Public Affairs Analyst

  On this column on February 10, 2021, I wrote a piece titled, “Governors’ opposition to autonomy of state institutions.” In that article, I traced the history of the agitation of federal and state legislators for financial autonomy from the executive and the stiff opposition of the state governors to the bid.   I had previously weighed in on the same issue on May 27, 2020 in this column. The battle for financial autonomy of state Houses of Assembly dates back to the beginning of this Fourth Republic in 1999. State governors were believed to have mounted pressure on their state Assemblies to reject financial autonomy moves each time such an attempt was made by the National Assembly. In the lead-up to the 2010 constitution amendment, while the National Assembly passed the amendment bill to grant financial autonomy for the state Houses of Assembly, when the bill was referred to the state Houses of Assembly for concurrence, only 23 of the 36 assemblies passed the bill when a mini...

  It’s my birthday and a time of sober reflections. I have been doing exactly that in the last few days. Those who know me very well know that I like taking pictures of myself and share same on my social media handles especially Facebook. Though I am not a party-going dude, my media advocacy indulged me with opportunities to take selfies. Photographs helps me to document my history. Last weekend, I went through my photo gallery to see how I have metamorphosed over the years. I have shared few of those pictures that evoke nostalgic feelings in me on my Facebook wall. I captioned the posts “The son is the father of the man.” When I saw some of the old pictures, I laughed at myself. God bless whoever discovered the technology of taking photograph and filming. It has helped me a lot in my reflections on how I have changed over the decades. In some of the old pictures I was so thin I couldn’t recognise myself again! In some other pictures, I looked like someone in borrowed robes as am...

  Drug abuse is a global public health concern and Nigeria has her own fair share of the ugly phenomenon.    It is not uncommon to see adolescents engaging in the abuse of alcohol and ingestion of hard drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs. There is a trending video of five schoolgirls purportedly of Oreyo Grammar School, Igbogbo, Ikorodu in Lagos State smoking shisha clad in their school uniforms. It is reported they have since been arrested and taken to a rehabilitation centre in Lagos by the authorities. Some of the notable figures whose lives have been cut short by drug abuse complications include American soul music legend, Mavin Gaye, who died in 1984 at 44 years; ace Nigerian reggae musician, Majek Fashek, who died in 2020 at 57; South African musician, Brenda Fassie, who died in 2004 at the age of 39; football legend, Diego Maradona, who died at the age of 60 last year, and the American rapper and actor, Earl Simmons, better known by his ...

  Last Tuesday, April 6, 2021, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), appointed Usman Alkali Baba from Yobe State as the new acting Inspector-General of Police. He is the 21st indigenous police officer to be so appointed. He took over from Mohammed Adamu.   Baba, who has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, served as acting Deputy Inspector-General of Police in-charge of the Department of Finance and Administration. He was also Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone-5 Benin; Zone 4 Makurdi and Zone 7 Abuja. He was also a former Commissioner of Police, Federal Capital Territory and Delta Commands amongst other appointments. Until his recent appointment as the acting IGP, he was the Force Secretary. I had expected that for equity, justice and fairness, someone from the Igbo extraction would be named the next police boss after the ethnic group was not represented when the new service chiefs were appointed on January 26, 2021. Recall that ...

  It’s Nigeria’s season of anomie. The country’s free-fall into anarchy was reinforced last Monday with the attack by supposedly unknown gunmen on Imo State Command of Nigeria Police Force in Owerri and the concomitant jailbreak leading to the release of 1,844 in mates at the Owerri Correctional Facility. The jailbreak was the fourth in Nigeria in about six months. Recall that similar incidences had happened in Edo State and Ondo State last October during the #EndSARS protests. On Monday, October 19, 2020, hoodlums under the pretext of #EndSARS protests attacked two correctional facilities in Benin City and Oko in Edo State and freed 1,993 inmates according to the Ministry of Interior. Hoodlums, on Thursday, October 22, 2020 broke into the Nigerian Correctional Service facility in Okitipupa, Ondo state. The hoodlums were said to have pulled down the fence of the facility and set many of the prisoners free. The hoodlums also set the police area command in the local government head...

  In the recent past, I have had to be drawn into a number of media interviews on the desirability of zoning political offices and the agitations for a president of Igbo extraction in 2023. Over the weekend, I spoke on this issue on Democracy Today on the Africa Independent Television and was also on The Podium, the current affairs programme of Love 104.5 FM, Abuja on Monday, March 29, 2021. As a political scientist and prominent member of Nigeria’s civil society I believe strongly in equity, justice and fair-play. I am also a strong advocate of inclusive governance. What is zoning? According to Oxford Reference: A Dictionary of African Politics, “Zoning is a political practice in Nigeria under which political parties agree to split their presidential and vice-presidential candidates between the North and South of the country and also to alternate the home area of the president between the North and South of the country. The principle of zoning is designed to ensure that neither ...