BAT 2023

A new and provocative book titled Nigeria is Negotiable has blamed Nigeria’s leaders for the country’s woes.  Written by journalist and rights activist, Chido Onumah, the book is due for launch on Tuesday, August 20, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Nigeria is Negotiable, a collection of essays spanning more than two decades attributes the problems of […]

An imminent age purge in the Nigerian U-17 Golden Eaglets is threatening to hamper the country’s successful representation at this year’s edition of the U-17 World Youth Championships, billed to hold in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in October. Officials of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) have recommended that players placed on Grade 5 by […]

Oxford University is in Oxfordshire which shares a common border with the Cotswold arguably the most picturesque and scenic part of England.  However, we were denied the indulgence of proceeding with our scheduled excursion to Burford the mini-capital of the Cotswold when His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammadu Saa’d Abubakar the Sultan of Sokoto delivered his address […]

I borrowed the title of this piece from my new book, Nigeria is Negotiable, which is due for public presentation on Tuesday, August 20, 2013, in Abuja. I shall be quoting profusely from the various contributors to the book to buttress the argument for an urgent national dialogue on the future of Nigeria. Since the […]

Cross River State Government has condemned in strong terms, the purported protest by the Football Association of Malawi Chief Executive Officer, Suzgo Nyeirenda, alleging spurious claims of security challenges and substandard hotels ahead of their last Group stage World Cup Qualifier between Nigeria and Malawi slated for 7th September 2013 in Calabar. In a statement […]

I always knew trouble was brewing. From August 2 when the media published Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi’s letter to President Goodluck Jonathan threatening “reciprocity or reprisal” ostensibly against south-westerners in Anambra because Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola “deported and dumped” 72 street beggars in the state. Lagos Government had claimed they were […]

With what I now know about the history of coup plotting in Nigeria, I will never again look at Ikoyi in the same way. I’m now much more attuned to its conspiratorial character, and its bloody, violent past (connected to its status as the seat of post-independence government for three decades); a past we seem […]

I happen to share offices in the same premises with one of the zonal offices of th Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN). In the last 9 years they have not bought a newspaper or papers, nor journal, they do manage to have a few meetings and some form of activities happen there from time to […]

Nigeria is a country devastated by poverty, insecurity, corruption and terrorism. The governance challenges are immense, while much of public policies now deliver poor outcomes. The budgeting process is a fictographic art, featuring much drama and a growing disconnect from the imperatives of development and the needs of the majority. True to that tradition, the […]

Legendary Nigerian music artiste Innocent Idibia, better known as Tuface, has urged Nigerians to avoid purchasing pirated intellectual materials same way they would adulterated drugs. Speaking on Friday with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the multi award-winning songster observed that without the patronage of buyers, pirated copyright materials would not thrive and the crime would […]

It is unlikely that the crisis generated by the “deportation” of some Nigerians from Lagos to Anambra State will abate anytime soon. Even though we are a nation of short memory and every week comes with its own crisis that is soon forgotten (Senator Ahmed Yerima and his band of pro-child marriage warriors must be […]

Permit me to make my second and final contribution to the raging debate about Lagos, who owns it and the seemingly endless tensions that exist between the igbo and the yoruba. It is amazing how one or two of the numerous nationalities that make up Nigeria secretly wish that they were yoruba and consistently lay […]