Evening of Wednesday 23rd March 2023, the Abuja home of Onyema Ugochukwu, the iconic economist, journalist, administrator, publicist and statesman hosted the landmark birthday celebration of the mother of the family and Ugochukwu’s wife, Joyce. Events commemorating the milestone began in the earlier hours of the evening with a thanksgiving service at the Methodist Cathedral of Unity, Wuse, Abuja, where …

Even as I struggle amidst deep pains, sorrow and tribulations to scribble an elergy for departed activist, public intellectual, erudite scholar, accomplished journalist and professor of Political Science, Ayodele Samuel Olukotun, I’m nudged into some hallucination whether this brilliant and highly resourceful scholar, who was a regular face at many high profile conferences is really gone. Don’t blame me. Some …

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 …

It was a Friday. The weekend was imminent and people, expectedly, were winding down after a busy week. The Jum’mat service would also hold in the afternoon. These, however, did not impact the zestful participation of guests at the 77th birthday public presentation of the biography of a retired Justice of the Supreme Court (JSC), John Afolabi Fabiyi. Justice Fabiyi …

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste …

On Monday, 22nd November 2021, in the new capacity-filled Banquet Hall  of the Government House Makurdi, I took the oath of office as Chief of Staff, (CoS) to Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom. It was administered by the governor and I assumed office as his new CoS. I succeeded the former holder of the office who had resigned his …

Any parent who has chosen a name for a child knows the challenge of that task. Much thought is required. Traditionally, a name is to tell something about an individual. And naming a child is a chance to express religious conviction or, better still, indicate something about the child’s future, according to the hopes of the parents. Thus, in the …

It’s a special day for a special individual who played a significant role in my professional journey. Today, it’s three scores and a half (70 years) on earth for Mr Thomas Odemwingie (better known as Tommy Odemwingie), former Features Editor of The Guardian!!! Our paths first crossed sometime in 1985, but a significant connection happened about a year later. In …

“Indeed, Mr. Speaker has brought to bear the attributes of humility, diligence and experience and, above all, the concern of the people in his administration”. The above was part of a Motion for a Vote of Confidence on the leadership style of Rt Hon. Joseph Albasu Kunini in December 2020, following a plot by a group of members of the …

During these first few days of September 2022, two gentlemen dear to my creative side, and diametrically opposed in many ramifications, marked landmark dates on the calendar of life’s intractable journey towards an inevitable destination. One on the first day of the month, is a man who now luxuriates in the intangible perquisites of his sterling contributions to Nigerian television …