Ns-Opinion

Opinion

Wednesday, 23 November 2016 01:50

Fool Nigeria once, shame on you. Fool Nigeria twice … - Ameto Akpe

It's been a tough year for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. The mood in Africa's most populous nation is a far cry from the euphoria that greeted his historic 2015 election - the first time in Nigeria's history that an opposition candidate unseated an incumbent president in a democratic election. For weeks and even months after the vote, Buhari was a media darling, praised at home and extoled abroad. Since then, the cheers have turned to jeers - even from members of the president's own party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Meanwhile, his administration cowers under attacks from a disillusioned electorate,…

Tuesday, 22 November 2016 14:56

Work without pay - Tola Adeniyi

This piece you are about to read is likely to offend my friends in government and in several establishments across the country. Governors in 33 out of the 36 states in the Nigerian territory who have not been able to pay their workers as promptly and regularly as when due, administrators of universities and several tertiary institutions who are owing their workers, chief executives of banking and financial institutions who are owing arrears of salaries and even authorities of police institution, and agencies charged with paying our illustrious pensioners are all going to go up in arms raising curses on…

Tuesday, 22 November 2016 02:30

Macro-wars pave path for Trump as axioms of world economy crack - Craig Torres and Jeff Black

Donald Trump has an invitation from economists to try something new. Even before the election, Democrats such as Lawrence Summers and Jason Furman helped put fiscal policy back in vogue. Central bank regimes are under review, and there’s a sharper focus on economic losers after decades of liberalization worsened income inequality. Furman, current chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the old view of fiscal policy as an ineffective tool is “shifting.” The reevaluation isn’t only happening in the U.S.: Koichi Hamada, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said he has changed his view on…

Sunday, 20 November 2016 14:17

Jonathan: An exceptional statesman at 59 - Ikechukwu Eze

Not many Nigerians would easily reconcile themselves to the fact that former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will be turning 59, on November 20. Obviously, going by his vast leadership experience and record of landmark achievements, he appears to have flown so high, in so short a time, way ahead of his years. It is to the glory of God that, while some politicians at that age may still be struggling to get into their first public office, Jonathan has exceptionally checked the boxes for Deputy Governor, Acting Governor, Governor, Vice President, Acting President and President; the only African, dead or…

Saturday, 19 November 2016 01:52

GEJ and the 'rented' Sokoto crowd - Onyebuchi Ememanka

I slept early last night, no thanks to the stress of Lagos. I usually wake up quite early to catch up with latest happenings in the country before heading into another round of traffic stress. Early this morning as I scanned through facebook, I saw viral pictures of the visit of former President Goodluck Jonathan to Sokoto. He came to the caliphate to sympathize with the Dasuki family over the death of the Late Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki who was the father of his National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki who is currently in detention. There was a huge crowd that received…

Thursday, 17 November 2016 02:11

Head bloodied but not bowed - Femi Fani-kayode

Permit me to begin this contribution with an apology for my disappearance from the literary and political scene for the last one month but this was due to circumstances beyond my control. On October 21st, five days after my 56th birthday, I was arrested by the EFCC without an arrest warrant at the premises of the Federal High Court in Lagos where I had been earlier granted bail. Thereafter I was illegally detained by them without any detention order for 21 days. Kindly note that this was after I had been detained by them for a gruelling 67 days 6…

Tuesday, 15 November 2016 15:08

Buhari, Fashola and an administration bereft of ideas - Reno Omokri

A few days ago on the 11th of November, 2016, Raji Fashola, Nigeria’s super minister of power, works and housing, who is more famous for spending ₦78 million on his website in 2014 (an amount then worth $500,000) said that the 7% GDP growth Nigeria enjoyed under the Jonathan administration was solely the result of high oil prices rather than any policy of that administration. Fashola said; “I say this in the context of those who are tempted to lay some claim to any form of credit about why our economy was growing at seven percent for almost a decade,…

Tuesday, 15 November 2016 01:42

Tribute: the other side of Olaniwun Ajayi - Folu Olamiti

In the wee hours of 4 November, 2016, I got a pop up on my mobile phone alerting me that Pa Olaniwun Ajayi had passed on. My mind raced quickly towards Pa Ayo Adebanjo, wondering how he would receive the breaking news at his age. The two were inseparable "twins". Pa Olanuwun and Pa Adebanjo were close political disciples of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. I had admired their closeness a great deal, studying then at close range. At every meeting, the two would appear in style, a reason I sometime got tempted to tag them the ‘Musketeers’. Papa Awo was very…

Monday, 14 November 2016 01:34

America, their America - Tola Adeniyi

The world has just suffered a nightmare. A nightmare the like that has never been experienced on a global scale, I mean in the Euro-American world. But why should I be concerned about the elections in a country that appropriated the name of a whole continent, two continents in fact and called it its own. For starters, the United States is not America; it is not the continent of America. It is just one of the many countries in America just as Canada and Cuba are. Just as Columbia and Haiti are. Just like Mexico and Brazil. All the citizens…

Sunday, 13 November 2016 15:58

Nigeria-US relations and Donald Trump - Reuben Abati

I do not share the view of those who assume that by some kind of miracle, in the shape of electoral-college defections, Hillary Clinton would still, on the strength of winning the popular vote, supplant Donald Trump as US 2016 President-elect. We might as well begin to live with the reality of a Trump Presidency, sad and traumatic as that outcome may be. And coming to terms with that, despite our disappointment, calls for a forward-looking approach on the part of the Nigerian government. The United States remains Nigeria’s most strategic partner. More than one million Nigerians live in the…

More...

Sunday, 13 November 2016 01:31

Red Card, Green Card – notes towards the management of hysteria - Wole Soyinka

I shall begin on a morbid note. One of the horror stories that emerged from the Daesh (ISIS) controlled parts of Iraq was the gruesome tale of the mother who had a daughter affected by wanderlust, even in that endangered zone. One day, when she looked for her to attend to some home chores, she found that she had gone missing yet again. As she searched, she shouted in frustration: “As Allah is my witness, I’ll kill that girl when I catch up with her”. A neighbour overheard and reported her to the Hisbah. The mother was summoned by the…

Saturday, 12 November 2016 01:55

Babangida Aliyu @61: Saluting the audacity of a man who saw tomorrow - Israel A. Ebije

A human being is not necessarily defined by knowledge and skills but by content of their character. The ability to combine knowledge and skills, wrapped in character within acceptable norm of the society is indeed the best gift any mortal can hope to get. Character therefore establishes more than good social life, it also helps leaders to selectively expose themselves to best practices towards serving humanity. As the former Governor of Niger state, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, celebrates his 61st birthday today November 12, 2016, I salute the man who has been able to saddle his horse of life, riding…

Friday, 11 November 2016 15:16

The sad news of Trump’s triumph - Reuben Abati

"Democracy is tricky; it sometimes ends up as a parody of itself. When the people clamour for change, they can vote with their hearts, and prove impervious to plain sight reason, and overlook likely pitfalls. We can only hope that Donald Trump does not become the symbol of the change that Americans are seeking. That would be sad indeed for the free world.” – Reuben Abati, “Anything Can Happen in America”, The Guardian, March 6, 2016. Earlier this year, I had written a piece titled “Anything Can Happen In America”, from which the quote above is excerpted, but I had…

Friday, 11 November 2016 01:35

Lessons from the 2016 US Presidential election - Jideofor Adibe

It certainly came as a surprise to many people. Though all national polls in the USA indicated that the race was tightening in the run-up to the elections, almost all indicated a Hilary Clinton win. With 279 Electoral College Votes to Hillary’s 228, the world increasingly has to come to terms with a Donald Trump presidency. There are several lessons we can learn from the election: One, Trump’s victory could signal the ascendency and ultimate mainstreaming of right wing populism. This is a growing phenomenon in Western democracies, which is epitomized in backlashes against multiculturalism, growing anti immigration sentiments and…

Page 266 of 274

Opinion

More...

Search

Most Read

Editorial

News

Business

Politics

Opinion

Features

Strangely

Crime

Wars

SCIENCE & TECH

SPECIAL REPORTS

Sports

VIDEOS