Category: OP-ED

Our saving knight in shining armour rides in magisterially, talks about the orders he has issued, tells lots of lies, consoles himself, talks about the things important to him leaving out every other, and rides back to wherever he came from. No questions asked, none answered. After all, he’s doing us such a favour. Four weeks ago, Chikwe Ihekweazu, Nigeria… Read More

In recent times, Prof Wole Soyinka has been at the receiving end of arrows from those who hate his guts and his intellect. Those who are discomforted by his achievements. Those who are having nightmares about his pride in his heritage and his aversion for ignorance and incompetence. Those who felt threatened by his solidness and their own destitution. This… Read More

“Happy Workers Day? How happy is the worker whose lot is no different from the slave’s?” In my youth, everyone went to the same public schools. The governor’s son, the ambassadors’ children. We rarely asked who your dad was, and you earned no privileges for coming from a wealthy home, everybody were treated pretty much the same. If anything, your… Read More

Femi Gbajabiamila is not new to law making, nor legislative bill drafting, presentation and passage. He’s almost as old as the third republic in the business of law making, having been elected into Lagos State House of Assembly in 2003, and re-elected in 2007. Femi served consecutively for eight years till 2011 when he became a member of the Federal… Read More

Setting the context: It seems like a long time ago now when the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus began in Wuhan, China. Yet it has been less than six months, and in that time, it has since become the COVID-19 disease and a pandemic that is now ravaging the whole world, and is changing life and our conditions of living… Read More

You have possibly watched the 1998 action-thriller film with the above title, starring Will Smith. It was the box office hit story about a group of people plotting to kill an American Congressman, and the tape of the plot was discovered. Well, an Enemy of the State struck in Nigeria on Monday, but this time, it was no fiction. It… Read More

Any objective analysis of a long-winded essay, “COVID-19: Can Africa Afford Lockdowns?”, by Chukwuma Soludo, would wonder if the renowned economist is suddenly cast with a voodoo spell.  Mr. Soludo needs no introduction. A distinguished professor of economics, with advanced degrees—both academic and honoris causa—from the prestigious University of Nigeria, he was a former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),… Read More

Yesterday April 28, 2020, a piece of draft legislation that could permanently change the experience of Nigeria as we know it was quietly transmitted to members of the House of Representatives for consideration. On the surface, it is a somewhat innocuous bill – possibly even praiseworthy and necessary, but as has become the case in recent times, a closer examination… Read More

Following a string of suspicious deaths in Kano last week, some have said the state, arguably Nigeria’s most populous, could be Nigeria’s Italy.  They are wrong and right. They are wrong because healthcare in Kano and what obtained in any region in pre-COVID-19 Italy is not comparable. Like night and day, they’re not even close. But they are right because… Read More

President Muhammadu Buhari was presented with two difficult choices early this week as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on – a choice to continue the lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory to further curtail the spread of the pandemic or a decision to relax lockdown in these states and the FCT for businesses to reopen. Each of the… Read More