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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 Banji Ojewale “There is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book, and the tired man who wants to read.” — G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) English writer Abubakar Atiku and Peter Obi, the flag bearers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria’s 2019 presidential poll, come from two different backgrounds. Atiku is a swashbuckling jolly good fellow. Peter Obi isn’t. Atiku is a rumbustious politician. Obi isn’t. Atiku is a gregarious personality on account of his wealth. Obi isn’t. Atiku is given to raucous peals of laughter that reflect his carriage. Obi isn’t. Atiku is a political figure who has operated at the national level. Obi isn’t. Finally, septuagenarian Atiku’s temperament is predictable. 57-year-old Obi’s isn’t. *Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar  Two opposites brought together by the PDP to make Nigeria work again, following a perception that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has underperformed and sunk the country into an abyss of...

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 Banji Ojewale There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women — Kofi Annan (1938-2018), former UN Secretary-General. I am among millions of Nigerians who can’t wait for the day God will bless our dear country with a visionary and radical female president, along with a great host of the fairer sex of kindred spirit governing the states and heading the MDAs. The tragedy of an effete economy, social stagnation and political paralysis that we have lived with over the years is the consequence of the neglect of this formidable section of society by our leaders.  *Atiku  Abubakar  Developing society and its constituents boils down to making use of all the functional human capital at your disposal. The moment you succumb to so-called imperatives of culture, false religion or superstition, and you drop the women, youth and the working class from your strides, you begin to enter a reverse march. That’s been Nigeria ’s misogynist history, always draw...

By  Banji Ojewale Of two evils, choose neither — Charles Haddon Spurgeon (English Baptist preacher) 1834-1892 Now, it is certain that of the nearly 100 political parties asking Nigerians to vote for them in 2019, two are in the forefront: the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) governing at the centre and in some states, and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in opposition at the national level but in administration in a couple of states. *Atiku and Buhari  We are glued to these two, courtesy of what our media gives us and the tin gods we have made of the candidates thrown up by the two political groups. So regardless of who they are, what they stand for, what they have said, their background and the implications of the sum and weight of all these on them when they become elected public office holders, we deem them worthy of our vote solely on account of their party and endorsement by a godfather or a cabal.  It is impossible to arrive at a salutary outcome through a proce...