Ambassador Joe Keshi is Nigeria’s retired top career diplomat to the United States. In this interview, he diagnoses the US reduction, last week, of the five-year visa validity for Nigerians to three months, effective 8 July 2025, stressing the urgent need for Nigeria to negotiate and build a cordial relationship with the US as this means more trouble for Nigeria’s …

United States President Donald Trump never ceases to amaze with his haughty and self-aggrandising governance style, endless huffing and puffing, brinkmanship, and tendency to weaponise America’s often-stated exceptionalism and unilateralism. Last weekend, as member states of the fledgling association of the Global South and a growing economic bloc, otherwise called BRICS, were holding their 17th Summit in the Brazilian city …

Sometime in the early 2000s, at the cusp of Tafa Balogun’s glory as the Inspector General of Police (IGP), an oil magnate from a Southwest riverine area was arrested. He was travelling into the state capital from his riverine part of the country. It was at nocturne. The oil magnate, who moved like an Oba, was in a convoy of …

My phone rang on Thursday, 26 June 2025 and a long-standing friend was on the line. ‘I know you are from Owo’, he began. ‘And I know you will want to comment on the ongoing controversy over Akeredolu’s Memorial cenotaph; except I don’t know you! But, be careful! What is involved is deeper than a cenotaph’. I thanked him and …

The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has submitted a sweeping set of proposals to the Federal Government, calling for the repeal and amendment of obsolete and restrictive media laws that continue to hamper press freedom and democratic accountability in Nigeria. The proposal was presented on Friday to the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris; and the Deputy …

Background On 5 June 2022, a tragic terrorist attack at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owaluwa Street, Owo, Ondo State, claimed over 40 lives and shook Nigeria’s conscience. In response, the then state governor, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu initiated the construction of a Memorial Park, a cenotaph, to honour the victims. The project, built near the Olowo’s palace, was meant as a …

As I was saying…as my boss, Allah-De for some years now, of blessed memory, was wont to say — for how much longer will the world have to wait to see peace restored to the Middle East. United States President, Mr. Donald Trump believes after his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, that what has been achieved goes …

Chinua Achebe is a household name in Nigeria, Africa, and even beyond. He was a young man of 28 when he published Things Fall Apart. The novel was the first to come out of Africa, written by an African, in Queen’s English. Before it, Joseph Conrad had written two nasty novels about Africa and the monkey mentality. Achebe felt that …

It’s hard not to love United States President Donald Trump. He is the world’s most powerful president and wears his preeminence on his sleeve. Not for him the crooked modesty of the Chinese or the boring self-effacement of the British. Six months after his second inauguration, it’s been one day, one Trump. Two of his latest alter egos have been …

On Tuesday, the United States embassy announced new restrictions on visa issuance for Nigerians, reducing most non-diplomatic and non-immigrant visas to single entry with a three-month validity. The move represented a major shift from the multiple-entry visas, longer validity, and greater flexibility many Nigerians are used to. The decision, effective 8 July, has triggered questions across social media and travel communities. What …