Fellow Nigerians, 1. 15th January, a very special and unique day in 2023 as it was 53 years ago!  40 days from today, Nigerians will be voting in an election that many regard as the most crucial and existential decision we have to make as a nation, and particularly for our children and youths, given the sad state of our …

Salute to Our Heroes Fellow citizens, as we mark this year’s Armed Forces Remembrance Day today, let me begin this address by saluting our gallant troops who, from the creation of the Nigerian state over a hundred years ago, have played a pivotal role in our journey to nationhood. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United …

In just a little over a month from now, the All Progressives Congress (APC) would have completed eight years of controlling the central political machinery of Nigeria. As the clock ticks, Nigeria is moving closer to another date with destiny. Come 25th February, millions of Nigerians will go to the poll again to elect the sixth executive president of the …

President Muhammadu Buhari will leave office on 29th May 29 after completing the two four-year tenures allowed by the constitution for an elected president. The date is approximately four months away. The President has his legion of admirers, as he has detractors; and there are those who care less. Those who make up the last group have no appreciable government …

Her funeral rites would have begun on Wednesday, 11th January, but were postponed because her family, along with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), is awaiting an autopsy report. As of the time of writing, the matter had faded from the headlines and a new date for interment was yet to be announced. Obviously, the autopsy would serve the legal purpose …

As though following a notoriously familiar trajectory, it would seem like every intervention agency emplaced by the Federal Government to impact on Nigeria’s Niger Delta region intrinsically suffers some specie of leadership jinx and dysfunction. The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), conceived by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, and inaugurated in December 2000, has been serially plagued by leadership instability. The …

I have deliberately elected not to comment frontally on former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s New Year letter to Nigerian youth – of all segments of Nigeria’s population – because the writer behaves like Satan preaching Christ to unbelievers! I think that is why many have chosen to allude to the dichotomy between the message and the messenger or the baby and …

3rd May 2002. That was the first day I met Shina Badaru, then IT Editor of THISDAY. It was a chance meeting on a flight from Abuja to Lagos. I was returning with Simon Kolawole, then Editor of THISDAY on Saturday, and Ademola Adegbamigbe, editor of TheNEWS, when we met him on the plane and got introduced to him by …

Professor Babafemi Badejo is not a stranger to this column. Today he takes a look at the japa syndrome in Nigeria, as well as regaled us with his findings on a latest trip across the border to neighbouring Benin Republic. Are we making progress in this country or are we regressing? Read on: Mr Rufus and Mrs Esther Sami were …

My friend sent me a WhatsApp chat shortly after President Olusegun Obasanjo announced his endorsement of Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party. “What does the Obasanjo endorsement mean?” he asked. I smiled to myself and replied: “It means he is bored!” Like him or hate him, Obasanjo is a headline maker any day. With him, downtimes …