Browsing: Garba Shehu

If the climate of opinion against the President in the mainstream media is bad, it is worse in the new media where Dr. Jonathan has effectively been chased out of the social media. He hardly tweets, if at all he does that these days

I was not too young to remember the debate in the 80s engendered by the U.K.’s decision to impose a Visa requirement on some Commonwealth citizens going into Britain. The list of those countries, as you know, was made up largely of African members of the Commonwealth and those from poor backgrounds in other parts of the world

This country will not be ridding itself of the wild polio virus unless the law makes our change-resistant population to comply with the administration of vaccines, even involuntarily

As many are bound to believe, we live in a country where most of the population is under-privileged, and so therefore, one cannot isolate women and talk about their problems. But to say this is to make a grave omission of the prejudices and crimes against women that are so pervasive and deep-rooted. Crimes against women have crossed all limits and must therefore become a matter for serious concern to the authorities in Nigeria

There is no denying that the reputation of this country, in dealing with economic and financial sectors lies in tatters today

But this too goes for the opposition politicians, who have not equally shown the preparedness to accept defeat as they accept victory

How did otherwise titanic men such as Professor Ango Abdullahi, former Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, find themselves in the gutter engaging in a fight with an Alhaji Dokubo? I thought Ango’s group, and him particular, a leader of the late Shehu Yar’Adua group, scholar and gentleman were above this kind of fray

Only the arrogance of power proceeding from the dominance of a single party can give a vast country populated by 170 million as we have, a leader who will say I am tired and disinterested and at another time, a dying man whose preoccupation in office was his health, not the people he leads. Only a single party system can give a country a president not fit for the job and a dictator who unleashes the state’s instruments of coercion upon just anyone who disagrees with him. Single party rule has given several countries, Nigeria inclusive

Kuku, who spoke at an interactive session with very Senior State Department officials, led by the Deputy Assistant Secretary (Bureau of African Affairs), Ambassador Donald Teibeltaum, said that it is “only Jonathan Presidency that can guarantee continued peace and energy security in the Niger Delta.”

From experience over these few years we have dealt with terrorism, as well as lessons from other lands, it is better to kill the motivation for terrorism than kill the terrorist. Extra-judicial killings only lead to more terrorist breeding

The pedagogy of what Lai Mohammed is doing is that it teaches Nigerian politicians to practice politics by the power of the word. When you see what they are doing in the British Parliament you will notice that there is a tradition there of debate powered by eloquence and the choice of words

In addition to all these, there are reports that there are 300 students currently being processed for sponsorship by the state to read for first degrees at three prestigious universities here in Nigeria: the Crescent University, Abeokuta; Bells University at Ota and the American University of Nigeria, Yola. Money in billions of Naira is being spent to undertake these sponsorships

In some media houses, they softly whisper into your ears to spare a particular government, an institution, a politician or ask that you write a good aphrodisiac for a big man in cahoots with the owner. In its heydays, the Zik Press Enterprises published nearly a dozen newspapers scattered across the length and breadth of this big country and in all cases, they allowed each publication to take account of the local political climate and run purely as a business

In a recent episode published as an interview he is yet to retract, he reminded Nigerians that our democracy is a hand-out by the kind grace of the President whom he said we are lucky to have. This President, he thundered, “has the power of life and death” but that because he is a good man, he uses only 40 per cent of those powers

I do not know much about the political structure that Atiku currently has in place but I do know for a fact that this man has one of the most formidable Public Relations machinery in Nigeria’s current political landscape

If the scale and intensity of the public condemnation of this pardon, at home and abroad is anything to go by, the silliness of this decision can only compare in political terms to the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa by the late General Sani Abacha regime

This is a nation (do we really say we are a nation?) or collection of men and women who lose not less than 50 lives in road accidents, ethno-religious violence, robbery, banditry or pipeline fires each week. No inquest takes place. Sometimes public statements are made but this is not always the case

My opinion is that this brutal, disturbing and distressing action by the NBC is uncalled for, and clearly manifests a medieval-era mindset in the regulatory organization

To save us from further deterioration, this country needs to do a lot of introspection, and make the necessary choice of focusing on the character of those that wish to lead us from top to bottom as can be inferred from Chief Akinjide

That this enormously enriching book written to address a concurrent problem has come out of the ABU Press is a major achievement and a contribution to the advancement of the discussion on democracy, violent conflicts, federalism, political leadership and corruption in the context of the country’s effort at democratization