Public Affairs Analyst

  Tomorrow is Christmas, a Christian holiday celebrated worldwide. From the start of the month, the greetings have changed. You’ll hear people say, ‘Season’s greeting’ or ‘Compliment of the Yuletide’ or ‘Merry Christmas in advance’. The time-honoured ‘Father Christmas’ viewing wasn’t missing this year as many schools, churches and media outfits organised Father Christmas Grottos, where children pay a token sum to visit Father Christmas, who also shares gifts with the visitors. Some organisers make it part of their end-of-the-year party with a DJ on hand to dish out good, danceable songs and music to visitors’ delight. Some organisations partner with media outfits that also do live streaming and transmission on their channels, and give visitors a chance to greet their loved ones at home. Another unique feature of the Christmas season is the carol. There’s no Christmas without carols, where choristers sing in honour of Jesus Christ, whose birth is being celebrated tomorrow, even th...

  Several media channels (News Central TV, Daily Trust, Rapid 96.5 FM, Umuahia and Metro 97.7 FM, Lagos) have interviewed me on today’s protest against insecurity organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress. They all wanted to know if the Comrade Joe Ajaero led labour union was right to organise the protest. Of course, I responded without equivocation that the exercise had my full support and was even long overdue. Recall that the media had widely publicised last Sunday that NLC had said its planned nationwide protest on December 17 aimed to draw attention to Nigeria’s worsening insecurity and compel urgent action from stakeholders. NLC president reportedly stated this in Gombe last Saturday while speaking with journalists after meeting Governor Inuwa Yahaya on labour-related issues. Ajaero said the protest would demand decisive government action against insecurity, stressing that the situation now affects every Nigerian, regardless of status or occupation. He said banditry and vi...

  Trade is a form of exchange. This can be of commodities or services; even ideas. Trade practice has been from time immemorial and is as old as mankind.   AI Overview says “Trade is the voluntary exchange, buying, or selling of goods, services, or financial products between individuals, companies, or countries for mutual benefit, creating links between producers and consumers and boosting economies by allowing specialisation and access to a wider variety of goods. It can be local (domestic) or international (imports/exports) and involves various forms, from simple bartering to complex financial market transactions. Many of us will remember the phenomenon of “trade by barter” where people exchange products they have for the one they need. For instance, we’re told that before the advent of money, people exchange good and services such that a person who has yam and need corn will go to the market to look for who has corn and need yam. Or someone who has farm produce and needs ...

  “Detty December” is a popular slang for the lively, month-long festive period in Nigeria mostly beginning from mid-December to the New Year and has been loosely described as letting loose and indulging in some fun and merriment. I had a sneak peek of that from November 19 – 23, 2025 while in Lagos on an official assignment. It was a retreat by the Department of Conflict and Dispute Resolution of the Niger Delta Development Commission. It was organised by Peace and Development Projects headed by rights activist, Francis Abayomi. With the business meeting done and dusted on Thursday, November 20, the Friday and Saturday was spent by the participants to bond, recreate and network.    On Friday, November 21, 2025, the team was at the Badagry Heritage and Slave Museum. The museum offers deep dives into the region's history, particularly its role in the slave trade. We were also at the First Storey Building in Nigeria built between 1842 and 1845 by Rev. C.A Gollmer, this bu...

  Conflict, dispute, disagreement, quarrel are inevitable in life. In fact, they can be beneficial and transformational. There’s no family, organisation and indeed community where such does not exist. Experts in conflict management claimed that the main types of conflict are intrapersonal (within an individual), interpersonal (between two or more people), intragroup (within a group), and intergroup (between different groups).   The question is, how do we know a conflict is about to occur? Are there early warning signs that trouble is in the offing? When such signals or signs are picked up, do we simply dismiss them or respond promptly to prevent breakdown of law and order? Take for instance, in a family setting, when husband and wife start to argue, that’s a prelude to domestic violence as the situation may escalate to fisticuff if the argument becomes heated. To deescalate tension, one of the spouses should either keep quite or walk away. In a community, when rumor start to...

  For the umpteenth time, Nigeria is in the news for the wrong reasons. The abduction of 25 school children took place in Maga, Kebbi State, on November 17, 2025. Same day news filtered that Brigadier General M. Uba was killed over the weekend by Islamic State West Africa Province fighters after the terrorists reportedly intercepted and tracked his location along the Damboa–Biu axis in Borno State. Though insurgency and insecurity did not start under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, it has worsened if statistics is anything to go by. Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution says in section 14(2)(b) that the security and welfare of citizens shall be the primary purpose of government. Can we, in good conscience, affirm the presence of these two across the country? Before looking at current statistics on insecurity, let me bring you up to speed on the diary of mass abduction of school children in the last 11 years in Nigeria. According to online sources, timelines of abductions from 2014 ...

  Election is like planning for a wedding. It takes a long time but the actual wedding solemnisation takes just a day. So, the Independent National Electoral Commission gave a year notice of poll for the November 8, 2025 governorship election in Anambra. 13 activities were highlighted by INEC and 11 of those activities had actually been carried out before the new sheriff in town, Professor Joash Amupitan was inaugurated as the new chairman of the Commission. Some of the activities include continuous voters’ registration, procurement of sensitive and non-sensitive election materials, recruitment, training and deployment of poll workers, party primaries and candidate nomination, accreditation of poll agents, observers and journalists, voter education, campaigns, signing of peace accord and ultimately the voting, sorting, counting, announcement of results and declaration of winner. After 150 days of campaign and polling, last Saturday, the candidate of the All-Progressives Grand All...

  Since last Friday, October 31, 2025, when US President Donald Trump redesignated Nigeria as a country of particular concern, a sort of blacklist, I have been interviewed on the controversial listing by several media platforms.   Trust TV; LN247 Television; Galaxy Television; Citizen 93.7 FM, Abuja; Asaase Radio 99.5 FM, Accra, Ghana; Impact Business Radio 92.5, Ibadan; Channels Television and Pinnacle Daily   (online newspaper) have all sought my opinion on the issue. I am steadfast in my belief that while there may be concerns about persecution of the Christian minority in some states in Northern Nigeria, it cannot be categorised as a genocide. The dictionary definition of genocide is “the deliberate and systematic killing or persecution of a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group to destroy that nation or group”. I am of the considered view that both Christians and Muslims have been victims of insecurity, particularly insurgency. While the...

  The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC ought to disqualify Anambra State governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo. Why? He’s gunning for third term as a governor.   Meanwhile our law only permits two terms for a governor. That’s on a lighter note anyway. Yes, he was former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria from 2004 to 2009, a position he was appointed to by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Thus, he’s been elected as Anambra governor once and is eminently qualified to seek reelection. I foresee a victory for him on November 8, 2025 when he will be contesting to retain his governorship seat under the All-Progressives Grand Alliance. Soludo is a brilliant economist who graduated with a first class at the University of Nigeria Nsukka and became a Professor of Economics at the tender age of 38. His tenure as CBN governor was memorable as he successfully carried out bank consolidation exercise under which there was mergers and acquisition of money deposit banks leading...

  Monday, October 20, 2025 was the fifth anniversary of the #EndSARS protest that claimed scores of lives and humongous public and private assets.   In my column of October 28, 2020, I had observed that “The #EndSARS protests and their unsavoury aftermath are pointers to the trust deficit in government. When the protests began, they started off on the social media and escalated to street protests. Though the federal and state governments acted fast to calm frayed nerves by quickly acceding to the five initial requests of the #EndSARS protesters, the youths who participated in that epochal protests were not mollified because despite previous assurances, government had done little or nothing to assuage their fears and meet their demands. For example, they claimed that the dreaded SARS had been previously disbanded in 2017, 2018 and 2019 yet they continued to operate with impunity. Who then is fooling whom? As the saying goes, “if a man deceives me once, shame on him, if twice, s...

  Last Thursday, October 9, 2025, President Bola Tinubu nominated Prof. Joash Amupitan as the next substantive chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission. He takes over from Prof. Mahmood Yakubu who was the first chairman to have served two consecutive terms of five years each. Amupitan, a professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria was until his appointment Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration), University of Jos. Aged 58, he came with his own number of firsts. He is the first Yoruba and first SAN and first person from North Central Nigeria to be so appointed. It will seem INEC job is now made strictly for professors as the last four INEC chairmen from Prof. Maurice Iwu to Prof. Attahiru Jega to Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and now Amupitan had all been from the academia. In time past we have had Prof. Humphrey Nwosu who conducted the landmark June 12, 1993 presidential election and introduced the Option A4 method of conducting party primary into our political lexicon. Th...