Public Affairs Analyst

Information garnered from the website of the United Nations says “All 193 Member States of the Organisation are represented in the General Assembly – one of the six main organs of the UN – to discuss and work together on a wide array of international issues covered by the Charter of the United Nations, such as development, peace and security, international law, etc. Every year in September, all the Members meet in this unique forum at Headquarters in New York for the General Assembly session.” The theme for the 74th session of the UN General Assembly is “Galvanising multilateral efforts for poverty eradication, quality education, climate action and inclusion”. This year’s theme was identified by the new President of the UNGA who incidentally is a Nigerian, Professor Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, who on June 4, 2019, was elected to succeed María Fernanda Espinosa, whose term ended this month. The election of Bande to pilot the activities of the UNGA for the next one year is significant to...

Nigeria’s new Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, on August 21, 2019 caused ripples shortly after his inauguration when he honestly admitted to the press that he knew little about the policies and operations of his ministry. Some people believed he was unsuitable for the position largely because his ministry has a lot to do with internal security of the country and he being a civilian taking over from a predecessor who is a military general was considered unfit. What Aregbesola’s accusers choose to ignore or do not understand is that he was a former governor of Osun State for two terms of eight years. In that position, he was the Chief Security Officer of the state and chaired many security meetings. Moreover, as a minister he is not going to be directly involved in operational matters but will be playing a supervisory role. Information gleaned from the website of the ministry says, “The Ministry of Interior was created in 2015 following a merger between the Ministry of Internal...

Introduction September 11 2001 popularly called 9/11 was a red letter day in the United States of America. On that day al-Qaeda terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden masterminded attacks on the US. The September 11 assault were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group. The attacks killed 2,977 people (not counting the 19 hijackers who also died), injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage according to Wikipedia. Nigeria’s own 9/11 was last Wednesday when 5-man panel of jurists led by Justice Garba Mohammed Presidential Election Petition Tribunal gave judgement in a petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar against the All Progressive Congress and its presidential candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari. The Independent National Electoral Commission who organized the February 23, 2019 presidential election was joined as respo...

On assumption of duty in November 2015, the first set of elections conducted by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission was the Kogi and Bayelsa governorship polls. For Yakubu, it was a baptism of fire. While the Kogi State governorship election was held on November 21, that of Bayelsa was held on December 5, 2015. Incidentally, the two governorship polls were declared inconclusive by INEC as they were marred by electoral violence, thus necessitating the conduct of supplementary elections in Polling Units where election results were cancelled. In fact, the Kogi governorship poll threw the electoral umpire off-balance as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Prince Abubakar Audu, died midway into the election. It was unprecedented and INEC, after due consultations with its team of legal advisers, officially asked the APC to nominate a fresh candidate before the supplementary poll was held on December 5, 2015. The election petitions tribunal and i...

The brain drain syndrome is a process where a country loses her highly skilled, talented and educated manpower to another country. Nigeria is at the receiving end of this plague. Many of our professionals from all walks of life do not want to stay here and slug it out to become prosperous. Rather, they are willing and ready to “check out” of the country in search of greener pastures. This has been the narrative from the early 1990s till date. So heart-rending! On Monday, September 2, 2019, I was interviewed by a reporter at the Nigerian Television Authority on how Nigeria could turn her brain drain to brain gain. That set me thinking.   Indeed, it is the most desirable thing to do but how realistic will that be in the face of a myriad of challenges facing our country at this point in time? According to NigeriaDiaspora.com, “Millions of Nigerians have emigrated from Nigeria to other parts of the world, with a significant number leaving after 1990. These migrants and their desc...