Point One

 Stunt leadership: Aliyu’s example Fresh-in-the-saddle Sokoto State Governor Ahmad Aliyu, last week, broke with the conventional mould of the conduct of power as we are familiar with in this country. He paid an impromptu visit to a government hospital on a fact-finding mission; and what’s more, he went in a disguise and rode in a tricycle to get there. It was a populist foray outside the conventional mould, because their excellencies typically ride in motorcades with sirens blaring to sites where reception parties had advance information they were coming and would have put up veneers that accord with, or at least border on what would gratify the August visitor. Most times, those veneers are deceptive and only momentarily dissemble the stark reality that ordinary members of the public encounter in transactions with facilities in question. The Sokoto governor toed a different path. He reportedly arrived at Sokoto Specialist Hospital unannounced last Monday following complaints by sta...

On the day the 10th National Assembly (NASS) was inaugurated last week, there was a fluke report on some online sites that the Department of State Services (DSS) had arrested Clerk of the National Assembly Sani Tambawal and some other parliamentary staff. The inauguration held on Tuesday, 13th June, and it was reported that agents of the secret police on Monday night picked up Tambawal alongside other senior officials in NASS bureaucracy in a bid to coerce them into manipulating the assembly’s standing rules to favour certain candidates in the leadership contests. It was an unsubstantiated report that didn’t gain traction beyond the few sites which posted it, and many of those sites pulled it down soon after flying the headline. Fluke as it was though, the report illustrated the crass image the DSS has acquired. Few days earlier, pandemonium was reported at the Anambra State House of Assembly as operatives believed to be from the DSS attempted to arrest then lawmaker-elect for Nnewi No...

If there is a prize for con artistry, the proposed national carrier project, Nigeria Air, as midwifed by former Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika gets it.  When a Boeing 737-860 aircraft in the carrier’s colours and logo was unveiled at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja (NAIAA) on 26th May, the ex-minister rhapsodized about accomplishment of a long nursed dream. He trumpeted the arrival of the aircraft via a celebratory tweet, saying: “We are here. To Almighty God be all the glory. It has been a very long, tedious, daunting and difficult path…” Later same day at the unveiling of the aircraft, he suggested that the carrier was a project delivered, saying inter alia: “We started in 2016 and it ended today. There is a history behind all of these. There were challenges for that matter. We didn’t allow them to make us lose focus. We stayed with our eyes on the ball and today we’re here.” Sirika postured like the aircraft that came in on 26th May was a first of many aircraft ex...

Curtains will fall on the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and some 20 state governors in about a  week from now, and all manners of exit rites have been on parade. Some of the rites can be rationalised and fall within the mould of government being a continuum. But others are downright grotesque or curious, to say the least. It’s like the local wisecrack that on the day an elephant dies, you get to see all shades of blades brandished to carve up the huge carcass. At the central level, there’s the proposed $800million loan from the World Bank that the Buhari presidency recently sought leave of the National Assembly to apply for. According to the presidency, the loan is meant for social investment programme aimed at succouring  the poorest of the poor when petroleum subsidy gets removed. But the subsidy will be in place until after the Buhari administration leaves office, and you would wonder why it should fall on the administration to determine how to disburse inten...

History has a way of repeating itself. When you think it’s curtains effectively on a particular trend, it shows up again, although in a different context and, perhaps, the strangest of circumstances. That was what happened recently with the rogue declaration of a winner in the Adamawa State governorship poll by suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Hudu Yunusa-Ari. Barrister Ari made his way into the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) collation centre in Yola early on 16th April to declare All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed, popularly known as Binani, as winner of the governorship supplementary election held on 15th April. The electoral commission had conducted the supplementary poll to determine the winner after the main election held on 18th March ended inconclusive owing to cancellation of results in polling units where there was over-voting. Prior to the election being declared inconclusive, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ...

There’s an age-old maxim that whether a cup is seen as half full or half empty depends on the worldview of the person making the judgment. And that worldview is informed obviously by the individual’s mindset: an optimistic mindset would see the cup in the progressive dimension of being half full, whereas a pessimistic mindset would view it in the regressive mould of being half empty. To be clear, it’s the same cup with the same volume of content, difference is only in the viewer’s perspective  When you consider efforts being plied to salvage Nigeria’s healthcare system from collapse, you can’t help seeing similar dynamics at work. A bill was lately initiated in the House of Representatives to curb the emigration of medics from this country towards ensuring better healthcare for the average Nigerian. The bill seeks to bond graduates in medical and dental fields to practising in Nigeria for a minimum of five years before being granted full licence by the Medical and Dental Council of...

It began like a rash partisan claim. But it has since gained traction as a genuine threat, having been formally corroborated by Nigeria’s secret police, the Department of State Services (DSS). Some people allegedly were plotting to foist an interim government on this country despite successful conduct of the 2023 general election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the commission’s return of winners elected at the polls and imminent transition to new dispensations at the national and state levels. If it were some silly joke, the joke had become like a handshake taken beyond the elbow. Masterminds of the alleged plot are ‘crazy baldheads’ that legendary Bob Marley would say should be chased out of town. When the alarm was first raised, it was pertaining to the fuel scarcity and currency crunch suffered by Nigerians in the build-up to the national elections on 25th February and state polls on 18th March. Those crises were alleged to have been orchestrated to hinder t...