THE Supreme Court on Thursday, July 11, 2024 made landmark judgements on local government areas, LGAs, in the country. First, it gave the salutary order that they must be run by elected persons. Its second order that LGAs be paid directly by the centre, seeks more or less, to de-link them from the states they are located. In other words, it Read More…
Nigerians celebrated twenty five years of Democracy last Wednesday, June 12. I did not mean to dampen the enthusiasm. I am not a killjoy. But democracy is not a declaration, it is a praxis. It is not what we wish, but what we live. Is this something to voice out in a country that has rolled out the drums to celebrate Democracy Day? I remember a basic Read More…
If, on Judgement Day, the Lord asks me what I did while the Palestinians were being exterminated like flies, I will say that I stood up to protest and to campaign against the genocide. I will say I wrote against the world leaders who want an eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth. “My Lord,” I will say, “ Read More…
It was a multinational gathering that included 41 embassies. It was a trans-generational assembly that comprised diplomats of the 1960s and 70s, activists of the 1980s and current students, mostly from Bingham University, Keffi. Also in the assembly were government officials, labour leaders, writers and academics. The gathering on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, at the Read More…
The United Kingdom and Rwanda, who have conspired to have hapless migrants flown from London to an open prison in Kigali, are trying hard to keep their unholy alliance on track. Ironically, the main driver of this criminal anti-immigration conspiracy, 43-year-old British Attorney General Suella Braverman, is of Indian origin, whose parents, Uma and Christie Read More…
THE world gathered this week under the United Nations to talk peace, security and socio-economic justice, but hawks circled and beneficiaries of a skewed world sat silent in cold complicity. It was the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, and even as the world on Thursday, September 21, complemented the UN objectives Read More…
FRANCE is a problem. In Africa, it is a man-child fighting hard to retain its feeding bottle. The United Kingdom-based Socialist Labour organised a virtual conference of Africans to discuss this and the current crises in Africa, with an emphasis on the Francophone countries. Co-ordinator Tokunbo Oke, in commenting on the theme, “The Niger Coup: Read More…
THE scenario has various strands of familiarity. I mean the military coup of Wednesday, August 30, 2023 that removed Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba. An elected African dictator in a well-fortified Presidential Palace finds his palace has become his prison. It is like the fish realising that the water it is swimming in is boiling. Read More…
I WAS to attend the International Labour Organisation, ILO, Conference for two weeks in 2011 and was late in making accommodation arrangements in Geneva. I turned to Ambassador Ayo Olukanni, then Nigerian Deputy Ambassador in Vienna, Austria, to see if he had somebody who could check out the hotels and make a booking. Olukanni had Read More…
The threat of the mighty United States of America, USA, on Tuesday, August 7, 2023, to invade the little Niger Republic is not for its love of democracy, Nigeriens, or Africans. It is basically in the nature of hawks to circle the sky looking for prey, especially chicks. There were American and French troops in Read More…
