Browsing: Azu Ishiekwene

When I left Abuja at short notice nine days ago, the city was already emptying out. The single biggest factory and business centre there – the National Assembly – was on the verge of closure.

The trip was not planned. As concerns over the spread of COVID-19 grew and the country inched more and more towards the abnormal, I figured travel might be restricted before the end of the week. A call that Tuesday morning confirmed that feeling: I decided to travel out of Abuja immediately.

In a world where laughter is already in short supply, the outbreak and rapid spread of Coronavirus has only left us all the more depleted. The world, as we know it, has been turned on its head. Yet, in this once-in-a-lifetime experience we have examples of fate using tragedy to write the book of humour.

If words could make the dead turn in their grave, the founder of the Oodua People’s Congress, Dr. Frederick Faseun, would have rolled over last week, caught between amusement and surprise at a remarkable statement during the first anniversary lecture of his passing.

If there was dividend for controversy, the stock of the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdul-Rasheed Akanbi, would be perhaps the most bullish among investors in royalty, coming next in demand to that of the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

Instead of splitting hairs over INEC’s ban – which will happen over and over again – we must address startling inadequacies in the electoral law which permitted the travesty, in the first place

But the national leadership of the opposition PDP cannot complain too loudly because Collins is a man with a history. The PDP did not lift a finger in protest when he dumped APGA, on whose platform he was elected a house member, to join the PDP because he desperately coveted the post of speaker, which of course he got three days after his defection

Buhari made this comment in an exclusive interview with The Interview by email released in Abuja on Saturday

The boy whose mother was hounded to her death by the paparazzi has come of age. And he is reminding…

In an article entitled: “2019: How Atiku will lose – and other matters,” published this time last year, I made six predictions: 1) Atiku will lose 2) despite Access Bank having Diamond Bank for supper, there won’t be a rat race for size among banks and liquidity will get tighter 3)

I met him three or four years ago. We were introduced by a mutual friend sickened by the story. What struck me about this man who I was meeting for the first time was his calmness, in spite of the story of cheating and betrayals, which he would later share.    

Politicians are not leaving anything to chance. Even before the posters for the 2019 elections have been removed, the race for 2023 has started and it’s just as charged at the national level as it is in the states.

The previous day, the judge had given the DSS 24 hours to release the Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, who was arrested on August 3, but detained for 72 days after the first court order for his release, bringing his total detention period to 125 days.

For instance, we have literature of the various centuries across the world. Here, we have the precolonial, colonial, postcolonial and contemporary Nigerian literature. Literary works could reflect pieces in a puzzle of political, social, religious and scientific changes of a particular age.

Lobbyists are masters of the game. They keep a diary of appointment and termination dates – including possible renewal where the law permits – and also keep a meticulous dossier of everything that happens in-between to sway public opinion and, possibly, the appointor.

A common thread among the losing candidates, which also appears to find increasing sympathy among segments of civil society groups, is that INEC has the lion’s share of the blame for the shabby outcome of last weekend’s poll

Kogi’s number one problem in the last two decades has been poverty, not a shortage of testosterone. The state’s monthly allocation is five times smaller than what Dangote gets monthly from the Obajana Cement factory also located there.

There’s no need to wonder. The question mark is off. The acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, is, without a doubt, still Nigeria’s most dangerous man and the government does not appear to be in any hurry to change Magu’s status.

And now, she’s nursing a fresh one. Former Chadian Prime Minister and current Chair of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, inflicted the latest scar on Arikana in a letter on October 7, terminating her appointment as the AU ambassador to the US.

Ghanaians may find it difficult to believe that this is not a war on kenke, shito or banku. But it’s not. When the Nigerian Government announced temporary closure of parts of its land border in August, it was a desperate act of survival and self-preservation that was long overdue.