Public Affairs Analyst

  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...

  Today, October 12, 2025 marks exactly 35 years I started writing for the media. This is a milestone because if I were to be a civil or public servant, I should be retiring from service today. However, am far too gone to quit the stage now, more so as the media have come to define my personality. Not many know that I have my main job rooted in the development sector where I have equally paid my dues since 1998. I have said previously that the seed of media advocacy was sown into me in 1988 when I was attending Extramural class for my ‘A’ Level exams at the University of Ibadan. The planter was Prof. OBC Nwolise of the Department of Political Science (now retired). An activist of sort, Prof, then Dr. Nwolise will always charge us in the Government class not to be docile or complacent with the mismanaged governance system by the Nigerian military at that time.   And that there are several ways of advocating for good governance beyond ‘aluta’ street protests which students are...

  Who are the Gen-Z?   An online source said “Gen Z (Generation Z), also called zoomers, are the demographic cohort born roughly between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, generally from 1997 to 2012. They are known as the first generation of true "digital natives," having grown up with the internet and smartphones from a very young age. This generation is also noted for its diversity, its pragmatic approach to finances, concern for social and environmental issues, and a focus on work-life balance.” They are preceded by the Millennials which another online source says are also known as Generation Y. They are a demographic cohort generally defined as those born between 1981 and 1996. They are the generation that came of age during the new millennium and are characterised by being "digital immigrants" who are comfortable with technology and value immediacy and efficiency. Gen-Z are succeeded by Generation Alpha or Gen-A.   Generation Alpha are people born from roughly 2...

  Happy 65 th Independence Anniversary my compatriots. The presidency has rightly decided to make it a low key celebration. Indeed, beyond remaining a united entity and surviving another agonising year, what’s there to jubilate? Nigeria has remained a perpetual underachiever. Our situation is akin to the popular slang, ‘big-for-nothing’! six decades and a half after independence, all our development indices are in the negative. Poverty, unemployment, cost of living are on a steady rise. Which way Nigeria? On this page in my column of September 3, 2025, I reeled out statistics about Nigeria which needs to be repeated here. BusinessDay of Sunday, August 31, 2025, reported that the 2025 Chandler Good Government Index mirrored Nigeria’s snail movement towards holistic development and good governance. Released recently in South Africa, the CGGI 2025, among other things, indicated how Nigeria lags behind peers across the continent, with Mauritius, Rwanda, Botswana, Morocco, and South ...