Point One

Another broadcast Disclaimer: The following is entirely a product of its author’s imagination, not the address last Monday by Mr. President. And the author isn’t even me. I picked the text from a post on Civil Society Hub WhatsApp chat group, and have only edited to fit available space here. Make of it what you please: “ I am happy to address you all today on my return from medical treatment in the United Kingdom. It is by the grace of Almighty Allah that I am here with you. “ Let me begin by thanking every Nigerian who prayed for my recovery. I also wish to thank those who lost patience with me. I understand your feeling: we have so much work to do in this country that every minute lost is a disservice to our people. “ My special thanks go to the Vice President. He held the fort in my absence, despite the difficulties our political structure imposed on him. He did the job of leading this nation so well that I have renewed confidence in our leaders of tomorrow. “ I also than...

( This is an updated version of the piece in my Monday column in The Nation newspaper, 21/08/17, which was sent to the press before news broke about the arrival of President Muhammadu Buhari back to the country on Saturday 19/08, and the return of Mrs. Grace Mugabe to Zimbabwe on Sunday 20/08. ) Among the encumbering tribe of African power denizens, Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe flaunts her place with peculiar hubris. She is perhaps the most notable consort in power now who can’t wait to personally take over the reins. And that might well just be to formalise a function she is widely noted to already have appropriated for herself in proxy capacity. Because with her nonagenarian husband, President Robert Mugabe, being Africa’s oldest political ruler and by reason of age obviously fraying in lucidity, Madame Grace is reputedly the power behind the Harare throne and de facto lord of the Zimbabwean manor. But Her Imperial Ladyship may have pushed her arrogance of power beyond h...

Once more Uhuru Elections in Kenya have the frills of a simulated war. They are hugely expensive undertakings, and so, it fits the billing that the just-concluded 2017 general election was reported to have depleted that country’s treasury by 49.9billion Kenyan shillings, KSh, (about $480million) in public spending. That is not counting private expenditures by political actors that saw the cumulative cost line topping $1billion – making the poll reputedly Africa’s most expensive on cost-per-voter basis. Kenyan elections are also typically not without collateral costs in lives and limbs. And the 2017 poll did not by any stretch come short of that profile. Barely two weeks to the August 8 voting day, the head of Information, Communication and Technology at the country’s poll regulator known as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Christopher Msando, went missing. Few days later, the mutilated body of Msando, who was the mastermind of the country’s new electro...