Point One

  You could measure a man’s depth through his handling of irritations – warranted or not – by his linkages. On 13 th August, this year, United States President Donald Trump got a question at a media parley on his country’s experience of the Covid-19 pandemic that left him off-beat. But he managed to hold his famous bile. Senior White House correspondent of The Huffington Post , Shirish Dáte, had raised his hand casually and was recognised by Trump, who never liked the pen tribe or made pretences about it, to ask his question. Dáte, however, broke from the conventional line of questioning to pose a simple, but cutting question: “Mr President, after three-and-a-half years, do you regret at all, all the lying you’ve done to the American people?” Trump was visibly blindsided and struggled to get his bearing by asking the reporter: ‘All the what?” Dáte was not fazed, he rather dug in calmly, saying: “All the lying, the dishonesties.” You could see Trump yet straining for a handle as h...

  Caveat: This piece was written before government raised a visitation panel for Unilag and asked Babalakin and Ogundipe to step aside. It is trite to say these aren’t the best of times for frontline citadel of learning, the University of Lagos (Unilag). The institution has been in turmoil since the purported removal of Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe as vice-chancellor by the governing council led by Dr. Wale Babalakin, which also named sociology Professor Theophilus Soyombo as acting vice-chancellor. As at the close of last week, Soyombo had assumed office; but it was at best a nettle reign considering the majority in the university community refusing to recognise his leadership while affirming residual recognition of Ogundipe as head of the institution. Ogundipe’s removal climaxed a long-running crisis of confidence between Babalakin’s council and the university management he headed. The pro-chancellor announced the vice-chancellor’s sack at an emergency meeting of council in Abu...

  Nigeria’s case count regarding the coronavirus pandemic appears abating, with confirmed cases averaging at about 400 daily in recent weeks. But members of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 have been quick to dampen hasty euphoria that this country is beating the pandemic already. Chairman of the task force and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha said 85 council areas in 20 states were yet to conduct Covid-19 testing and had not reported any case. “Nigeria is yet to reach the peak of the pandemic, therefore, the low test/case confirmation numbers coming out daily should not be misinterpreted to mean that we have overcome. We have over time ramped up testing but more needs to be done to raise the quantum of test per million,” he explained at a routine media briefing by the task force on Monday, last week. Later in the week, he reiterated this admonition, saying it was still a long road out of the pandemic for Nigeria and no time yet for the...

Credibility is a bullish virtue. It holds sway in of forthrightness that brooks no compromise by way of imputations of ulterior motivation. Where such imputations are made and they find legitimate grounds to stick, no matter how tenuous, credibility gets mortally dented and pitched in existential battle for resonation with its audience. Ultimately, it may never win. The National Assembly (NASS) is at the moment locked in credibility battle with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) under the watch of Niger Delta Affairs Minister Godswill Akpabio. At the last count, it wasn’t faring too well with getting the upper hand. The legislature has been searchlighting the intervention agency to expose a sleazefest that has made it incapable of attaining its founding objective of redressing acute degradation of the region – the golden goose where Nigeria derives nearly all of its sustenance. The consistent tack of both Minister Akpabio and NDDC’s Interim Management Committee (IMC), how...