Luck is a very powerful factor in human affairs. As it turned out, Donald Trump lost the election. His loss is not a gain for the Democrats and Joe Biden/Kamala Harris alone, it was also a major gain for Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who has now benefitted from the change in the United States, as a globalist, liberal President emerges in the White House.
Author: Reuben Abati
The Igboho phenomenon deserves some close attention. Sunday Igboho showed up in the fight against criminal herdsmen in Oyo State because of the shocking absence of leadership. The state Governor failed to defend the people’s interest. He did not stand up to the truth like Governor Akeredolu of Ondo state. He provided a vacuum which a Sunday Igboho decided to fill
When government, following the pattern observed elsewhere decided to ease the lockdown and businesses were allowed to re-open in order to save the economy from total collapse, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief and began to run their lives in spite of the virus. They respected the non-pharmaceutical interventions which government prescribed for a while, but in due course all the masks disappeared.
What we know is that human beings are capable of new discoveries in the face of pain, suffering and tragedy. And so it has been with the year 2020. So, what do we hold on to? Hope, I guess, the oxygen of human existence
A few days earlier, he had been actively involved in the activities of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, precisely at the change of guards ceremony which led to the emergence of a new executive in charge of the association. The communique issued at the end of that NPAN meeting talked about the need for the Nigerian government to take allegations of a second wave of the COVID-19 more seriously, and begin to make arrangements for the procurement, the distribution of vaccines in Nigeria and the inoculation of our over 200 million vulnerable population.
This was the second time in eight years that Nigeria would focus on the deregulation of the downstream sector. The same arguments, at different times, under different administrations, and with different reactions and outcomes.
But the fact of being Human lies however in how man continues to strive to dominate his environment, his capacity to adapt, endure and aspire, and hence, out of every adversity, man pushes further – like Atlas, and Sisyphus, creating one of the greatest mythological narratives about the existential state.
The turn out was very much about how this was an election like no other. It was a battle for the soul of America. For many Americans, the nightmare is over. That nightmare is represented by four years of a divisive, problematic, abusive Trump Presidency. Trump talked about “America first”, a phrase that past and future American Presidents have also projected as a guiding principle.
Under Articles 15-19 of its procedures, WTO chooses its DG by consensus. The General Council has now decided that a final decision will be taken on December 9, after a week of further negotiations with the United States. If that fails, the body will have no option but to activate Article 20 which talks about “recourse to voting as a last resort.” This gives us confidence and hope.
But essentially what we are now witnessing is best described as the “silence of the graveyard.” It is at best “a temporary reprieve”. The embers of the youth revolution that resulted in death, arson, wanton destruction and expansive alienation, are still smouldering.
The state authorities insist that persons were injured and that there were no corpses; may be just one. They made it sound as if one person dying was nothing to worry about. Nigeria is a country of over 200 million people. When one person dies, it is hard for the people to notice. The state does not even care.
They are saying “Enough is Enough”, and they would not be deterred until they see concrete assurance that the change that they demand is in the horizon. The “slouching beast” of their protest is a notorious unit of the Nigeria Police: the much dreaded, now defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
The strongest point about the average Nigerian is that he or she is resilient, long-suffering, yet ever ready to give up a little comfort for the country’s sake. Nigerian leaders do not show as much readiness or patriotism in the same manner
In 2016, the party that succeeded the Peoples Democratic Party, that is the All Progressives Congress, and its leaders who had lied to Nigerians that there was no fuel subsidy in the country, but unconscionable theft, and that the Jonathan government was wrong, promptly increased fuel prices. They argued that a fuel subsidy regime was not sustainable: the same argument that they opposed in 2012
Still about 25.2 per cent of registered voters ventured out to exercise their right of franchise. Out of a total of 2.210,534 million registered voters, about 483,000 did not pick up their voters’ cards, leaving behind a total of 1.7 million accredited voters. Out of these, barely 537,407 voters took part in the exercise, just enough to cover the event with a toga of legitimacy.
As soon as he was done with that, he turned towards me and bellowed: “Abati, you are calling us yesterday’s men eh? Very soon, you too will be a yesterday man. When we become today’s people, we will show you what it means to be a yesterday man!”
The fact that people are expected to comply or gamble with their lives for failing to do so, is what makes it all so surreal. The mode of compliance varied from one country to the other. The only uniting factor, however, is how on Sunday, the Muslim global community and indeed the entire world was reminded of how so much COVID-19 has disrupted our lives
The Board of Governors and the Ethics Committee of the African Development Bank have given Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the Bank’s President, a clean bill of health in a report dated May 5, wherein it is stated that Adesina has been “entirely exonerated of all allegations made against him.” The background to that development is useful and it is as follows:
Let us remember that investments and businesses were the first to take the Corona Virus hit. From Asia to Europe to the United States and everywhere, stocks crashed. In the month of March alone, the Nigerian Stock Exchange lost over a trillion Naira
This is my third commentary on the Coronavirus pestilence (see “E ku Corona o” – ThisDay, March 3, and “Amala and the Coronavirus patient” – ThisDay, March 10), and now, three weeks later, the most important subject still remains this mysterious plague that has changed the way we live, the way we think,