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By  Martins Oloja In a working democracy not polluted by soldiers of fortune, political parties and the power elite would have long courted former Governor Peter Obi as a presidential candidate to disrupt some dark forces and institutions that have held down a significant country like Nigeria . But this is Nigeria where the most important qualification to be a candidate for a high profile office is loyalty to ‘political party owners’ or the godfathers. This is the one of the reasons we have been battling with the spirit of near-success syndrome – since 1966 when we lost democracy and federalism. The vicious godfathers are still in charge even for #Project2019.  *Peter Obi Despite this prevailing political condition, I think Mr. Peter Obi, as running mate to a presidential candidate at this time should still be celebrated as a glimmer of hope for the most populous black nation on earth. The reason for this additional note to a series of contextual reporting of the man so far is...

By   Martins Oloja But for the way we are – as a country without leaders who are afraid of the people, I would have borrowed the title of an artful writer, Brett Baker who had on August 18, 2017 said of his country, ‘Don’t look now, but we are a country with no leader’. I mean, I would have liked the title of the anniversary essay on my country at 58 to be: ‘ Nigeria @ 58: A Country Without A Leader’ . *pix: ThisDay Despite the prevailing situation, I am still persuaded as we celebrate Nigeria at 58 that we are a nation with an absentee leader. There is a sense in which we can also look at the 36 states of the federation, 774 local governments and the three arms of government in this convoluted federation and claim too that we are indeed a country without nation builders (leaders) at all levels.  No matter the owner of the assess that bray at this anniversary time, we should still be able to say like Baker that there are certain times when the entire country, regardless of po...

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...