Public Affairs Analyst

Nigeria typifies a country under a resource curse. A rich country of poor people. A country with abundant natural resources yet at the lowest rung of all development indices. The country has yet to meet any of the eight Millennium Development Goals even as we are on the eve of the 2015 target date.  In no other area is our resource curse more affirmed than in the country’s oil and gas sector. With over five decades of oil exploration, Nigeria has not been able to make optimal use of the revenue accruing from the industry. There are two broad thefts going on in that sector. The first is theft of money made from legitimate oil trade and the theft of crude oil itself. For many years, what was in fad is the stealing of oil money. This is done through myriads of ways. One of them is the deliberate falsification of account of volumes of products explored and sold. This is very easy as multinational oil companies and even our own Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation are alleged to de...

“…Thousand and one one-block and many mushroom universities (are) set up to target Nigerian students yearning for education…. But, sadly, they are not cheap as Nigerians pay in dollars. These universities are just pure business ventures.” –Ambassador Ademola Onafowokan, Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Ghana.  I shook my head in disbelief as I read the report of The PUNCH ’s correspondent, Temitayo Famutimi’s 10-day odyssey to Ghana to study the country’s tertiary educational facilities. The report published on December 19, 2013 edition of this paper and the subsequent editorial of The PUNCH on it on January 26, 2014 were an eye-opener. The report, in particular, details the parlous state of the facilities and how desperate Nigerian students seeking university education are yearly falling prey of many of these sub-standard universities. Records from the Nigerian embassy in Ghana have it that about 110,000 Nigerians are studying  in Ghana with approximately N160bn being paid...

On February 14, that is in the  next 48 hours,  it will be Saint Valentine’s Day, also known as Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, a day set aside worldwide to celebrate love. According to Wikipedia, “A popular hagiographical account of Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing wedding for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, during his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. ….before his execution he wrote her a letter signed, “Your Valentine” as a farewell”.  Valentine’s Day has been celebrated for centuries since the 1700s. According to the Greeting Card Association, about 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are purchased each year. In Nigeria, we do celebrate in myriads of ways. Already, radio, T.V and newspaper adverts are running per second on musical concerts, films and comedy shows scheduled for the day...

When President Goodluck Jonathan and Senate President David Mark, who were known antagonists of national conference, suddenly did a volte face and began to canvass for the much spurned confab, I smelt a rat.  I had earlier articulated my position on the conference in an article published in this column on October 16, 2013. The piece titled, “National Conference: The right thing at the wrong time”, articulated my support for the national dialogue but warned of the wrong timing for holding the conference. Well, unfolding events seem to be proving me right. There have so far been four important dates to note in this journey to national dialogue. October 1, 2013, when the President announced his intention to hold the conference; October 7, when the 13-member Presidential Advisory Committee led by Senator Femi Okurounmu was inaugurated; and December 18, when the Okurounmu committee submitted its over 4,000 page report to the President. Another date to note is January 30, 2014 when th...