BAT 2023

When news broke out late last week that President Muhammadu Buhari had allegedly placed travel bans on two governors of the opposition party, PDP, in the persons of governors Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, an already unsettled nation became even more distressed. If the report is true, then our democracy […]

 My compatriots, It is one year today since our administration came into office. It has been a year of triumph, consolidation, pains and achievements. By age, instinct and experience, my preference is to look forward, to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead and rededicate the administration to the task of fixing Nigeria. But I believe […]

1. Are we safer? Those of us who travel regularly in Nigeria’s north-east had become used to what should be a 15-minute journey turning into an hour-long ordeal. You had to stop dozens of times at roadblocks and disembark, while heavily armed soldiers inspected your vehicle for traces of the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram. […]

 One of the major news items in circulation has been the scarcity of tomato. Incidentally, Nigeria is (was) the 14th largest producer of tomato in the world and the second largest producer in Africa, after Egypt, but our country hardly produces enough to meet the local demand of about 2.3 million tonnes, and lacks the capacity […]

It is very curious to feed a cat the first time as opposed to a monkey because feeding that two legged animal can be assumed as one time event. However, the likelihood that the cat will return time and time and again stands a greater chance than electoral success of most incumbents even with no […]

The sack of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the chairman of our great party, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, came to me as a very big relief. The sack was long overdue as we had always maintained that Sheriff had no business being the chairman in the first place. Although we were maligned by some […]

This thing called democracy, particularly the Nigerian brand, never ceases to throw up new and intriguing lessons about the relationship between government and the people, and the larger, complex socio-political environment. I had gone to Lagos on an assignment in the last two days of the year 2011, when around midnight I received a phone […]

There has been a rash of proposals to resolve the menace of cattle herders’ invasion of Nigerian farmlands, who are killing unarmed Nigerians (children, women and men) and burning down or destroying houses and property, where understandably, no feeds or grasses exist for their cattle. All of these are happening on the victims’ ancestral lands, […]

There is a saying that no matter how long you have been travelling in the wrong direction, the best solution remains to turn back. This was what came to my mind when I read the story that the government had eventually decided to ‘remove’ subsidies on premium motor spirits otherwise known as petrol or fuel. […]

One of the off record welcome hospitality that the Conservative Prime Minister of Britain, Mr. David Cameron extended to Nigeria’s President who attended the May 10 Anti-corruption Summit in London is Cameron’s sneaky remark to the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II and a few privileged others ahead of that summit that Nigeria (and one other) […]

Parresia Publishers Ltd and African Centre for Media and Information Literacy in partnership with Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Foundation will on Tuesday, May 31, 2016, present to the public a new book, We Are All Biafrans, written by Chido Onumah. Designed as a platform to reinforce the debate about federalism and national reconciliation, the event is […]

As Nigerians come to terms with the wholesale massacre and genocide against villagers in plateau, Taraba, Kaduna, Benue and Enugu (and to a lesser extent in parts of Edo and Ondo states) over the years by the Fulani (whether the be “herdsmen” or otherwise)), we have now heard the voice of the Sultan of Sokoto. […]