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...