Ns-Opinion

Opinion

Thursday, 14 June 2018 04:41

In this 20th year of ‘democracy’ - Edwin Madunagu

Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, which is currently running, was born on May 29, 1999 – with Olusegun Obasanjo as inaugural executive president. A year later, on May 29, 2000, the president proclaimed May 29 of every year Nigeria’s “Democracy Day”. The day was also added to the list of the country’s national public holidays. It was a unilateral executive decision – by which I mean that neither the proclamation of “Democracy Day” nor the declaration of public holiday was endorsed, before the acts, by the constitution or any legislative body or any other institution of the Nigerian state or any organized…

Wednesday, 13 June 2018 04:38

What June 12 reveals about Nigerian democracy - Femi Aribisala

The 1993 election was annulled because a free and fair election in Nigeria is fundamentally unacceptable to the powers-that-be in the North. Exactly 25 years ago, a landmark election was held in Nigeria after ten long years of military rule. There were two main contestants: Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party and Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. Abiola was from the South-west: Tofa from the North-west. Although the results of the election have never been officially certified, nevertheless, they are well known and readily-accessible. Abiola won with 8,243,209 votes; while Tofa lost with 5,982,087 votes. The election…

Tuesday, 12 June 2018 04:12

‘Just do good’: A June 12 story - Reuben Abati

I used to have a friend we called Alhaji Bashy. He was not a Muslim. No. But he called himself Alhaji Bashy, even if that was not his real name. You want to know his real name? It was Theophilus. And his wife was named Ruth. His children? He was yet to have one. Even Ruth was called his wife by designation. We were all young in those days, and any woman to whom you wrote regular love letters and poems, and she gave you attention was your wife. In those days, you didn’t have to give a woman a…

Sunday, 10 June 2018 05:05

Buhari’s Ejigbadero tactics - Festus Adedayo

At critical times, even the worst of governments are never in short supply of maverick game-changers who suddenly reconfigure the game in the middle of a tempest. Such persons spin a yarn that holds the crowd spellbound and in many cases, succeed in upturning the prevailing narratives. In many regards, the tactics they deploy conform to the theory of hegemony, a fundamental ruling class weapon of maintaining social and political control over the people. A brainchild of Italian Antonio Gramsci who devised it while in Mussolini gaol, with hegemony, the ruler gains legitimacy by saturating the minds of a people…

Sunday, 10 June 2018 05:04

What religion gives us (that science can’t) - Stephen T. Asma

It’s a tough time to defend religion. Respect for it has diminished in almost every corner of modern life — not just among atheists and intellectuals, but among the wider public, too. And the next generation of young people looks likely to be the most religiously unaffiliated demographic in recent memory. There are good reasons for this discontent: continued revelations of abuse by priests and clerics, jihad campaigns against “infidels” and homegrown Christian hostility toward diversity and secular culture. This convergence of bad behavior and bad press has led many to echo the evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson’s claim that…

Saturday, 09 June 2018 04:50

Obasanjo, NASS members are ‘hardened criminals’ - Buhari’s aide

In 2015, Nigerians began the process of recovering their nation from the hardened criminals who hijacked Nigeria for sixteen years. With an APC majority in the National Assembly, we had hoped for a speedy recovery and transformation of our nation, believing that we all understood the meaning of change. For starters, it took the better part of five months of President Buhari swimming through the mud to finally have a glimpse of what looked like a nation from where Ministers would be nominated. He was determined to begin to address the issue of marginalization in appointments. Where possible, he reached…

Saturday, 09 June 2018 04:49

The move of a desperate President - Umar Ardo

The desperation of President Buhari to retain power at all costs has again manifested itself in his illegal act of both changing the National Democracy Day and the investiture of National Honours of GCFR posthumously to late MKO Abiola and GCON to Amb. Babagana Kingibe. Having realized that he has lost public support across the country as a result of his dismal performance in office, and poor handling of issues affecting his Political Party, the NASS, the Judiciary and key stakeholders of the country, particularly the Senate President, the Speaker, Presidents Obasanjo and Babangida, the president ill-advisedly came up with…

Friday, 08 June 2018 03:59

Buhari and the June 12 saga - Reuben Abati

There are three aspects - the strategic, the political and the legal - to the Federal Government’s decision to replace May 29 with June 12 as Nigeria’s Democracy Day, and to confer on the late Chief MKO Abiola, the highest honour in the land. Strategy: Long before now, the Buhari government had needed to review its strategy of engagement with the public, move from blame-passing, propaganda, in-fighting, enemy-seeking approach to a more legacy-driven, result-oriented mode. It is like this: when a government is in decline, and it is losing popularity and goodwill, then it is time to change the narrative.…

Friday, 08 June 2018 03:58

Madmen in authority - Harold James

In The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, John Maynard Keynes famously worried that, “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” Yet even without prescriptive theories, feigning “frenzy” or madness can also be a plausible, powerful, and rather contagious negotiating strategy. In the early 1970s, US President Richard Nixon adopted the tactic to convince the North Vietnamese that he had his finger on the “nuclear button,” and that they had better negotiate a deal to end the war – or else. And in 1986,…

Thursday, 07 June 2018 05:04

Buhari: The road not travelled - Jideofor Adibe

This piece was inspired by a video of the Kenyan National Prayer Breakfast, which recently went viral. In that video President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga publicly offered apologies to each other over the contentious and acrimony-laden 2017 presidential election in the country. Uhuru Kenyatta, 56, is the son of Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta, while Raila Odinga, 73, is the son of the country’s first Vice President, Odinga Odinga. In that video, President Kenyatta, who took the lead in proffering apologies, said: “We have campaigned against each other, we have said nasty things against each other, and…

More...

Wednesday, 06 June 2018 04:55

Pro-Buhari solidarity indiscretion by Magu, Ali - NIG

The recent open show of support for the reelection bid of President Muhammadu Buhari by top officials of statutory agencies is not only distasteful, but also an unethical breach of Code of Conduct for public officials. It is also a sad throwback to the inglorious days of former military ruler, late General Sani Abacha, during which time state agencies and political parties were personalized to massage the ego of a maximum ruler. Acting Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu was recently spotted wearing a lapel pin bearing the face of President Buhari on a live interview…

Wednesday, 06 June 2018 04:53

Saraki: APC politics of self-destruction - Israel Ebije

All Progressive Congress (APC) has always operated on a political machinery lubricated with blackmail, propaganda, which facilitated the mass appeal they got at the polls ousting Mr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.In the wake of spasm of anger against the ruling party on account of failed promises, frail security situation and general anomie, the embattled ruling party has invented different sizes of frames to put up opponents or persons holding critical opinions for disgrace, disrepute and if possible destruction. The stage is set for the ruling party to self-destruct, now that it has started biting its own allies. The ongoing imbroglio between…

Tuesday, 05 June 2018 04:29

The road to Babylon - Reuben Abati

Nigeria is on the road to Babylon: a place of confusion. Three years ago, the people were convinced that they had found a messiah who will lead them to the Promised Land, and meet all their expectations. Today, everyone is speaking in different tongues; “turning and turning in the widening gyre…the falcon cannot hear the falconer... things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/The blood-doomed tide is loosed, and everywhere/the ceremony of innocence is drowned…surely, some revelation is at hand…” But just may be, there is still, no cause for despair. The good thing about…

Monday, 04 June 2018 04:27

Fighting corruption might be dangerous, but preparing a Nigerian budget is hell - Feyi Fawehinmi

On Nov.7, Nigeria’s president Buhari presented a 2018 budget of 8.6 trillion naira ($24 billion) to the National Assembly for approval. More than six months later on May 16—a record delay—the lawmakers returned it to the president, approved and ready for his signature. The approved budget had, of course, grown by 500 billion naira to 9.12 trillion. Whatever work was done on the budget in the intervening period between submission by the president and passage by the lawmakers was between inconsequential and non-existent. The budget became a political football and was taken hostage several times for various reasons—not least their…

Page 224 of 280

Opinion

More...

Search

Most Read

Editorial

News

Business

Politics

Opinion

Features

Strangely

Crime

Wars

SCIENCE & TECH

SPECIAL REPORTS

Sports

VIDEOS