Tag: saharareporters

It will amount to betrayal of our revolutionary ideas if we allow bad things to continue just like the ordeal of Ifemosu Michael, a student of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, who was unjustly suspended by the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Felix Salako, who often prides himself as the ‘Buhari of FUNAAB’. Michael was sent on an academic exile for writing to express his opinions on the issues happening in the country. Since the whole saga began, Michael has faced so many threats from different quarters. Just…

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Call it a mere coincidence. You might be right. You may even choose to see it as just a positive response to some constructive criticisms – that could also be true. Whichever way one decides to look at it, the decision of Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, to ban Almajiris from begging on the streets of Kano, a few days after he was bashed for appointing special assistants on street lights, is a positive development. Recall that Ganduje had appointed three people as Senior Special Assistants on Street Light Matters last…

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On December 14, 2016, the Nigerian Senate asked Babachir Lawal, Secretary to the Government of the Federation at the time, to immediately resign from office. This followed the recommendation of its ad hoc committee on the humanitarian crisis in the North-East, which had investigated the management of funds for internally displaced persons in the region by the Presidential Initiative on the North-East. PINE at the time was under the SGF. But on January 17, President Muhammadu Buhari wrote to the Senate, saying he would not sack Lawal because he was…

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With the Blind Lady sign herein, I am sure friends will expect me to talk about the earth-quaking judgment of Justice Okon Abang sending Olisa Metuh, former PDP stalwart, to prison for seven years for sundry offences during the reign of former President GEJ. The topic for that discussion is reserved to a later date. My recent experiences with our criminal justice sector is not too palatable and I have tried very much to bear it but the more I try the more I get terrible heart ache. Before now…

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Introduction In a unanimous judgment delivered on February 14, 2020, the Supreme Court of Nigeria sacked the Bayelsa State Governor-elect, David Lyon and his Deputy, Biobarakuma Degi-Eremieoyo who had run on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC). The judgment was nullified on the grounds that Degi-Eremieoyo presented false information to the Independent National Electoral commission (INEC) in his nomination form for the governorship election held on November 16, 2019. Consequently, the Court directed INEC to declare the results of the election following the cancellation of the votes scored…

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As a lifelong football fan, I am fascinated by superb goals. Goals are the life blood of the round leather game as is what drives most fans hysterical. One of the best goals ever that the game has recorded was one of the ones scored by Justin Fashanu in 1980 while plying his trade with Norwich. The goal was against Liverpool and it shot him up to prominence as a star to watch out for. February 19, this year makes it his 59th posthumous birthday and it is necessary to…

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As I said in a column in June 2019, security is everybody’s business. No individual, group, institution or organisation is nugatory in matters of security. All efforts are needed and all hands must be forged into one fist in the pursuit of peace. In fact, it imperils security if any stakeholder to the peace is “quarantined” and stereotyped. I believe, there will be more gains in the effort to wrestle down banditry and kidnapping if the people, who can prevail on, apprehend or sway these outlaws are involved in the…

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The final proof that things may have, within the last one month, actually become very bad for our dear state, Imo, is the “open letter” written by one Blyden Amajirionwu purportedly to His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha CON. Amajirionwu’s “open letter” entitled, “Putting Imo First Before Personal Interest, An Appeal To Ihedioha And PDP”, was published in some (Owerri-based) newspapers and on some social media platforms. Apart from the fact that I am a personal aide to Ihedioha, I, a citizen of the state, feel quite ashamed that such…

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Here is the main problem with Nigeria’s electricity sector: Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, but it has failed consistently to generate, transmit and distribute enough electricity to power its development process and accelerate economic growth.  Between 1999 and 2007, President Olusegun Obasanjo focused on the reform of the electricity sector as one of the major priorities of his administration. Gas-powered plants were set up across the country under his watch, turbines and other equipment were imported. His government laid the foundation for reform in the power sector but could…

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The ever blunt plain speaking Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi recently warned that the North will destroy itself if it doesn’t change. Apparently, Sanusi was referring to the northerners who had ruled Nigeria longest since independence. He sounds like the Old Testament prophet of doom with a thundering denunciation: “The rest of the country cannot be investing, educating its children, producing graduates and then they watch us, they can’t get jobs because they came from the wrong state, when we have not invested in the future of our own children.”…

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