Public Affairs Analyst

After all the hue and cry from the populace, President Muhammadu Buhari, last Thursday, October 22, 2015, announced Professor Mahmood Yakubu as the new Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. His nomination alongside five new national commissioners has been ratified by the National Council of State remaining Senate confirmation. The national commissioners so approved by the NCS along with the new INEC Chairman are the current acting chairman, Hajiya Amina Bala Zakari; Dr. Antonia Taiye Okoosi-Simbine; Alhaji Baba Shettima Arfo; Dr Muhammed Mustapha Lekki and Prince Adedeji Solomon Soyebi. Ambassador Lawrence Nwuruku still has about two years to the end of his tenure. These new appointments are coming about four months after the former chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and 11 national commissioners had served out their terms in July 2015. Yakubu is the second northerner to be appointed INEC chairman in Nigeria’s political history; the first being his immediate predece...

October 14 was World Standards Day and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria commemorated the day with sensitization programmes. It was interesting watching the Director-General of SON, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, and the President, National Association of Nigerian Traders, Mr. Ken Ukaoha, on the Nigerian Television Authority’s magazine programme , “Good Morning Nigeri a” anchored by Kingsley Osadolor and Blessing Abu on that day. I shuddered when Odumodu said that on his assumption of office some four years ago, 80 per cent of products that flooded our markets were substandard. Yet, SON has been in existence since 1971 as the law setting up the agency was the SON Act 56 of 1971 although amended several times. Did you know that many of our electronics products such as television, radio, and computers do expire? Did you know that tyres, cement, generators, bulbs, clothes, water, foodstuffs, lubricants, batteries and many other items do expire? Aside from expiring, many of these products circ...

“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” ―Martin Lu th er How time flies! So soon, it has been 25 years since I started writing informed commentaries and opinion articles for newspapers. The decision was not easy to make as it took me two years before I summoned courage to put pen to paper after a sustained counselling by Prof. O.B.C. Nwolise, then my lecturer at the University of Ibadan organised Advanced Level Extra Mural Class in 1988. Dr. Nwolise, as he then was, was in the habit of charging us, his students, to write letters to editors and opinion articles to newspapers if we were dissatisfied with governance in our society. In his esteemed opinion, embarking on street protests is not the only way to advocate for good governance; media advocacy is a civilised and effective means of communicating with policymakers and political leaders. ADVERTISEMENT My journey into the realm of media advocacy for good governance and development effectively starte...

One of the key ways of controlling party finance is disclosure. Recently, Nigerian media was replete with reports of allegations of mismanagement of the fund of the Peoples Democratic Party by members of the party’s National Working Committee. The accusations were made at a press conference addressed by staff of the party under the aegis of PDP Workers Welfare Association. What gave birth to the charges was the attempt by the party leadership to reduce the staff strength of the party by 50 per cent as well as reduce the emoluments of those to be retained by half. The National Secretary of the party in a letter dated July 29, 2015 with reference number PS/DD/AD/HOD/SAs/PAS noted that the decisions were reached at the 406th meeting of the NWC.   Aside the fact that the establishment staff who would remain are required to obtain individual letter of revalidation from their State Party Chapter within one month of the circular, the party’s Research Directorate was also abolished ...