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Opinion

Thursday, 09 March 2017 03:32

How wiretaps actually work - and what’s really going on here - David Kris

The president’s wiretap tweetstorm on Saturday produced the expected reactions, some of them inaccurate. Here are three points about the legal questions in play and three broader questions about what is really going on. First, the U.S. government needs probable cause, signatures from government officials and advance approval from a federal court before engaging in wiretapping in the United States. There are some narrow exceptions, for things such as short-term emergencies, which are then reviewed by a judge promptly after the fact. This is not something that the president simply orders. Under the law governing foreign intelligence wiretaps, the government…

Wednesday, 08 March 2017 02:19

The dollar is your human right - Feyi Fawehinmi

A couple of weeks ago, the Central Bank of Nigeria provided an answer – a special rate of around N380 to $1 was created for those travelling abroad, paying foreign school fees or medical expenses. From now on, every Tuesday, the CBN will sell forex to banks for the purpose of meeting the demand that falls into the above categories. If your flight time is 5 hours or more, you are ‘entitled’ to $4,000 at a subsidised rate per quarter. That is, you are not entitled to this fundamental human right if you are going to Rwanda, but you can…

Tuesday, 07 March 2017 03:27

Rudderless Nigeria struggles with a leadership crisis and recession - Dawn Kisi and Javier David

"Who is running Nigeria?", blared a headline in this week's The Economist, aptly summarizing the state of affairs in beleaguered Nigeria — a major oil producer and African economic powerhouse whose economy appears to be as stricken as its ailing leader. With Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in absentia suffering from an undisclosed illness, the country's National Bureau of Statistics reported last week that the economy contracted 1.5 percent last year for the first time in nearly 25 years. Although Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is handling day-to-day management of the country, analysts say Nigeria's mounting woes require steady leadership. Like most…

Tuesday, 07 March 2017 03:26

The man who sat on Tor Tiv's throne - Reuben Abati

This is about Stephen Nyitse, the young man who on the day of the coronation of the new Tor Tiv managed to beat security and went straight to where the king’s coronation seat, stool, throne had been placed and sat on it. We are told this caused a stir, and not a few in the crowd must have shouted: “abomination!”. Even President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Benue branch, Bishop Mike Angou considered Nyitse’s action sacrilegious. He went to the seat, to anoint and rededicate it. Bishop Angou’s intervention obviously was meant to cast out whatever demons Nyitse must…

Monday, 06 March 2017 15:24

Tribute: My friend Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo - Taiwo Obe

The book, Atiku-The Story of Atiku Abubakar, has the author’s name as Ojo Adinoyi. Unless, of course, you were familiar with the author or, and, knew that he was a special aide to the former Nigerian vice-president, you would have thought that it is not the same person as Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo. But then, when he joined The Guardian as a reporter in June 1983 immediately after his National Youth Service Corps primary assignment at Radio Nigeria, Ikoyi, his name was simply Shaibu Ojo. Till date, one of our colleagues at The Guardian still calls him, perhaps jokingly, Shaibu. He had…

Monday, 06 March 2017 15:14

Awo’s many happy returns - Lasisi Olagunju

“Anybody who could plant banana in the desert and make it thrive is my friend. Anybody who could turn saline swamps into fertile, arable land is my friend.” Chief Obafemi Awolowo made that statement in an elaborate interview marking his 72nd birthday. In those two sentences is encoded the entire philosophy of the essential Awolowo that has remained eternal. The leader is the thinker, the problem solver. He is the one who casts new light on old problems; the unusual one who solves unusual problems and moves on to anticipate and tackle new ones as they come. He is the…

Sunday, 05 March 2017 03:00

Where the North fails - Yakubu Musa

Those of us who read Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s Why Nations Fail, have seen, in the best-selling book, some convincing arguments on how countries of the world can seize the momentums of critical junctures of their histories to achieve economic greatness. Likewise, we have seen, in the same book, how elite’s phobia of Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” can either stunt growth or completely truncate it. Yet, while Why Nations Fail is a book rooted in political economy – from capitalistic perspective – its numerous analogies clearly abound everywhere, in terms of the realities of our dear country, Nigeria. Although,…

Saturday, 04 March 2017 17:33

Propagandocracy and the Buhari Media Center - Farooq A. Kperogi

The Buhari government is an absolute propagandocracy, that is, a government conducted by intentionally false and manipulative information. And this is so because the very foundation of the government is fraud. When you defraud people into electing you and you have no substance to justify the trust they invested in you, you either apologize and be penitent (if you are honorable) or you perpetually churn out lie after lie to cover up earlier lies since you have no truth to tell. That’s the profile of this government in a nutshell. The fraud started when, shortly after being sworn in as…

Friday, 03 March 2017 16:47

Amina Mohammed's exit: What next? - Adamu Mohammed

The exit of dutiful Amina Mohammed recently from the Cabinet of President Mohammed Buhari as Minister of Environment for a higher calling to serve humanity at the United Nations is a positive development. One, it has put Nigeria further on a global stage of international politics and diplomacy. Second, it has demonstrated again that good human resources abound in northern Nigeria, especially in our home state Gombe where myriads of wrong impressions have been created about the girl child and her likely educational attainments. Since 1999, Mrs Mohammed had contributed her expertise in various offices within and outside the presidency…

Thursday, 02 March 2017 04:17

South Africa: Xenophobia or ‘Afro-Asiaphobia’? - Jideofor Adibe

Recent upsurge in anti-immigrant attacks in South Africa has renewed concerns about the episodic wave of what some people call xenophobic attacks in that country. It is estimated that between 2008 and 2015, about 350 people lost their lives in such ‘xenophobic’ attacks in the country. But is it really right to call the attacks ‘xenophobia’? A starting point is to understand that in South Africa, the term ‘foreigner’ has a pejorative meaning and usually refers to African and Asian nationals. Other foreigners, especially Whites from America and Europe, are usually seen and treated as “tourists” or “expats”. Following from…

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Thursday, 02 March 2017 04:08

Ogongorigo Gongomasha: Masters forever - Tola Adeniyi

This is a simple narrative direct from the mouth of the born master: I shall drive you into the sea. All of you without an exception. I, I mean we where I is interchangeable with we and we can also mean I. This time around there should be no surrender, no half measures. The other time we allowed indecision to limit us to half the battle ground. Our masters had given us all that we needed to rule over you till the end of time. They gave us their brain. They gave us their cunning. They gave us their soullessness…

Wednesday, 01 March 2017 17:56

Mimiko and the market of old wisdom - Dare Babarinsa

Last Friday’s event in Ondo State when former Governor Olusegun Mimiko passed the baton to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu was of singular significance. It was the first time in Ondo State that power was passing from one elected incumbent to another without the acrimonious atmosphere of intrigues and even violence. It was indeed time for both Mimiko and Akeredolu to make history and to signal to the rest of Yoruba land that politics could be of a different hue from the old habiliments of war. I was in Akure in 1983 when Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin lost his job as the…

Tuesday, 28 February 2017 03:24

The Nigeria-Prays-For-Buhari competition - Reuben Abati

After the publication of my column last week, titled “I want to go to London… to see Buhari”, I received a lot of feedback from persons who were either amused or dead serious that they had been overlooked in my compilation of the list of persons who should go to London. One fellow asked: “Abati, you left out the Miyetti Allah and the cattle herders of Nigeria.” “Excuse me?” “Yes, they too will like to go to London” “With due respect, to go and herd cattle?” “No, to visit the President and reassure him about the welfare of his cattle”…

Monday, 27 February 2017 07:31

Tinubu and the paths once travelled - Debo Adesina

As All Progressives Congress governments at all levels in many places, not all, strike a pitiable or pitiful sight, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed by emotions. So much goodwill, so much hope, so much disappointment and, now, so much anger! All within two years! But blame the people first. The climate in which the party thrived ahead of the 2015 elections was only genuinely ripe for deceit and empty promises by any candidate who could successfully inflame emotions, escape rigorous scrutiny even as he basked in ignorance of or poor preparation for the enormity of the task ahead.…

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