Apart from video war games, the young man has not seen any wars. Nigeria’s civil war ended nearly two and a half decades before he was born. Of course, you don’t have to experience war to feel it. There’s a sense, for example, in which the more recent wars in the West African subregion or the more distant ones in Northeastern Africa or Europe tend to reach us, wherever we are.
Author: Azu Ishiekwene
Sall started well. He came to office in 2012 with solid credentials, looking every inch like what Senegal needed to break away from the incompetence and cronyism of Abdoulaye Wade under whom the country had lost its way.
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.
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!”