Public Affairs Analyst

My Odyssey It is not the height a man attains that count but also the depth from which he has risen – A Sage Appreciation Wow! I have lived for 1,200 days, 50 solid years. That’s big deal man! In a fragile state like Nigeria where things are gradually turning to Hobbesian state of nature where life is short, brutish and nasty, to live to see one’s golden jubilee is a big deal. In 2016 I lost a sibling, Tolulope Brimah nee Ojo, to the cold hands of death. She was just 40 years old. Last year, we lost Dr. Bankole Ogundeji (Banky) of the Covenant University. We were classmate at the University of Ibadan, but he’s no more. That am alive to witness this day is simply by the mercy and grace of the Almighty God. Early life I was born on Monday, April 28, 1969 to the family of Deacon I.O Ojo, a teacher and Mrs. G.M Ojo, a trader.   Though born and bred in Ibadan, my parents are both from Osun State. My dad, of blessed memory, was from Ile-Ogbo, headquarters of Ayedire Local Go...

The fact that the maize is cooked is not enough to rejoice over; there is work to be done by both hands and mouth — An African proverb Last Thursday, April 18, 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari threw the labour community into a joyous mood by signing the new minimum wage of N30,000 into law. This is a political masterstroke by the President coming barely two weeks to the May 1 Workers’ Day celebration. The law had been due for review since 2016 but the President did not set up the tripartite committee to review the 2011 minimum wage agreement headed by a former Head of Service, Mrs. Ama Pepple, until November 27, 2017. The committee submitted its report to the President on November 6, 2018. On January 9, 2019, Buhari inaugurated the Bismark Rewane-led technical committee to help the government find ways of implementing the new national minimum wage without disrupting the nation’s development plans. On January 22, 2019, the President took the report of the Ama Pepple committee to...

“I implore you to discharge your onerous duty diligently and with the fear of the Almighty God. The judiciary is in trying times, and you must uphold the integrity of the judiciary.” — Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed on Saturday, January 26, 2019 On Saturday, January 26, 2019, in accordance with Section 285 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999, as amended, the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Mohammed, performed his first official duty by swearing in 250 judges appointed to serve as Election Petition Tribunal Judges across the country. It was at that epochal event that he made the above statement. The Independent National Electoral Commission has recently concluded the 2019 general elections with the declaration of results in the suspended Rivers State governorship and State House of Assembly elections. Recall that the two strand general elections had held on February 23 and March 9, 2019, with the supplementary elections of some...

State of insecurity in Nigeria The greatest challenge facing Nigeria today is not corruption or infrastructure deficit. It is insecurity. Nigerians, including myself, do not feel secure across the country and this is known to our political leaders. Insecurity stares us in the face. This year makes it a decade since Boko Haram insurgency started in Borno State. This has spread to other states like Adamawa, Yobe, Kano and Abuja before it was contained and restricted to the BAY states, that is, Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. In the intervening period, thousands of lives had been lost and millions displaced. Several abductions had also taken place with those of Chibok in Borno and Dapchi in Yobe making news headlines. For some time now, Nigeria has been one of the countries with high rate of kidnapping, either for ransom or for ritual. Abductions used to be most pronounced in the Niger Delta communities.   However, in the recent years, kidnapping and banditry have scaled up in northern...

I love tourism. At every opportunity to travel both within and outside Nigeria, I always squeeze time to engage in sight-seeing around the precinct of where I stay. When I was in Geneva for the United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in 2005, I went on a boat ride on Lake Geneva, visited the Water Jet and saw the Flower Clock. In 2008 and 2009 when I was in Ghana for election observation and BRIDGE training, I used the opportunity to visit the Kakum National Park, Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle.    My visit to the United States in 2010 enabled me to see The White House, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, US Capitol, Voice of America and host of other tourist sites within the Washington DC area. When I went on election observation to Egypt in 2014, I squeezed out time to visit a number of tourist sites in that country. These sites are the Nile view of Beheira, Alexandria Castle built over 500 years ago and the Mediterranean Sea Beach, both of them in Alexand...

Closure is gradually being brought to the 2019 general elections on the part of the Independent National Electoral Commission especially with the resumption of collation of the Rivers State governorship and State House of Assembly elections yesterday. However, there is a raging controversy about INEC plan to deregister about 84 out of the existing 91 political parties. The adduced reason is non-performance. Learned silk, Femi Falana, Esq. had called on INEC to wield the big stick with many Nigerians aligning their thoughts with that of the legal luminary. Not a few people believe that many of the extant political parties are not registered for any altruistic reason but for personal aggrandisement of their promoters. They are believed to be on the ballot in order to “scatter the vote”    as a caller described them on a radio programme in Abuja yesterday.   Don’t blame those who are calling for party deregistration, they never saw the utility value of many of the politi...