyes. Be careful not to march on ground’s eyes, says the collective wisdom of our people! Or else, the repercussions are usually calamitous; which, then, is the Ifa or oracle that admonishes the chameleon to tread gingerly. Asked why he should, the chameleon responded – so the ground would not cave in under his feet! Acting with impunity has consequences. Behaving as if you gathered everyone else together has repercussions. This is the wisdom of our people; it is also the lesson of…

Thursday, 12 March 2020 05:47

APC scores an own goal - Festus Eriye

Even if someone with character traits directly opposite to those of All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, were running the show, the civil war in the ruling party would still have been fought. Among other things, some critics have dubbed the former labour leader an inflexible dictator who lacks the temperament to run an organisation as complex as a ruling party. Oshiomhole’s predecessor, John Odigie-Oyegun, was the deliberate and diplomatic type. But he was perceived as weak and unable to get rebellious elements within APC to tow the party line. Under his watch, former Senate President Bukola Saraki…

Monday, 09 March 2020 04:52

Bode George’s un-win-able Tinubu war... - Bolanle Bolawole

He who must destroy others to succeed must know that destruction awaits him at the gate of his (own) success – Nino Brown. PDP chieftain, Mr Olabode George, was recently reported as saying he would contest the 2023 presidency so as to stop Mr Bola Tinubu from becoming president of this country. I have not read it anywhere that George denied making that statement; so it must mean he actually made it and he stands by it. I would not have been bothered if it was a political neophyte that made the vexatious and unfortunate statement, but George is a…

Sunday, 08 March 2020 05:11

Osun: Excavating the ruins of the Oranminran years - Festus Adedayo

A major and consequential event took place last week in the quiet state of Osun which students of politics, power and government should take more than passing interest in. The State governor, Mr Gboyega Oyetola, last Monday assented the recommendations of a panel set up to review some of the policies of his predecessor and boss, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, who is now the Minister of Interior. Oyetola was his Chief of Staff. The state executive council not only approved the recommendations of the committee, made up of very respectable persons in the education sector, it reversed many of the policies,…

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