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By   Simon Abah There is an alarming rise in organised political defections in Nigeria . Although she is being hyped as the giant of Africa, the democracy in Nigeria is not practised like in countries such as Ghana , Sierra Leone , Botswana , Tanzania , Liberia , Senegal and Zambia with stable democracies.  Nigeria ’s version is a guided democracy and a democracy for the few. *Saraki What are the reasons for the surge in defections? Turncoats complain about the absence of internal democracy in their parties and of political witch-hunt by political gladiators. Do you agree with the beliefs of these defectors? Particularly since no mention is made about the developmental interests of Nigeria as reasons for changing sides. Isn’t it weird to see politicians castigate a political party at sunset only to defect to same party at sunrise? Winston Churchill was once a Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) but he died as a Conservative party man. He never returned to his former party Liberal ...

By   Jerome-Mario Utomi Merit, taken objectively, is ‘something earned, something owed to a person. Taken subjectively, merit is the right of a person to his earning and is of two types- condign and congruous merits. While condign merit deals with strict justice to a reward, congruous merit is not so much a right as a claim but rests upon what is suitable or fitting in a situation’. With this words of Paul Glenn in mind, each time I am asked my opinion on the nation’s media industry in relation to free speech/freedom of expression, I usually pause to honestly look at its virtues and attributes both objectively and subjectively, and in all, one thing often stands out; the Nigerian media industry in the writer’s views neither merits nor deserves the inequitable treatments so far mated to it by the successive administrations. The reason for this position is signposted in the fact that the vast majority of the ordinances/codes made to guide the practice has never squared up or in harmo...

By  Atiku Abubakar In a recent interaction in the United States , Vice President Yemi Osinbajo asserted that the “problem with our country is not a matter of restructuring…and we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into the argument that our problems stem from some geographic re-structuring”. *Atiku It is a surprise that the Vice President would take such a position and, in particular, fail to appreciate the connection between Nigeria ’s defective structure and its underperformance.  It is unhelpful to reduce the construct of “Restructuring” to a geographical concept as VP Osinbajo does, which in itself demonstrates a lack of appreciation of the core tenets of the concept.  For the avoidance of doubt, re-structuring is not about the re-drawing of state or regional boundaries. The restructured Nigeria that a large number of Nigerians talk about, is a Nigeria that not only provides opportunities for everyone to work but even more specifically challenges every layer of g...

By  Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie “Beware the Ides of March ,” said the soothsayer to Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s famous play  Julius Caesar . In those words, Caesar was given an alert about his imminent assassination in the hands of Roman politicians, among whom was his friend Brutus. Approaching another year of elections, this admonition has become frightfully pertinent. *Cardinal Okogie For what is being witnessed looks like a reenactment of the Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In this reenactment, Julius Caesar would represent Nigeria , the Roman politicians who plotted his assassination would represent the average Nigerian politician, with Brutus, the politician pretending to be Caesar’s friend, representing politicians who, in their diabolically deadly intrigues, pretend to love Nigeria , but are actually plotting her descent into bloody disintegration. While we have a spiritual obligation to pray the good Lord, whose mighty arm scatters the prou...

By Rockson Adofo Honestly, Ghana-trained lawyers and judges are no match for their White contemporaries and those Ghanaians born, schooled and trained in law in the civilized Whiteman’s land. I will prove this assertive claim in a minute. The law lecturers in Ghana tutoring students to become lawyers are to bow down their heads in shame for helping churn out corrupt and incompetent lawyers and judges. In any country that their judiciary is conspicuously corrupt and incompetent as it is prevalent in Ghana, lawlessness, creation of human monsters, economic stagnation or retrogression, become the tormenting order of the day to cost the citizenry the opportunity of availing themselves of justice, human rights and decent standard of living. In Ghana , it has been established beyond doubt that our judges are corrupt; they accept bribes of all sorts to twist justice in favour of the highest bidder who might otherwise have ended up being the guilty party. The prominent people in the society ar...

By Adebayo Raphael Since the beginning of Nigeria 's fourth republic in 1999, the present administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by President Muhammadu Buhari is unarguably the worst. The failure of the incumbent administration to live up to expectations, within and outside Nigeria , relegates every measure of the towering hope that welcomed it.  *President Buhari  The current president of Nigeria has consistently proved to the world that he is undeserving of leading this magnificent country of 180 million extraordinary people imbued with unimaginable potential. The Nigeria that our current president projects in the world, is a backward, ignorant, antiquated, unalluring, visionless, confused, unimaginative rudderless country. At different times when president Buhari has had the opportunity to blisteringly fly the flags of Nigeria before the world, he unabashedly sullied it instead.  So when I learned that the unscrupulous president of the United States ...

By Comfort Obi I will start with a story. A cousin of mine, too nervous to be on the wheels  of her car,  has a rather funny and weird driver. He is good-looking. Deceptively shy. Full of surprises.  Sometimes, erratic, at other times, as cool as cucumber, and when he feels like, he plays deaf.  But he is serviceable when he wishes to.  *Mrs Alhassan He feels free with his boss. So ever so often, he crosses the red line. Once, he  whatsapped  his photograph, dressed to the hilt to his boss. On a couple of times, he had looked his boss in the face and told her:  “I have a job interview .” And then, he would come back to say:  “I was not hired.”  One day, he told his boss he got a job where he would earn double what he is being paid. But he wouldn’t leave: Why:  It is a difficult job. I don’t want to drive (inter-state) in the night. Initially, I got irritated each time my cousin, a widow, relayed her experience to me. Why won’t ...