faulker002

By   Kayode Ojewale Some Lagosians ignorantly see public facilities as state properties belonging to people in government only; as such they fail to take care of these public facilities. Put simply, public facilities are facilities provided by the government for the benefit of the general public. These facilities include, but not limited to roads, street lights, public buildings, crude oil pipelines and recreational areas. Public facilities, in reality, belong to the people and the people are expected to take ownership of and responsibility for them. This ought to be so because public facilities are made available and funded with the tax payers’ money. The wrong mindset that public properties belong to the government makes some people vandalise them. It is same reason people steal and sell off public properties. By so doing, they believe they are punishing and hurting the people in government alone through these acts of vandalism, whereas and of a truth, they are indirectly hurting...

By   Paul Onomuakpokpo It is an uncommon case that negates the Kafkaesque leitmotif that the law is beholden to the privileged, especially in a third world country like Nigeria – a former state governor, Joshua Dariye, was jailed for corruption. Reflective of his preoccupation with the bizarre conundra of the human condition, Franz Kafka’s “Before the law” confronts us with the huge impediments in the path of the less privileged to get the law on their side. In the rare cases where the law grants access to the poor, it is because its defences have been broken down by bribery or the real fury of the oppressed. *Joshua Dariye But in the case of Dariye, the law is not really out to assert its equality before the rich and the poor. As a member of the privileged class, Dariye has found a way to make the law serve him even though he is in prison. Before Dariye went to jail, he was a serving senator. Dariye was Plateau State governor from 1999 to 2007. The Economic and Financial Crimes Co...

By Banji Ojewale Out there in faraway Poland the other day, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari put out a disclaimer that he isn’t what Mazi Nnamdi Kanu of proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, says he is. Kanu asserts the man we refer to as our beloved president is really his double. The one we voted for died in London last year during his medical tour, he says. His loyalists then packaged a lookalike from Sudan called Jubril Aminu Al-Sudani to impersonate him, the Biafran agitator concludes. Kanu hasn’t thrown the tale to us as a joke. He believes in it as he does he is the runaway leader of outlawed IPOB. He has captured a credulous followership, among them many of the high and the low in the society.  *President Buhari  Even the yarn has got sections of the global media salivating. On American television programme, The Daily Show hosted by South African Trevor Noah, a correspondent ridiculed the Nigerian leader’s denial. He imitated a fraudster composing a scam e...

By   Simon Abah   Many military strategists x-ray strategies to tackle the scourge of terror which has damaged the image of Nigeria globally. It is highly commendable that President Muhammadu Buhari as stated in the past, “has absolute confidence in the ability of the Nigerian military to bring to an end the insurgency spearheaded by members of the Boko Haram sect.” But I have always believed that the military alone cannot end the war on insurgency without the support of the political benefactors of terror in the first place. In 2013, I asked a young army officer (now late) if the military can stamp out Boko Haram, he shook his head, “not with this commander-in-chief of the armed forces,” he said. Whatever that meant I didn’t bother to ask. But I know that fighting troops must respect their C-IN-C and must have the backing of same to succeed in wars prosecuted. Again, I know that a nation’s armed forces are as strong-willed as the commander-in-chief and, the mil...

By   Chris O.O. Biose The basic issue in the Niger Delta is that since the promulgation of Petroleum Decree No. 51, 1969, the Off Shore Oil Revenue Decree (No. 9), 1971 and other obnoxious military decrees by which military dictators dispossessed the Niger Delta of the benefits of its oil and gas resources, successive Federal administrations have been extracting the oil and gas in the Niger Delta and using the proceeds to develop other Regions in the country to the exclusion of the Niger Delta. The activities of the oil companies were reflected in permanent gas flares, massive coastal marine pollution and unprecedented levels of environmental degradation without parallel anywhere in the world. They promoted intra and inter-community strife by means of selective favours. Regrettably, some youth resorted to militancy although the vast majority remained law-abiding. All these engendered tendency towards breakdown in traditional values and confusion among the oppressed people of the Ni...

By   Paul Onomuakpokpo A justification for an inevitable return of President Muhammadu Buhari to Aso Rock in 2019 has not unexpectedly accompanied the frenetic campaigns in some quarters. The president’s political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the leaders of his government reel off the epochal achievements that have validated an end to the citizens’ serial negation of his quest to occupy the presidential office. *Aisha Buhari  For them, these achievements redound to the bid for his return as a means of completing the good governance he has espoused and enthroned. And more importantly, they want the citizens to appropriate a campaign for his return as serving a purgatorial purpose – a way of discharging their obligation of gratitude to him for bringing uncommon integrity to bear on governance. Yet, these people lack the right credentials to proselytise the suitability of Buhari for re-election. Their fold lacks that authentic voice to signal the readiness of Bu...