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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...

Press Statement The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says public demonstrations that the Presidency may have procured a forged West African Examination Council (WAEC) Certificate Attestation and Confirmation for President Muhammadu Buhari is a huge smear on our nation’s integrity and the Office of the President. The party laments that the development has turned our nation into a laughing stock in the West African sub-region and the entire global community, as our President is now being mentioned as beneficiary of a duplicitous act. Most appalling is that Mr. President’s handlers have succeeded in dragging a reputable institution as WAEC into public disrepute and opprobrium, as Nigerians are quick to demonstrate marks of forgery in the attestation issued by the examination body. A check on the attestation clearly shows that it does not have the “Original Certificate Number”, the key authentication feature in all genuine attestations by WAEC. Instead, a “non-applicable” is entered, indicat...

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...

By  Anthony Akinola The destination of the presidency will continue to be an issue in Nigerian politics, prompting here another look at the single-term proposal. Erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan’s proposal of a single, six-year tenure for president and governor is not seminal but significant nevertheless. *Fmr President Jonathan The idea of a single-term enjoys informed opinion and was in fact forcefully presented to the Political Bureau established by the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1986.   General Olusegun Obasanjo, one honest critic of the politics of the Second Republic (1979-1983) specifically suggested a single-term of six years to the bureau. The Political Bureau identified with the informed views of many Nigerians regarding the desirability of a single-term presidency in the context of the history and ethnological realities of our nation but the military leadership rejected their recommendations of a single-term of five years in ...

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 Dan Amor Until recently when the erstwhile Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, (Turaki Adamawa), began to attract my attention in a very edifying and ennobling manner, I had almost concluded that President Muhammadu Buhari had no challenger within and outside the All Progressives Congress enclave. At the risk of alienating himself from his regional political constituency, Atiku, as he is popularly called, who is better appreciated as a child of events and circumstances, has espoused a large vision of a new Nigeria . *Atiku Abubakar "No section of the Nigerian State can claim correctly that its people are better served by the current structure of the federation within the context of the past 50 years of a failed unitary federalism", he boldly proclaimed. Atiku, one of the most respected and consistent national voices, especially in the current political dispensation, has also said that state actors and other politicians who insist that Nigeria cannot be reneg...

By   Chiedu Uche Okoye It’s sad that political ideologues of the first republic, who evinced and manifested the traits of philosopher-kings, couldn’t entrench national unity in Nigeria as they placed primordial and ethnic interests and their personal aspirations above our collective good.  So, they caused the failure of the first republic soon after Nigeria had become a politically independent country. *Atiku Abubakar  As a consequence, Nigeria slipped into a fratricidal civil war, which nearly caused her dismemberment.  The Nigeria-Biafra civil war, which raged for three years, heralded the entrance of the Jackboots and brass hats into our politics. And they would tell us that their military regimes were corrective governments. But, the sad fact as well as the harsh reality is this: they caused the depredation and ruination of our economy, hindered the evolutionary growth of democratic governance in Nigeria , and violated our inalienable fundamental human righ...