Public Affairs Analyst

    “Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave” – Henry Peter Brougham (1828) Last Monday, January 24, 2022 was the commemoration of the International Day of Education. According to an internet source, it was celebrated under the theme, “Changing Course, Transforming Education.” The event, led by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, showcased the most important transformations that have to be nurtured to realise everyone’s fundamental right to education and build a more sustainable, inclusive and peaceful futures. On December 3, 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution (resolution 73/25) proclaiming 24 January as International Day of Education, in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. How has my dear native land, Nigeria fared in this respect? Poorly, I dare say. One of the popular reading texts while I was in secondary school between 1980 and 1985 was “E...

  There are three arms of government, namely: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The three, though independent, are also dependent on one another for effective governance. There are arguments about which arm is superior to the other, but suffice it to say, one cannot do without the other. The legislature makes the law, the executive implements the law, and the judiciary interprets the law. That’s elementary, though. The executive can introduce laws in the form of executive bills to be processed into legislation by the legislative assembly. A very clear case in point is the Appropriation Bill which is annually presented to the legislature by the executive for passage. In a similar manner, no bill will have a force of law unless signed by the head of the executive arm, which is the president, governor or chairman of the local government area. Alternative to that is the overriding of the veto by the lawmakers. A warm welcome to Nigeria’s federal lawmakers as they resu...

  Believe it or not, Nigeria Police is one of the anti-corruption institutions in Nigeria. With enormous constitutional powers to investigate, arrest and prosecute, the law enforcement agency is administratively and legally backed to curb corrupt practices. Indeed, there is a Special Fraud Unit in the police that handles corruption-related issues. Several police personnel are also on ‘secondment’ to anti-corruption agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. It is however quite disturbing and heart-rending to see an anti-corruption institution being indicted for what it meant to fight. Many Nigerian media organisations, both print and electronic, recently carried the unsavoury news of the 2019 Auditor General of the Federation’s corruption indictment of the Nigeria Police. Using THISDAY newspaper of Monday, January 3, 2022 as a source, the report said the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation has disclosed that about 178,459 different types of arms a...

There are many issues that will shape Nigeria’s future in 2022. They include constitutional alteration, electoral reform, National Population and Housing Census, COVID-19, politics, economy, sports and governance. In no particular order, I will try to dissect these issues. For a long time, indeed, from the beginning of this Fourth Republic in 1999, many Nigerian civil society organisations, coming together under the auspices of Citizens Forum for Constitutional Reform then headquartered at the Centre for Democracy and Development national office in Abuja, ceaselessly demanded autochthonous and process-led constitutional reform. Several memoranda were written and submitted to the presidency and National Assembly but to no avail. Over the years, rather than convoke a sovereign national conference that will lead to the birth of a new constitution, the Federal Government chose the path of cosmetic alterations of the highly flawed 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as a...

  Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to 2022. Last year, the tally of media stations that have interviewed or published my commentaries rose to 44 newspapers, Newsletters and Magazines, 41 Television Stations and 45 Radio Stations. Media stations that interviewed me for the first time in 2021 are: Radio 1.      Bright 98.7 FM, Abuja   2.      Grace 95.5 FM, Lokoja, Kogi State 3.      Leadership Newspaper Podcast 4.      Daily Trust Newspaper Podcast 5.      Radio Now, Lagos 6.      Nigeria Police Radio 99.1 FM 7.      Maloney 95.9 FM, Keffi, Nasarawa State 8.      Today 95,1 FM Port Harcourt, Rivers State Television 1.      Trust TV 2.      Atlantic Television Network, Port Harcourt, Rivers State 3.      News Central TV 4.  ...