Public Affairs Analyst

It’s about 96 hours to the end of 2023. A lot of remarkable things happened in the outgoing year. The popular axiom says charity begins at home. Let me start the chronicle with a hearty congratulatory message to Punch newspaper which clocked half a century of publication this year.  I am at present reading “Our PUNCH Years”, a book edited by veteran journalist, Lekan Otufodunrin. It was an eyewitness account of 38 former staffers of the newspaper. The book offered a great insight to the topsy-turvy challenges of newspaper publishing in Nigeria. I have been contributing to The PUNCH for 28 years. My first article in this newspaper was, “Saving our universities” published on Friday, November 3, 1995. I became a columnist with this medium in October 2012. Happy golden jubilee to The PUNCH, the most widely read newspaper in Nigeria! 2023 is a peculiar year for Nigeria. The country has two presidents, two sets of governors, two sets of House of Representatives members, two sets of sen...

  On Monday, December 18, 2023, a signed agreement to resolve the lingering political crisis in Rivers State surfaced in the media. It was an eight-point resolution reached at the end of about three hours meeting held at the Presidential Villa between the camps of Rivers State governor, Siminalaye Fubara, and that of his estranged godfather, Nyesom Wike. This was the second time the President is mediating in the brewing local political crisis in the oil-rich Niger Delta state. Some political watchers said the president shouldn’t have mediated while others believe that Fubara was handed the short end of the stick. Before examining the content of the signed truce, let me attempt a chronicle of the political development that brought about this presidential intervention. On the night of Sunday, October 29, 2023, there was an inferno at the Rivers State House of Assembly complex due to explosives purportedly ignited by unknown arsonists; by the dawn of Monday, October 30, the majority...

  Stand up for the African champions! What a befitting Christmas and End-of-the-Year gifts to Nigerians! Last Monday, December 11, 2023, I felt proud to be a Nigerian. My compatriots have once again risen to the occasion to burnish the dented image of the country by winning big at the just concluded Confederation of African Football Award Night for 2023. Super Eagles striker, Victor Osimhen, broke a 24-year-old jinx to win the 2023 Men’s Player of the Year. Osimhen triumphed over Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi and Egypt’s Mohamed Salah to win the coveted trophy during the CAF 2023 Awards held in Marrakech, Morocco. In the same vein, Super Falcons forward, Asisat Oshoala, was named the 2023 Women Player of the Year to become the first woman in history to win the award six times. She had previously won it in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022. In other categories, Goalkeeper of the Year (Women) was won by Super Falcon’s goalie, Chiamaka Nnadozie (FC Paris). Also, the CAF National Team of the...

  Transportation is very key to human existence. In the days of yore, aside from trekking, many people travel by riding on animals such as horses, donkeys, and camels. When technology came, vehicles, trains, canoes, boats, ships and airplanes gradually substituted animals in the transportation business.   It is debatable if people travel more for business or pleasure. Undoubtedly, the fastest means of transportation is through air. An airplane can make road travel of 12 hours in one hour. Hence, it is the most preferred means of travel by elites who value time and also want to travel safely. The history of aviation in Nigeria would be incomplete without the mention of Kano city, where the first aircraft landed on November 1, 1925. According to Wikipedia, Nigeria Airways was founded in 1958 after the dissolution of West African Airways Corporation. It held the name West African Airways Corporation Nigeria until 1971 when it was rebranded to the name it had until it ceased ope...

  Politics ordinarily should be a call to serve. So do politicians tell us during campaigns. They claim they want to serve us. However, the opposite is the case. The main attraction to politics in Nigeria is for personal aggrandisement and primitive accumulation of wealth. That is why our elections are very fierce and war-like. It is simply “do or die.” Nigeria runs a winner-takes-all, zero-sum game politics whereby with the slimmest of margin lead, a contestant is declared a winner while the first runner-up, no matter how close to the winner, loses every of his political investments – money, time, material resources including goodwill. Unlike in the United States where there is no unnecessary indulgence of political office holders, Nigeria’s political leaders, both elected and appointed, live large. They have chauffeur-driven luxury cars at their beck and call. They live in official quarters with stewards, gardeners, cleaners and other domestic servants paid for by the Nigerian ...

  Introduction Periodic election is one of the pillars of democracy. Historically, electoral democracy had been introduced in Nigeria in May 1919, when the Townships Ordinance gave the right to vote for three members of Lagos Town Council to some men. The first elections to the council were held on 29 March 1920. The first general election in this country took place in Lagos and Calabar on September 20, 1923, after the coming into force of the 1922 Sir Hugh Clifford Constitution. There are several types of elections. They include: General, Off-cycle, Supplementary, Run-off, Re-run, and By-election. There are 11,082 political offices in Nigeria comprising of: I presidential seat, 36 governorship seats, 109 senatorial seats, 360 House of Representatives seats, 993 Houses of Assembly seats, 768 Local government chairmanship seats, 6 Area Council chairmanship seats (see section 3 sub. 6 of the 1999 Constitution, as altered) and 8,809 councillorship seats. As a result of judicial ac...

  The title of this piece is an adaptation of a popular song by the Fugees titled, “Killing Me Softly with His Song.” Health is wealth is a common cliché. And it is said that a healthy nation is a wealthy nation. Sustainable Development Goal 3 speaks of “good health and well-being” for all. How close is Nigeria in realising the much touted target of “health for all”? Many believed that in Nigeria, life is short, brutish and nasty as postulated by the renowned philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. The budgetary provision for health care delivery is grossly inadequate both at the federal and sub-national level. At the federal level it has perpetually been less than 10 per cent.   The Bible in Psalm 90 verse 10 says, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty.” However, according to an online source, Statista says life expectancy at birth in Nigeria in 2023, by gender is 59.93 for male and 63.75 for female. Overall, it is 61.79. According to UNICEF, under-...

Last week, I was in the ancient city of Kano for the fourth edition of the Annual Kano Social Influencers Summit, #Kansis23. I had attended the inaugural edition of the summit four years ago and was privileged to be invited again this year to speak on, “Working as Influencers: Challenges, Successes and Reflection.” There were many other speakers. Some of them included the Executive Director of Primera Africa Legal, Maryam Uwais, who spoke on gender corruption and accountability; a scholar in the Department of Mass Communication, Bayero University, Kano, Dr Bala Muhammed, who presented on “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Narratives On Social Media Uses”; Executive Director of AFRIMIL, Dr Chido Onumah, whose presentation was on how social media can help whistleblowers. The two-day event, held on October 25 and 26, 2023, was organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Development with funding support from the MacArthur Foundation and other partners. Also in attendance at the ...

    “ The council approved for the establishment of the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund to actually be put together under a governing board…..the implementation of that humanitarian and poverty trust fund would be carefully worked out by members of the committee. Of course, it will involve the Minister of Finance and other ministers that are relevant to the process. This is a flexible form of financing that is supposed to help Nigeria adequately respond to a humanitarian crisis. This will also respond to challenges as well as adequately address the issue of poverty in Nigeria and bring victory for the poor and indeed, bring help and succour which the Renewed Hope Agenda stands for” –Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, while addressing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council Meeting on Monday, October 23, 2023 According to the World Bank, “Social protection systems are at the heart of boosting human ...

  If you ask an average Nigerian what he or she wants, you’re likely going to hear a near unanimous response of better life, social amenities, security, employment opportunities and more money to take care of needs. All these are attainable and envisaged in two broad concepts of democracy and good governance. Many Nigerians do not want military coups because of the draconian way soldiers govern. Under a military junta, rule of law is absent. There is no constitutionalism or supremacy of the law, neither is there strict observance of fundamental human rights. Equality before the law is also a hoax under military regimes. Conversely, strong pillars of democracy include rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances. In a true democracy, there is a regular conduct of elections, vibrant media, independent Judiciary and pro-people legislative assembly. In a democracy, the three arms of government are separate, though inter-dependent. They also act as checks on one another. The...