Opinion Corner

Perhaps the most staggering claim made by the cleric involves the kidnapping of students in Niger State. Gumi alleged that a staggering $7.6 million was paid as ransom to secure their release.While the Federal Government has officially maintained a policy of “no ransom,” the lack of a robust, evidence-based rebuttal to Gumi’s specific figure has fueled suspicions of back-channel dealings. …

The recent assertion by former Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, that the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium can no longer host international matches unless major remediation works are carried out has generated considerable debate among sports enthusiasts and stakeholders in Edo State. In my view, such a claim deserves careful scrutiny, particularly given the importance of the stadium to the sporting …

  Benue’s landscape is marked by a complex terrain of challenges, from farmer-herder clashes and communal disputes and political contestation to rising youth violence and rising criminality like kidnapping and cultism. Climate change has intensified competition for limited land and water, while displacement and deepening economic hardship have further strained the state’s fragile social fabric. The toll is visible in …

  Unfortunately, the welfare of children becomes jeopardized when schools become breeding grounds that engender and tolerate child maltreatment. Sadly, children who are repeatedly mistreated at school will not only show emotional and physical signs of being abused but may lose and never recoup learning, become deficient in life skills and struggle in their bid to be properly integrated into …

  For most petrostates, this price spike represents a massive fiscal windfall. For Nigeria, however, the familiar paradox remains: a global oil boom does not yet guarantee domestic economic relief. Global energy markets are in a state of high alarm. This week, Brent crude has surged toward $114 per barrel, fueled by an intensifying conflict in the Middle East that …

Bwala’s performance was a masterclass in psychological occupational hazard. Faced with the forensic “receipts” of host Mehdi Hasan, Bwala retreated into a dizzying loop of amnesia. He denied his own recorded assertions regarding President Tinubu’s alleged “militias,” “bullion vans,” and “corruption,” effectively claiming that the Daniel Bwala of 2023 was a ghost he never met. In his subsequent press statement, …

Nigeria’s abdicating presidency and the docile National Assembly cannot forever remain silent observers while the constitutional rights of its citizens are trampled. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must move beyond political diplomacy and initiate the prosecution of those who undermine the 1999 Constitution. Enforcing the law against “religious entrepreneurs” is not an attack on faith; it is a defense of the …

  ​By Oto Drama, PhD T]he greatest tragedy of the African political landscape is not the illiterate tyrant, but the “Scholar-Dictator”—the man who spends decades teaching the Theory of Exit in the ivory towers of the West, only to practice the Praxis of Entrenchment at home. As 2027 approaches, Professor Julius Ihonvbere is no longer just a representative; he has …

The El-Rufai/Ribadu saga is a symptom of a deeper rot. It proves that our “security” apparatus is being weaponized for internal rivalry rather than external safety. If the NSA’s phone can be tapped, then the average Nigerian has as much privacy as a goldfish in a glass bowl.   The recent admission by Nasir El-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna …

After three decades of military interventions and dominance, a convergence of anti-military forces, pro-democracy civil society organizations, determined Nigerian citizens and international pressure groups, would ensure that the dream of a democratic Nigeria was actualized to great hope and expectations of new found freedoms and all the celebrated gains of self-rule. This achievement was probably the most consequential democratic experiment …