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By Owei Lakemfa The general strike on September 27 and 28 over a new National Minimum Wage will, going by antecedence, be the  first of many strikes to come. This strike was not about a new wage per se or figures; not about agreement or disagreement, not to talk about implementation. It was merely to demand that the Buhari administration which has an unenviable history of cancelling promises, returns to the negotiation table. If a general strike had to be called just to pressure government to talk with workers and employers on a New National Minimum Wage in accordance with the constitution, imagine the struggles that will need be waged to get the new wages implemented across all sectors and levels of government. Some have argued that this period is too close to the February, 2019 general elections and therefore, not ideal for negotiations as the attention of the politicians would be focused on the elections. My response is that there is no better time than now, or better still, nea...

By Ikechukwu Amaechi After pussyfooting for 69 days, the former Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, finally did the needful by resigning her commission on Friday, September 14. She was accused of parading fake National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate with which she secured employments contrary to the country’s extant laws. *Buhari and Adeosun  NYSC which was set up by the General Yakubu Gowon administration on May 22, 1973 as a tool for re-building the nation and reconciliation after the civil war and backed up by decree No. 24 makes it an offence for any Nigerian who graduated before the age of 30 not to serve. Section 13 subsection (1)(a)(b) of the NYSC Act states that any person “who fails to report for service in the service corps in the manner directed by the Directorate or as the case may be, prescribed pursuant to the provisions of this Act; or who refuses to make himself available for service in the service corps continuously for the period specified...

By Kennedy Emetulu 1.Introduction: One of the ‘mysteries’ of today’s politics is what some Nigerians see as the continued popularity of President Muhammadu Buhari in the North, despite his evident ineptness and the many, many failures of his government. When these Nigerians see him in outings where massive crowds of young people work themselves into a frenzy as they rent the air with “Sai Baba!” chants, they wonder what diabolical concoctions he must have let loose on them to make them feel this way. *Kennedy Emetulu People are being buried in grinding poverty, the economy is on a stretcher, Nigeria is regressing into the Stone Age in every respect and Buhari hops into a plane to London and back or walks 800 meters and the whole place is filled with jubilation in the North, or so it seems. What information do these people have that the rest of us don’t have? What planet are they living on when the nation clearly is on a deathbed? 2. The False Successor: In the nation’s history, only ...