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By   Paul Onomuakpokpo Aside from the occasional death of soldiers in their battle against Boko Haram, the nation is now confronted in Metele with a seeming culmination of the military’s losses to the insurgents in the north-east.  The government has often fumed at the obduracy of its traducers who instead of trumpeting the wonders of its military in Sambisa Forest have rather warned that more still needed to be done to defeat the insurgents in the light of the occasional suicide attacks on civilians and losses of two or four soldiers to the insurgents. But the recent killing of about 100 soldiers in Metele, Borno State, so shattered the charade of triumph over the insurgents that President Muhammadu Buhari had to dispatch his defence minister to Chad for more collaboration in defeating them.  Clearly, the dead soldiers deserve all the garlands for their bravery and patriotism for which they have paid the supreme price. Yet, we should not ignore the important fact that th...

By   Tony Afejuku What is the significant significance of President Muhammadu Buhari to us in contemporary Nigeria? For readers who possess a medical or psychological or religious or even chauvinistic perspective he is Mr. President, who, always in his Northern medieval-like chausses, impresses or tries to impress as an answer to the illness, to the sickness of our contemporary times. *President Buhari  For those readers with a forward-looking view he is a mere undertaker, who proffers no constructive plan to living Nigerians who are being denied living wages and fabulous education and bodily and economic health they direly need. The man has simply fluffed his three years plus pre-presidential election promises and wishes. And his new next level theory – which I won’t bother to read – will not make him the saccharine president of our dreams. His next-level wishes must enter our Nigerian psyche as those of a political and presidential homunculus.  Politically, his next-lev...

By  Reno  Omokri A most disturbing thing happened in  Nigeria . Over a period of 3 days last week, the allegedly  ‘technically defeated’  Boko Haram managed to overrun multiple military bases and reportedly killed close to a hundred Nigerian troops and carried away heavy military hardware. *President Buhari with COAS Gen Burutai  But that is not the disturbing thing that occurred. The killings were shocking, but something much more disturbing happened. The Nigerian President, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the military and who is supposed to be the most pained over these avoidable deaths had time to: *attack former President Jonathan for agreeing with Transparency International that corruption had increased in  Nigeria *attack Priti Patel for saying that Mr. Buhari’s anti-corruption war is a sham. But the President could not find time to speak on the killing of over 70 troops by Boko Haram. As I write these words, almost a week after these gruesome k...

By Banji Ojewale “In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last”  — Horace Walpole (1717-1797) English writer and politician. If we go by what our politicians (the major presidential candidates notably) are saying about each other this campaign season, we can’t but conclude that they are all ‘misfits’ for office in 2019. They have smeared themselves. They have used invectives dug from the gutter to paint themselves. They have cancelled one another from the log of men and women of integrity. *President Buhari  They have thrown away their gloves and bruised their faces with bare fists. They have either asked the umpire to stay off or have left the ring altogether to slug it out in the mud. Now it’s a bloody street fight all the way. When the vote is cast and the result declared, both the winner and defeated and spectator would be losers, none a victor, even if there is a coronation. Why? It would be a pyrrhic triumph, where you’d ask yo...

By Dan Amor It sounds very much like an apocryphal tale. But it is true that the joke is once again on the Nigerian society. What I am saying is that Nigeria is constantly losing batches of experts to the larger world. Thousands of highly trained medical doctors and other professionals are daily departing these shores for greener pastures abroad. They are going to join millions of talented Nigerian intellectuals, academics and professionals, who had been driven out of our land by the harsh realities of our current existence. It is not a matter of profound argument or intellectual debate to say that the death of the Nigerian middle class due to equivocation and compromise has long been awaited. Yet, implicit in the very meaning of compromise as a means of harmonizing the best features of opposing values is an element of tension. And it is this unwearied straining after the ideal within the actual rather than any lame begging of issues that imparts so invigorating a tone on the social l...

By  Kayode Ojewal In Nigeria , the open sale of drugs – both traditional and pharmaceutical— through unregistered outlets is a major concern.  It is not strange to see unregistered ‘doctors’ and ‘pharmacists’ advertising and selling medicines in commercial buses and by the roadsides. These drug hawkers are sometimes seen selling prescription-only antibiotics and other powerful painkiller drugs. They do not only prescribe drugs, but they also go as far as recommending the dosage to be taken to these unsuspecting commuters.   Some street hawkers have their shops, stores and makeshift ‘clinics’ located in motor parks and market places where they offer ‘general body checkups’ and also display their medicines for sale. It is observed that people who opt to patronise these drug hawkers do so from time to time to treat common illnesses like malaria, stomach upset and general body pains chiefly because it saves time, effort and money going in search of doctors and drug stores. Th...

By   Passy Amaraegbu People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election  –  Otto von Bismarck.   The first documented census in Nigeria was carried out by Britain in 1866. Following this, others in 1971, 1896, 1901, 1911, 1921 and 1952/53. However the first census after independence was in 1963. Thereafter, the degree of reliability of the figures has been on a spiral descent and decline.  The official Nigeria position is that Lagos State with a population of 9,013, 534 is second to Kano with a first position of 9,401, 288 ( Nigerian Finder ).  However, the Lagos State government puts the census of the State at 22 million while the United Nations puts it at 14 million. Meanwhile Lagos State is one of the two globally recognized mega cities in Africa . These are cities with a population of at least 10 million people. The other is Cairo, the Egyptian capital.  The question is what is the accurate population of Lagos St...