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Nigeria, State Failure: Which Type? By Yusuf Nagi Ahmad Driven by what has become a popular euphemism ‘the current security challenges’ (which refers to the many militant insurgencies and acts of criminality around the country including that of the MEND in the Niger Delta, OPC in the South-West, kidnappings and armed robberies in the South-East and more recently, the Boko Haram in the North), all the discussions about the future of Nigeria presently always end up with probing the possibility of the country becoming a ‘failed state’ like Somalia or Afghanistan – the most current archetypal occurrence of the phenomenon presently dominating the global stage. Details
Breakup Nigeria And Be Poorer Deadlocked. By Farouk Martins Aresa Never underestimate a Nigerian crook though. It does not make a difference if the money is marked or not, as long as it is good money everything will disappear into the unknown. There are some tactics that may work in other countries that will never work in Nigeria. Even the video can be denied as tampered with. We are talking about our Country where Ibori won all the way to the Supreme Court. If Niger Delta was a country, it would have gone bankrupt. Details
No, To Compromise With Crime, Please! By Na-Allah Mohammed Zagga Was Farouk Lawan taken to Otedola’s house at gun point? Was it proper for him to take himself to the house of someone he was investigating? Was it normal to go to Otedola’s house at an unusual hour to receive an unusual “gift” or bribe from Zenon’s chairman? Was Farouk’s conduct not an abuse of public trust? By initially denying ever visiting Otedola at 4 a.m. and receiving bribe in whatever form and later admitting doing so, didn’t Lawan tar himself with the brush of criminality as the man he was entrusted to investigate? Details
The NYSC And Its Clarion Call. By Raheem Oluwafunminiyi Certainly, the importance and significance of the NYSC cannot be quantified, as its sustainability for almost three decades continues to show how in the midst of heavy criticisms, one can pin-point to the scheme as one out of a million, the resounding legacies of the military era. It has continued to promote what many policy makers in Abuja refer to as cross-cultural exchanges and interaction most especially as it has to do with service to the fatherland. Details
Nigerian Civil Society Organisations: How Well and How Right. By Salihu Moh. Lukman No doubt, the existence of these organisations assisted considerably to open up space for the expression of dissenting opinions and what could be regarded as alternative voices. Unfortunately, this very character and attribute has come to serve as a shield for opportunistic and nuisance activities of some civil society organisations. In some respects, the nation has witnessed situations where actions and positions of groups regarding matters of public policy and management of resources hardly depart from prevailing horrid practices associated with government. If anything, where this is the case, it also raised questions about the efficacy of, at the minimum, strategies employed by these organisations. Details
Boko Haram: Iron Fist In A Velvet Glove. By Max Siollun Former US President Theodore Roosevelt once famously said that one should “talk softly and carry a big stick”. In dealing with Boko Haram, the Nigerian government has so far chosen to talk softly OR carry a big stick, but has declined to do both simultaneously. The federal government has made conflicting noises, unsure of whether to listen to calls from southern Christians to unleash a military onslaught to crush Boko Haram, or to listen to northerners who urge a cessation or easing of military attacks on Boko Haram, and negotiations with it instead. Details
Resolving The Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund Debacle. By Dr. Emmanuel Ojameruaye In his presentation on “100 Days of Promising Less and Delivering More: The Jonathan Transformation Agenda” about nine months ago, in September 2011, the Special Assistant to President Jonathan on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati stated that the establishment of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) is one of the signature achievements of the first 100 days of the President’s new administration. According to Dr. Abati, “With the establishment of the NSIA, the President facilitated direct investments into infrastructure with the priority areas being power and roads”. Nine months later, and as the President celebrates his 366 days of his new administration, the NSIA is yet to take off, not less to make any investment on power and roads. Details
The implementation of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority Bill has however been stalled by objections from the key stakeholders (State Governors). Details of the efforts at resolving the disagreements between the State Governments and Federal Government have largely been out of the public spotlight. Media reports indicate that the Supreme Court of Nigeria has been invited to adjudicate on the matter while alternative attempts at dispute resolution are being recommended and considered for both parties. Details
The Flight of Reason and Descent of Anarchy in Lagos State. By Olusegun Fakoya I am convinced that when Fashola and his cohort embarked on the ill-advised decision to summarily sack the almost entire medical workforce in Lagos State, little did they give any consideration to the possible snowball effects of such an irrational decision. If words are not to be minced, the unfortunate action of Fashola and his coterie of mis-advisers is social irresponsibility and democratic betrayal. Details
MKO Abiola: Tokenism or Immortalization? By Mohammed Dahiru Aminu Always full of surreal surprises, Nigeria’s arrantly underperforming president; Goodluck Jonathan has called in on us with yet another bolt from the blue. Just after a tragic one year in office as (s)elected president of an apocalyptic Nigeria, our president made a very funny yet sidesplitting announcement: that the 1962-established University of Lagos (UNILAG) has been renamed Moshood Abiola University, after the legendary MKO Abiola. Details
FAO Abiola Family. By Anthony A. Kila Most people believe that this unilateral act without any form of due and open consultation with those immediately affected shows disregard and smacks of dictatorship unworthy of the honour it professes to bestow. Many people consider the choice of Unilag as a mode of reducing the battle of June 12 to sectional and regional quest: they think a place or a monument in Abuja the FCT would be more befitting for national struggle. Details
Too Easy to Blame Just Jonathan. By Anthony A. Kila With his recent declaration intent to change the name of University of Lagos in honor of the winner of June 12 1993 presidential elections, Nigerian President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has again confirmed what many of us of think of him and his administration: he is leading an error-prone presidency. I personally started to think that about this presidency when in 2010 special presidential adviser, Ima Niboro came to tell us in clear terms that "President Goodluck Jonathan has directed that Nigeria withdraws from international competition for two years to enable the country to put its house in order." Details
Political Intentions Behind UNILAG Renaming? By Raheem Oluwafunminiyi The heat generated by the renaming of the former University of Lagos, UNILAG into Moshood Abiola University, Lagos, MAUL, has seized to abate even when an avoidable and unfortunate plane crash miffed our collective sensibilities few days ago. It is not everyday that plane crashes occur globally, but when it comes to Nigeria, a pointer to institutional incompetence is always not far-fetched. The DANA airliner crash is a story for another day even as we still mourn the huge human and material loss. Details
Nigeria will NOT Emerge Stronger – A Rejoinder to an Address. By Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola It is share fallacy and hypocrisy for you to stand before such an auspicious body and eulogise falsehood as the basis of your unfounded optimism on the future of our ill-fated federation. The basis of this erroneous optimism as contained in your address was the so-called transformation agenda of the present federal government. A transformation agenda that is littered with non-performance, deceit, corruption and a disturbing catch-phrase termed “irreversible”. If you had not been noticing, Jonathan’s government has assumed a pseudo-military toga where decisions made, no matter how unpopular or unacceptable it is to the citizenry, are often “irreversible”. Details
Child’s Street Begging And Our Orientation. By Auwal Shehu Walk to any Conner, or department store, restaurant or food bucker, and a group of these children is what welcome you first. They are stationed attentively to every move by a shopper. Some said they count the number of spoons intake by a customer visiting a restaurant and count changes paid over the counter. They beg and roam about in cities and towns with no definite place to sleep or eat. They moved in tattered dirty dresses. They are often exposed into unbeneficial force labour by the Mallams in the farms and other domestic schedules. Details
Anarchy in Nigeria. By Leonard Karshima Shilgba I have seen that there is no leader over Nigeria, so what should the people do? The people of Israel had a similar experience thousands of years ago, when there was no leader in Israel, and so every man did what was right in their eyes. Boko Haram group struck some churches in Kaduna state on Sunday, June 17, 2012. Ah, this time, the victims or the aggrieved struck back at symbols which, in their opinion, most closely represented the aggressor, Boko Haram. The word that has popped up now is “reprisals”. Now, a new dimension has been introduced into the crisis of bombings in Nigeria. Details
Who Is Almajiri. By Muktar Yakubu Begging is a popular attitude in Nigeria, particularly in Northern part of the country (Mudanssir, 2010). Although there are evidences of existence of poverty in Nigeria, the act of begging is suppose to be the last resort to earning a living. Surprisingly enough, those that are engaged in the act are doing it without feeling of humiliation and dishonoured, so much that they have legalized it to be a standard profession and career for survival. Details
Paving the Path to Hell: The Hausa City-State. By Bukhari Ibrahim Our northern elders are materialist; they lack integrity and decency, our bunch of illiterate youth are drug addicted, our educated ones are waiting their turn to steal to live in comfortable houses, and drive exclusive cars. Children who’re the future backbone of any society; don’t have access to quality education that meant their future is bleak. Our royal fathers remain soundless, negligent and neglected. Details
14th July The Making Of Another But Avoidable Boko Haram In Edo State. By Sani Aliyu Nothing can be more instructive like experience, and so when General Azazi, erstwhile national defense chief, and present national security adviser, borne out of experience, identified and traced the root course of the current spate of bloodletting madness in parts of the country, as an offshoot of a default political arrangement that sparked aggression, which emanated from Borno State. And he consequently heaped the bulk blame on PDP; this however, cannot be unconnected to the injustices done to our electoral processes by the PDP. Indeed the security boss statement wasn’t out of naivety but rather as a result of painstaking analysis very well articulated. Details
Estimating the Demand for Energy Products in Nigeria. By Dr. Emmanuel Ojameruaye Given the disequilibrium and imperfect conditions of the petroleum products market in Nigeria, an econometric disequilibrium approach is the best method for projecting future demand for and optimal prices of petroleum products. The first step in this approach is to adjust the “metered” consumption (supply) data to obtain estimates of ex-ante demand. Details
Nigerian Refineries Need a Commonsense Solution. By Zayyad I. Muhammad The four state-owned refineries in Nigeria are on their knees. Though refineries in Nigeria should be consistently out-performing the average utilization rates of refineries across the globe, their performance is characterised by very low utilization and incessant downtime. This owes to the fact that they are owned and run by the government of Nigeria and, are caught within the ‘crossfire’ of corruption, persistent attacks on pipelines by oil thieves as well as the slow progress in the full-liberalization of the refining sector of the petroleum industry. Details |