Three years ago, Ali’s younger brother, Jamilu, a captain, had been killed in action by bandits in Katsina State. As an officer in the North-east, Ali himself had escaped death a number of times in battles against Boko Haram insurgents.
Author: Azu Ishiekwene
About a decade later, the beast of sectarian violence, which had reared its head in Kaduna, surfaced several hundreds of miles away in two major places
It’s been a dreadful time of rolling and erratic blackouts. Like surfing an angry wave, if you understand what I mean.
If the Afrobeat icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, had rendered a welcome tune for the embattled regional leaders as they met in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, it would have been his famous “Confusion Break Bone.”
If Governor Godwin Obaseki’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party had paid to put a spell on APC, the outcome would not have been more potentially devastating.
After a wave of protests, he instigated the Senegalese Parliament to announce December 15 as a possible new date.
They announced to the continent’s shock and surprise last week that they were pulling out of the 15-member regional trading block, the Economic Community of West African States.
It’s the story of the launch of a nomadic vigilante service by Miyetti Allah, a group of herders turned political pressure group, comprising mostly Fulani.
This year, I’m starting with sports. Arsenal fans are currently over the moon, testosterone pumping – and why not?
I grew up thinking that a judicious mix of crime, sex and money might not only help a publisher turn a good profit, but could also be the catalyst for a better society.
This is the moment the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu always feared with great anxiety. Yet when Hamas launched a deadly attack on Southern Israeli border towns in the early hours of October 7, Bibi and Israel’s elite security forces were unprepared. In a bizarre fabrication intended to complete Bibi’s humiliation a few days into the war, social media claimed, falsely, that an antisemitic crow had given the victory to the Palestinians in a mystic moment of avian fury. The truth is more nuanced and complicated.
Years after his retirement from the Supreme Court in 2008, Justice Akintan wrote a book, entitled: “Reminiscences: My Journey Through Life,” which Olumide-Fusika (SAN), asked me to review.
My job today is to review the book, and not the man. But since the man made the book, I would, to slightly paraphrase Oscar Wilde, overcome by yielding to the temptation of reviewing the man.
Of all these, however, the one that got the headlines was petrol subsidy and the most frequently expressed concern is: Why now?
At issue was the decision of the government of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2007 to reverse the sale of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries (two of Nigeria’s moribund refineries) to Blue Star, the Dangote-led consortium.
Thinking of what would best illustrate the majestic splendour of Mecca, the sojourner decided to use a native fowl as an example.
In Nigeria, public service is a big deal. At no time is there a greater vacancy than when a new government comes in.
I call him by the name that the closest circle of his friends has come to know and call him for nearly three decades: “Capacity!”
I knew my candidates would lose at the unit where I voted, but that didn’t matter. Voting mattered more.
My path with Dr. Yemi Osinbajo, as he then was, first crossed at the University of Lagos when he was a lecturer at the Faculty of Law and I was a student at the Department of Mass Communication at the same university. Just a busybody trying to indulge my fantasy of becoming a pocket lawyer, I met him out of curiosity.