Point One

Politics has its limitations, and there is a limit to which class interest gets the better of public interest. That seems what we are getting to see in the ruckus attending ongoing investigations of financial misdealings by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). National Assembly (NASS) members have a tradition of looking out for and cushioning one of their own, sometimes to the point of affronting public sensibilities which may have preferred dispassionate scrutiny and rigorous interrogation of the subject at hand. That is where the convention of ‘take a bow’ during confirmation hearings on presidential nominees comes from, especially where such nominee is a former NASSist like those conducting the confirmation hearing. Same courtesy tends to get extended to ex-NASSists who have occasion to appear before assembly plenaries or committees on any account. They typically get handled with padded knuckles, even if rough-handled. Although Niger Delta Affairs Minister Godswill Ak...

Fresh indications emerged over the last couple of weeks that there are challenges with internal coordination and consistency in government. Education Minister of State Emeka Nwajuiba made known on Monday, 6 th July, that the Federal Government had approved “safe reopening” of schools nationwide from 13 th July. This is to allow students in exit classes – Primary 6, Junior Secondary School 3 and Senior Secondary School 3 – return to school for revision preparatory to their final exams, most notably the West African Senior Secondary Examinations (WASSCE) slated for 4 th August to 5 th September. According to him, the SSCE schedule was “part of our discussions” with stakeholders including the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT). “The idea is, we have a month from now till 4 th August, so states that are willing should make their schools available for their children to revise,” he had said, adding that once the five member-nation West Afri...

Whistleblowing by norm has always been a hazardous undertaking. Frontline anti-corruption agency, Transparency International, says the conventional mandate of whistleblowers is to call out wrongdoings and expose the truth about suspected illicit deals that authorities in affected jurisdictions would want kept out of the know. “The world is facing the combined threats of a global pandemic, global heating, and deep structural inequalities made worse by entrenched corruption. Often, the illegal acts that exacerbate these crises are only brought to light by individuals who blow the whistle on the wrongdoing they encounter in their daily lives,” the agency said in a recent newsletter commemorating this year’s World Whistleblowing Day on 23 rd June. In Nigeria, whistleblowers are promised some payoff on recovery of illicit assets that they facilitate under the whistleblowing policy of the Federal Government. But if anyone hoped they could make easy cash from just playing the snitch, they...