Point One

 When the Department of State Security (DSS) early last December issued a 48-hour ultimatum to downstream petroleum sector operators to normalise fuel supply to the public, it apparently thought they had a handle on what it takes to do just that. Indications have shown, however, that they didn’t; and whereas they postured as if what DSS said was doable, the situation is far more complicated. And so, eight weeks after the ultimatum, product scarcity persists.  The secret police suspected the persistent scarcity of premium motor spirit across the country was an invidious orchestration and only stopped short of shouting, ‘Sabotage!’ It called industry stakeholders including the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Depots and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN), Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Petroleum Tank...

Every profession has icons in diverse moulds. In legal advocacy, people are more familiar with icons as civil / human rights and constitutional lawyers. But there is a reputed practitioner who stands distinguished in the application of the principles of Law to advance the cause of the Christian faith he espouses. Barrister Wole Olufon, who has served the legal profession in different capacities including as officer and member of the National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA); Member, Council of Legal Education and Honourable Member, Body of Benchers, holds the ace as one who has used his legal practice to wage crusades against forces ranged against clients that embody his spiritual convictions. He does this most times for the sheer conviction, more than for the legal fees; and he has been quite lucky with getting Heaven’s help for desired results from these crusades. Early in his career, Olufon waged a highly controversial case to defend clients that included th...

Conflicting narratives about the gruesome killing of a medical doctor in Delta State on New Year eve raise questions about the thoroughness of police investigation and possible motivating factors behind the enterprise of crime in Nigeria. But the nut of this murder must be cracked earnestly if only to inform the design of the country’s security architecture as could prevent future reoccurrence, besides getting justice for the slain doctor’s family and associates. Dr. Uyi Iluobe was the medical director of Olivet Clinic, a private hospital he ran in Oghareki, Ethiope-West council area of Delta State, and was gunned down by yet-to-be identified / apprehended assailants on 29th December, 2022. The circumstance of the killing is, however, in dispute between the late doctor’s colleagues and the Delta State Police Command that is hunting the killers. Even the facts of the incident are foggy. It was initially reported the dastardly act occurred on 31st December, whereas later reports put the ...

Beginning from today, 12th December, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will be making Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) of registrants available at its 774 local government area offices for collection. By Section 47(1) of the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2022, a person who intends to vote in any Nigerian election “shall present himself with his voter’s card to a Presiding Officer for accreditation at the polling unit in the constituency in which his name is registered.” That is to say, you must get your PVC ready if your intend / desire to vote in the imminent 2023 general election comprising the national elections into the Presidency and National Assembly seats on 25th February, 2023, and state elections into the governorships and houses of assembly on 11th March, 2023. The first of those elections is just 74 days away, and anyone yet to collect his/her PVC has no time to lose doing so. Many of the PVCs, according to INEC, are for persons who registered or transferred their...

Freshly-installed Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke took the reins early last week in a gale of controversy. The new ‘sheriff’, who emerged through the 16th July governorship poll on Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket, stepped in with a bullish swagger to reset all settings by his predecessor, former Governor Gboyega Oyetola of All Progressives Congress (APC). There had been no love lost between them. So, it was expected to be a rocky takeover and it proved to be one.  At his inauguration on Sunday, 27th November, Adeleke froze all Osun accounts in banks and financial institutions. That was anticipated as a standard tack of any incoming administration to forestall a run on state funds by persons taking advantage of momentary flux in leadership, and it would indeed have been curious if not applied. The new governor also reverted the name of the state from ‘State of Osun’ adopted by preceding administrations to ‘Osun State’ as cited in the Nigerian Constitution, and its appellat...

French President Emmanuel Macron is fast becoming a customer of a peculiar form of protest under the democratic setting. He was again treated to an ambush smack in the face – physically speaking – by an apparent protester among a crowd of constituents with whom he was having in-contact chitchat at a location in France. The incident was said to have happened penultimate Sunday, 20th November, 2022. In a video footage that lately went viral on social media, Macron was hit in the face by a woman in an olive green t-shirt as he walked by in front of a crowd. The president’s security details moved swiftly in and tackled down the woman, while pulling Macron away. Expectedly, being a presidential outing, the whole incident played out before media cameras. Neither the identity nor motive of the female assaulter was clear as at the time of the incident. That wasn’t the first time the French president was being subjected to physical assault by an apparently angry constituent. In June 2021, a you...

They come in different shades, but to the same negative effect. They are merchants of electoral violence, and their ultimate objective is to obstruct free expression of the voters’ will through the ballot box. And they aren’t just enemies of free democratic expression, but also of the good of the Nigerian state. With the 2023 general election under 100 days away – the national elections into the Presidency and National Assembly chambers on 25th February, 2023 and the state elections into the governorships and houses of assembly on 11th March – they constitute a pressing danger the country must earnestly deal with. It was violence at its crudest wrought against the ballot box with the arson attacks, penultimate Thursday, on offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ogun and Osun states. Arsonists lit into the commission’s Abeokuta South council area office in the Ogun capital at about 1:15am on 10th November and incinerated the premises and movable assets on sit...