BAT 2023

I believe we all have that one family member who thinks that he or she has the right to intrude into your schedule and order you around. When they call you, they won’t give up until you pick their calls. And these people, they can call you liked a hundred times. Send text messages. Whatsapp. […]

April 12, the day set aside since 2012 as the International Day for Street Children, has come and gone. In our dear country, with its hustles and hassles, the day went largely unnoticed, barely reported and scarcely celebrated. The International Day for Street Children is meant to call attention to the plight of  children without […]

The oppressive impact of the myriad charges on the transactions of everyowner of a bankaccount in Nigeria, was subject of discussion, in this columnin recent weeks. Mediareports have also suggested that these charges, may contributetrillions ofNaira income for banks annually; indeed, the income fromretained stamp dutycharges, alone, may have exceeded N6 trillion, if figuresbandied by […]

Last week Sunday, I was in the village. I attended the 8.00 am Mass that day. As I arrived the Church at exactly 7.55am, I saw a throng of club-wielding youths and angry youngsters marching along the road adjacent to the Church. On instinct, I went closer to find out what was going on. The […]

Access Bank has completed its acquisition of Diamond Bank.  This is the second ‘sick’ Nigerian bank that Access Bank has acquired in the past seven years with the help and approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria.  The first one was Intercontinental Bank.  Find below things to ponder on:1.  The new Access Bank will in […]

The emotions raised by the recent Presidential, National Assembly as well as the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections will take a while to settle – especially from those who were not favoured by their outcomes. Elections, across all democracies arouse emotions, deepen divisions and polarize the society along certain fissures and contending fault […]

  Here is yet another account of what I saw in the politics of Ogun State and Nigeria. One of my early teachable moments was the realization that you are required to dress like the people whose votes you are looking for, and operate at that level, be like them, connect with them. When the […]

Whoever came up with the wise saying that Nigerian politics is dirty deserves an award for perspicacity. I have just returned from that dirtied, muddled up, confused, uncertain, unpredictable zone of Nigerian life and society with truck loads of stories in my head and enough impressions in my mind to last me another life-time. As […]

Perception – also known as optics- is a belief or opinion held by people on the basis of how things seem. Our perception of any event is our reality and our truth, which is why people say that perception is everything. The American essayist, poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau put it even more graphically: […]

Permit me to begin this contribution with a few comparisons. Consider the following. Mr. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was elected President of Ghana in 2016. His father Edward Akuffo-Addo, was one of Ghana’s “big six” nationalists and elderstatesmen who led and fought for Ghana’s independence from the British in 1957. He was a former Chief […]Read More

President Muhammed Buhari, finally laid the 2019 budget before the National Assembly, on Wednesday 19th December 2018; that is, barely 2 days before Parliament vacated for the Year End holidays. Incidentally, there was no apparent regret, nor indeed explanation why this mandatory process took so long; arguably, however, tardy implementation and gross distortion of the […]

Henry Seriake Dickson, the countryman Governor of Bayelsa State, is an engaging personality, highly cultivated, courageous and exuding a charming comportment. A proud Ijaw man whose progeny stretches far into the throbbing southwest town of Ijebu-Ode (where his great grandmother comes from and was a princess), Dickson is unmistakably passionate about Nigeria. Suffice to say […]