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By  Simon Abah Until we groom good people for elective office, people who are selfless, driven by a sense of mission, folks who understand the importance of urgency for change, belief in community, do not wear their opinion on their sleeve, avoid flagging religious views in favour of egalitarianism and to stop putting their snout in the trough of the gravy train and free-booting. *Gov El-Rufai  Even if a Martian comes from Mars on a white horse with Marian ideas to transform Nigeria , we would never go above being the self-proclaimed Giant of Africa. (Simon Abah, The Guardian , 30 May 2017, Between presidential and parliamentary system of government) .  When he became governor, I wondered if he had the right humanistic temperament to lead a fickle state like Kaduna , unpredictable because of the numerous numbers of religious crises that it had had in the past. I had to ask because from reports it was alleged that he wore his outlooks on his sleeves. Kaduna I reasoned did...

By   Luke Onyekakeyah The unwarranted attack by the Governor of Kaduna State, His Excellency Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, against the person of former Governor of Anambra State and running mate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, His Excellency Atiku Abubakar, has exposed the bigotry of El-Rufai which he is now shifting to Peter Obi. Nigerians should ignore a personal opinion that has no weight. *Gov El-Rufai  I tried to look up for the meaning of bigot for better understanding. According to the Encarta Dictionary , a bigot is “an intolerant person; somebody with strong opinion, especially in politics, religion, or ethnicity, who refuses to accept different views.” The synonyms for bigot according to Thesaurus are extremist, diehard, dogmatist, racist, hypocrite, chauvinist. How does Peter Obi fit into any of these unsavory epithets?  Anyone who knows Peter Obi, who has closely associated with him, knows that there is no basis, whatsoever, for branding an...

By Moses Ochonu The problem with El-Rufai is not that he is a bad Governor. The problem, rather, is that he tries so hard to be seen as a good governor, so hard that he ends up undermining his own good works, causing unnecessary controversy, and exposing his bigotry and lack of executive governing temperament. He is a much better technocrat than he is a wielder of executive authority. *President Buhari and Gov El-Rufai  He threatened to demolish an entire community, Gonin Gora, in the middle of an ethno-religious crisis. It is a terrible idea to threaten or to actually demolish an entire community whatever crimes some members of that community may have committed. For one, it amounts to collective punishment, a primitive punitive action incompatible with modern, enlightened notions of justice, correction, and recompense. Second, it is a rather lazy, knee-jerk, thoughtless, and ultimately counterproductive response. If members of a particular community threaten the peace of a larger ...

By Dan Amor Irrational impulses are not surprising in the stress and tension that characterize a demented society. In an atmosphere of violence, reason is sometimes abandoned and humanitarian principles forgotten. The inflamed passions of the time lead men and women to commit atrocities.  *President Buhari and Army Chief, Gen Burutai  But the concern here is not with the psychological pathology of those who commit atrocities but rather with what has turned our nation into a slaughterhouse where human beings are daily killed with intimidating alacrity. Throughout modern history, atrocity propaganda has often mesmerized readers thousands of kilometres away from the scene of the crime. Often, the improbability of the actions described suggests that the stories were little more than fantasies concocted for diverse reasons from even more diverse sources. But the reading public in Nigeria has invariably evinced a morbid absorption with the most nightmarish aspects of this national ...

By  Reno Omokri Nothing could prepare me for the shock that greeted me when I opened the dailies on Friday, October 26, 2018. Right there on the front-page headlines was the news that President Buhari, again, could not present his West African School Certificate Examination certificate because the original is with the army.  *President Buhari and his wife, Aisha Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! That lame excuse could hardly suffice in 2015 when President Jonathan was the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but it is certainly an untenable excuse today! How on earth could Buhari again tell the Independent National Electoral Commission that his certificate is with the army; who controls the army as Commander-in-Chief? Is it not Buhari? We have seen the evidence of certificateless leadership. We will not accept that excuse in 2018 or 2019. The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, has produced his certificate to INEC, while...

By Simon Abah The deaths of and whispered deaths of people in far-away places in Kaduna can lead to the deaths of hundreds of people in the state capital. These have gone on for too long with no end in sight other than preachment for tolerance and for people to learn to live in peace when the dust settles. Leaders go about begging people to live in peace. Beg? No-one is ever punished; the benefactors are always in the wind. Pastors, Bishops, Sheiks or Chief Imams, have failed the north by the way they have handled these repeated crises in northern Nigeria because they are habituated to being politically correct every time instead of calling a spade by its name, shrinking violets. Who doesn’t know that politicians in the north play on prejudices to divide and tear the people apart? What is amazing is how fast youths go about killing people. These killings would go on unabated until these youths have jobs to do but who will provide them with jobs. Many of today’s political persons in th...

By   Martins Oloja As politicians are jostling to secure their positions within #PROJECT2019, defecting to different parties in pursuit of relevance for only themselves, subordinating the sanctity of the rule of law to personal interests, perfecting how to truncate press freedom, we need to ask political leaders in the governing party what they want to do with the most important document they produced and made public in January this year: ‘Report of The APC Committee on True Federalism’ . *Buhari and el-Rufai    I am fully persuaded that it is public interest to ask about this all-important document and failure to be genuine about how to implement the contents before next year’s election may undermine national security too. And here is the thing, those who always afraid of the hard questions in the governing APC, should not regard this question on what they want to do with their report as a political question: It is a question on nation building and the future of the worl...