Public Affairs Analyst

  What a year 2020 has been! It has been a turpsy-turvey leap year, an unusual year with lots of ups and downs.   Nothing best defined this outgoing year as the COVID-19 pandemic which has claimed over 1.7 million lives out of over 81 million infected persons globally as of Tuesday. At the end of every year, it is fit and proper to have an introspection and retrospection. This reflection is on my fatherland Nigeria and how we fared in four key areas of our national life, namely health, education, security and economy. Starting with health, COVID–19 exposed the decadent nature of Nigeria’s health facilities. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, who is also the chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said on Thursday, April 9, 2020 that he realised how bad it was, after he was appointed to head the team. He made this known during a meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly. It is not surprising that the SGF didn’t know that ...

Outgoing 2020 is the year I presented my third book “Nigeria: Corruption and Opacity in Governance” to the public at a well-attended event on January 16, 2020 in Abuja. It was also the year I clocked eight years as a newspaper columnist with the influential The PUNCH newspaper and celebrated 30 years in media advocacy. It is indeed a topsy-turvy year for me. Am happy to have survived it. In terms of my media engagements I have an increased number of Radio and Television stations interviewing me on topical national issues. The new additions this year are Boss 95.5 FM Abuja, Liberty Radio 103.3 FM Abuja, Amuludun FM 99.1 Ibadan, Family Love 103.9 FM Umuahia, Eagles 102.3 FM Abuja and JAMZ 100.1 FM Ibadan. Others are, NTA Lagos Channel 10, Thunderbirds TV, Plus TV Africa, AD4TVRadio, NTA Channel 5 Abuja, TV Continental (TVC), and Nigeria Customs Broadcasting Network (NCBN).  These additional 13 took the tally to 61 Radio and Television Stations which have interviewed me. The previ...

  “The initial border closure is not about restricting movement because that movement is natural but now that four land borders have been reopened, we must have the document of people entering from our borders, including Nigerians. For that, we have deployed technology which is called MIDAS (Migration Information Data Analysis System); with this technology in the four borders we reopened, it will register whoever passes, either a Nigerian or non-Nigerian, across our borders and once you have registered, it is for life.” –         Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, in Ilesa, Osun State over the weekend.   After 16 months of partial closure of Nigeria’s land borders, the Federal Government on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 reopened four of them with a promise to reopen others before the end of the year. The four borders reopened were the Seme border in the South-West; Ilela border in the North-West; Mfun border in the South-South, and Mai...

  “It is not just a condolence visit, it is a statement that all of us are fed up with the shedding of innocent blood under whatever guise across this country. So many lives have been lost in the past, we can’t even compute how many lives we have lost. It becomes like a daily occurrence, a daily event. A new normal, it becomes a story when in a day, nobody was killed in a particular place of this country.” – Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar, during a condolence visit to Borno State over the Zabarmari killings. To say life is cheap in Nigeria is to state the obvious. The country has descended into the Hobbesian state of nature where life is cruel, short, brutish and nasty. The regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), rode to power in 2015 and 2019 on three core campaign promises, namely, to fix the economy, fight corruption and combat insecurity. Much as the regime has tried to make good these campaign promises, it has failed significantly. Just last Nove...

  “In view of the happenings on the continent, and, indeed in West Africa, the entire world is looking up to us to maintain our status as a beacon of democracy, peace and stability” – Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, in a national broadcast on December 6, 2020. Nigeria, though hit by the second wave of economic recession in five years in November, is Africa’s biggest economy. That is something to cheer and brag about even though the country battles high unemployment, poverty and inflation. However, how does the country fare politically when compared to Ghana, our West African neighbour, with which we share a lot in common? This comparism stems from the fact that Ghanaians, on Monday, December 7, went to the poll in the country’s eight consecutive general elections since the start of her Fourth Republic in 1992. The elections are to choose the next occupant of the Jubilee House, Ghana’s presidential villa, and 275 members of parliament. By the time you’re reading this, it is ...

Indeed, there is no limit to knowledge. Recently, a disability persons’ organisation called, Inclusive Friends Association, gathered a handful of journalists from the print and electronic media in Akwanga, Nasarawa State to build their capacity on how to properly report on issues of Persons with Disability. It turned out that many of the journalists in attendance were ignorant of so many things about this community of people who constitute 15 per cent of the world population and who are estimated to be over 27 million of Nigeria’s population. I heartily congratulate all the PWDs on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities. According to the United Nations, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities is annually observed on December 3 to promote the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities and to take action for their inclusion in all aspects of society and development. This year, the Day is being commemorated throughout the wee...

  “The collapse in oil prices coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to plunge the Nigerian economy into a severe economic recession, the worst since the 1980s, according to the latest World Bank Nigeria Development Update” – World Bank in a release on June 25, 2020. What initially was predicted by the World Bank in June this year has now been officially confirmed by the National Bureau of Statistics. Nigeria has for the second time in five years slipped into economic recession, the worst in about 40 years. The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had first hinted of this possibility during the presentation of the 2021 budget to the National Assembly on October 8, 2020.   On that day, the President highlighted a number of things such as significant increase in deficit beyond the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, following revenue pressures faced by the government; the persistent headwinds from the coronavirus pandemic; the resulting global ...

  Last week, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said he was going to stop the payment of pensions to his predecessors and former deputy governors of the state. He said this while presenting his 2021 Appropriation Bill to the Lagos State House of Assembly. He said that the aim of repealing the law was to free the state government of the legal obligations, saying it was a step to reduce the cost of governance. A news report in THISDAY of November 11, 2020 traced the genesis of what has become obnoxious rat race by governors to enjoy life pensions after leaving office.   The newspaper observed that Lagos State blazed the trail in 2007 when its then governor,   Ahmed Tinubu, at the twilight of his tenure, signed into law a bill earlier passed to provide pensions and other welfare benefits to former governors and their deputies beyond the package outlined for former political officeholders nationwide by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission. ...