Public Affairs Analyst

It’s been 14 years since Nigeria severed her relationship with the military in governance and decided to embrace democracy. It is also three years since President Goodluck Jonathan assumed office as Commander-in-Chief of the country’s Armed Forces, having succeeded the late President Umaru Yar’Adua on May 6, 2010. Today also marks the second anniversary of the inauguration of President Jonathan as the substantive president of Nigeria having been declared as the winner of the April 16, 2011 presidential election. Again, it is a few months to the centennial anniversary of Nigeria’s amalgamation. In his speech exactly a year ago, President Jonathan gave account of his stewardship and made a lot of promises to Nigerians. Twelve months after, how has Jonathan’s Presidency fared? It will be uncharitable to say nothing has been achieved since May 29, 2012 Democracy Day celebration. A lot of effort has been made to better the lives of Nigerians but not many of them have impacted positivel...

Help! Somebody should help save the souls of Nigerians daily dying from collapsed buildings. Enough of this carnage. Enough of these preventable deaths of innocent Nigerians who in a bid to earn a living or have shelter over their heads fall victim to buckled buildings. It has become a daily phenomenon for residential and commercial buildings to collapse like a pack of cards. Some of these buildings crumble under construction while many others give way while being occupied. In either circumstance, many lives are lost and property worth billions of naira destroyed annually. For a fact, it is not only in Nigeria that we have cases of collapsed buildings. On April 24, 2013, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, an eight storey factory building collapsed killing over a thousand people. While it may be true that collapsed structure is a global occurrence; however, the frequency of its happening in Nigeria should give well-meaning compatriots cause for worry and ginger up housing regulatory authorities ...

It is now official; the hen has come home to roost. The long heard rumour has now been confirmed. Nigerian politicians in their desperate attempt to win elections have been adopting the Machiavellian principle of “the end justifies the means” by arming political thugs in order to forcefully win elections. Any wonder election time in Nigeria is a war front; a season of anomie when a civic exercise leaves in its trail, tears, sorrow and blood. Former vice-president Atiku Abubakar was quoted on the British Broadcasting Corporation Hausa Service on Saturday, May 11, 2013 (published in Sunday PUNCH, May 12) as saying that, “When we formed the PDP and candidates emerged, the governors earmarked huge amounts of money to buy arms for youth groups so as to use them in winning the election. I met and told them that if they used them and after winning the election, they fail to provide them with jobs, they will rise against the people in their states. These are the youths who later turned in...

This is not the best of time for Nigerian police, the security community and Nigerian government as a whole. In the last few years, the Force has lost hundreds of its officers and men to attacks by insurgents in the South-South and North East Nigeria. In the recent past, precisely on March 2, 2013, Kwara State Commissioner of Police Mr. Chinwike Asadu was assassinated in Enugu. On April 5 at Azuzuama community, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, the Force lost 11 of its men in one fell swoop. They were reportedly heading to that community to provide security at the burial of the late mother of an ex -militant leader, Kile Selky Torughedi, aka Young Shall Grow, and Senior Special Assistant on Marine Waterways Security to the Bayelsa Governor, when their boat was ambushed. It was bloodbath for men and officers of Nigerian police on Tuesday, May 7 when 22 of them were among the 55 killed in early morning raid in Bama town in Borno State. Others who lost their liv...

Nigeria hopes to hold another General Elections in 2015. However, early signs are emerging that the forthcoming polls might be bloodier than previous ones. Clear two years ahead of the elections, political violence is already claiming lives and property. Last Thursday’s attack on members of the Accord Party in Olomi area of Oluyole Local Government of Oyo State is one such incident. A simple act of defection of members of one party to another turned bloody as over 30 persons were reportedly injured, cars vandalised and canopies and chairs destroyed. The leader of the National Union of Road Transport Workers in the state, Alhaji Taofeek Oyerinde aka ‘Fele’ was alleged to have masterminded the May 2 attack. Media reports said the NURTW members carried out the Olomi attack in spite of the fact that the Accord Party obtained police permit to hold the rally and that there was heavy presence of policemen at the venue of the attack. An Armoured Personnel Carrier was even said to have been st...