THE new military rulers in Niger Republic, the country which marked Independence Day on Thursday, August 3, 2023, have a Sunday ultimatum from the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. It is that they give up power and restore elected President Mohammed Bazoum to power or face serious measures, including possible invasion. ECOWAS also Read More…
Owei Lakemfa
The coup in Niger and the Moncada Barracks attack
EXACTLY 70 years separate the July 26, 1953, suicidal attack on Moncada Barracks by Cuban youths who wanted to remove the military from power, and this Wednesday’s coup in Niger Republic which removed elected President Mohamed Bazoum and restored military rule. The coup plotters, styling themselves as the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Read More…
Africans meeting in Nairobi: If Nigeria’s awake, Africa will rise
I have attended a few African Union (AU) Heads of State Summits and always came away with the impression that the agenda is always overloaded. But three things struck me about the July 16, 2023 meeting in Nairobi. First, its modest three-point objectives; fast-tracking the integration process in Africa; examining the Division of Labour among the Read More…
Battered, occupied, exploited, but the Saharawi remain unbowed
I got word that my elderly friend, His Excellency Mohammed Ould Salek, the Minister-Adviser on Diplomatic Affairs to President Brahim Ghali of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, better known as Western Sahara, was in Nigeria. He was the Special Envoy sent by the Saharawi President on April 28, 2023 to bid farewell to President Muhamadu Read More…
A nation that lost its way
AS an aspirant in 2022, the President of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, Yakubu Chonoko Maikyau, made a pilgrimage to Keffi, Nasarawa State. He needed the blessings of one of the most consummate and influential law professors the country has ever produced: Onje Gye-Wado. The latter from 1999, was for four years, Deputy Governor of Read More…
Oladipo Diya: The man who rode on a tiger’s back
In the rascally days of the military, when generals were wedded to coups, a military officer arose in their ranks called Oladipo Donaldson Oyeyinka Diya. He was unknown to the public until January 1984 when the coup plotters led by General Muhammadu Buhari, who had overthrown the Shagari administration, announced him as the Military Governor Read More…
ICC: Europe’s lapdog in a theatre of the absurd
THE International Criminal Court, ICC, on March 17, 2023 added a comic dimension to the tragic war in Ukraine by issuing warrants of arrest for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC, a body notorious for the persecution of people in the bad books of the European Union, EU, Read More…
A nation where everyone is oppressed
Nigerians have the next 70 days to survive a regime that has chastised them with whips and is promising to further chastise them with scorpions. Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, last week not only renewed the Buhari regime’s threat to increase Nigerians heavy burden by piling far higher fuel prices, Read More…
They sell the needy for a pair of shoes
I woke up at the weekend to a letter written by Professor Ibrahim Adamu Yakasai of Bayero University, Kano. He had on March 25, 2023, performed a civic duty as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Returning Officer for the Tudun Wada/Doguwa House of Representative elections. He had announced with his professorial authority that Ado Read More…
My mother was a woman
I AM blessed because I am blessed by women. This Wednesday, March 8, I received messages from some women wishing me a happy International Women’s Day. They know I am not part of their gender. But they are aware that I support, speak and fight for gender equity, equal rights and justice for all irrespective Read More…