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By Dakuku Peterside Nigeria’s nascent democratic journey has lasted for 24 uninterrupted years, the first time in its history. Previous democratic interregnums did not last long enough due to incessant military incursions into governance to give us enough time and data to evaluate its impact on society. The debate on the success or failure of our ...
By Dakuku Peterside In 2021, State governors and local government chairmen in the 36 states of the Federation collected over N375 billion from public coffers in the name of security vote, an act not provided for in the Nigerian constitution or any known law in the country. This amount excludes those the president and other ...
By Femi Adesina There’s a striking similitude between what happened in the gubernatorial election in Ekiti State in 2009, and Abia State in 2023. And two women were at the centre of it all, talking Christianity and conscience. But the denouement of the events were in sharp contrast. Engineer Segun Oni of the People’s Democratic ...
By Dakuku Peterside Multiculturalism in England, Ireland and Scotland has produced new leaders of Asian origins. This ideal is celebrated worldwide as progress and a symbol of a more fantastic future where the emphasis will be placed more on unity in diversity than discrimination of the old era. The power of this new development is ...
By FEMI ADESINA First it was at Kolmani, in Bauchi/Gombe States, and now President Muhammadu Buhari has struck again. In a region some people have said was fated never to produce even a cup of oil, the second exploration exercise was flagged off this week. The spud-in ceremony of the Ebenyi-A, Middle Benue Trough, was ...
By Dakuku Peterside Nigerian elections and Nigerian marriages have a lot in common. Both should be sacrosanct. They are conducted with pomp and fanfare, and promises are made but kept in breach. Professions of loyalty and honesty are like a singsong. Like a marriage cements the relationship between two consenting adults supposedly in love, elections ...
By Dakuku Peterside The Gubernatorial and state houses of assembly elections have come and gone in most states. Unfortunately in some states it was characterised by drama, unnecessary tension, flawed process, violence and broad day light electoral robbery. The victors are celebrating, and the losers must be feeling bad. We all hope that this election, ...
By FEMI ADESINA It's the figure of speech called oxymoron in literature, isn't it? When you talk of a 'good disappointment.' When apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction, it is called an oxymoron. When you have antithetical words with opposing meanings coming together. Examples: 'A gentleman of the road.' 'A honest thief.' 'Why, then, O ...
By Dakuku Peterside A critical element of the 2023 general election is the intensity and electricity of the Nigerian youths' participation in the electoral process. Statistics may not fully capture or contextualise youth involvement in the 2023 national electoral process. The youth energy and involvement this time around deservedly forms a new chapter in post-1999 ...
By FEMI ADESINA Please permit me to start with response to a twist and contortion done by the lying online medium called Sahara Reporters to my article last week. I had written under the headline, For PMB, it’s Nigeria or Nothing, and the point I made was that President Muhammadu Buhari had given the Independent ...
By FEMI ADESINA In some other lands and climes, elections are held on weekdays, in which people cast their votes, and proceed to the office, or other places of endeavour. But here, we must first die many times before our death, when elections approach. Many are the doomsday scenarios painted, that we do not know ...
By Dakuku Peterside Last Saturday’s presidential election marks a new beginning for Nigeria, if not literally, then clearly symbolically. Nigerian voters, defied hunger, Naira crisis and appropriated that moment as a clear point of departure from the past. They embraced the election as if their lives depended on it. The general high level of enthusiasm ...
By FEMI ADESINA I was witness to history on Friday last week. I’d been invited to attend what was called NNPC Cutover Ceremony at the corporate head office of the burgeoning National Energy Company in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory. What did the event mean, in simple English. NNPC was completing its transmutation from a Corporation ...
By Dakuku Peterside . It is now a cliché that this election is a make-or-mar election for Nigeria. It is our way of saying this is a consequential election. The importance of this election has dawned on everyone, and unlike every other election before it, it is the first election post military era that the ...
By FEMI ADESINA It is most likely the last Council of State meeting to be chaired by Muhammadu Buhari as President, and it held on February 10, 2023, at State House, Abuja. It was a hybrid meeting, with some attendees physically present, and others online. Former Presidents/Heads of State on parade included Gen Yakubu Gowon, ...
By FEMI ADESINA We left Abuja on January 23, on a journey that would take us to Bauchi, Lagos, Senegal, Katsina, Kano, and Jigawa States. Return date was January 31, in the evening hours. Since January 31 was then the terminal date for key denominations of the naira to be legal tender, I didn’t want ...
By Dakuku Peterside Nigerians are facing the reality of scarcity of cash literarily. Banks are overwhelmed by angry customers demanding money, the ATMs are flooded with furious Nigerians struggling to withdraw cash, and some spend the whole day hoping to get a few Naira notes to pay bills. POS operators complain of a lack of ...
By FEMI ADESINA Nine unbroken days of work and travel came to a slight pause on Tuesday with a final hurray at Jigawa State, where President Muhammadu Buhari and his team commissioned legacy projects at Hadejia, Birnin Kudu, and Dutse, the State capital. The peregrination had started in Bauchi, to Lagos, Dakar in Senegal, to ...
By Dakuku Peterside Nigeria’s general election, the largest democratic exercise in Africa, begins on 25 February. All the parties and candidates are jostling to get the voters’ attention and convince them to vote for them in the elections. The wait is palpitating, and the electioneering campaign drama is thus far exhilarating. Everything but issues facing ...
By Dakuku Peterside The theatricals for winning the hearts and minds of the voters are all around us. The perceptual game of showing strength in the number of supporters is an age long effective game plan for the parties, and it is one strategy that cuts across all parties. All political parties are outdoing themselves ...
By Femi Adesina A prophet has no honor, except in his own country, says the Good Book. This was on display once again in Nouakchott, Mauritania, early this week when President Muhammadu Buhari stood ramrod straight to receive the Africa Award for Strengthening Peace, given at the 3rd edition of African Conference for Peace, organized ...
By Dakuku Peterside Will 2023 be a defining moment for the Nigerian youth and the future of Nigeria? Obviously a slippery question that deserves attention. The most recent Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) voter registration data suggests that youths have a historic role to play in the forthcoming election. They have an incredible demographic advantage and, ...
By FEMI ADESINA Who feels it knows it all. Perhaps the region most affected by the insurgency that almost strangulated the country since 2009 is the North East. It was there that Boko Haram started, proliferated, and spread to other parts of the land. I was in two States in the region early this week, ...
By Dakuku Peterside The inauguration of the Management Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) last week, the second under President Buhari, was greeted with mixed reactions by the people of the Niger Delta and most Nigerians. The people’s response is rooted in many issues, most of which are connected and straddling. I list them ...
By Femi Adesina What a delightful week it has been for Mr Tony Elumelu, Chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA), Heirs Holdings, and the Tony Elumelu Foundation. On Monday, he stood tall in Sokoto at the Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference to receive a Recognition Award, handed out by no less a person ...
