Point One

Sierra Leone’s former President Ernest Bai Koroma is presently in Nigeria, but he apparently is here on borrowed time while his political future is being sorted out. He arrived in the country penultimate Friday, ostensibly to seek medical treatment for a maximum period of three months before returning to Sierra Leone to face trial for alleged role in the insurrection that rocked his country late in November, last year. Koroma had been expected in Nigeria since 4th January on a deal of temporary asylum brokered by the leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). But he did not come into town until 19th January, and at the instance of the Sierra Leonean judiciary and not ECOWAS. Sierra Leone’s high court earlier that week permitted the former president to undergo medical treatment in Nigeria “for at most three months from the date of this order and (on condition) that his sureties should provide regular medical updates, signed and duly authorised.” In an address ...

Nigerians are a resilient people who rise up to challenges as the occasion warrants. And deep in the polity is a communal bond that drives citizens onto sharing one another’s burden – never mind an overarching divisiveness fuelled by primordial inclinations and sworn enemies of unity who perennially embattle the nationhood. The country was in such communalistic mode over the plight of the Al-Kadriyar sisters, arising from a death threat that hung over them in the in the den of bloodthirsty kidnappers who placed a high ransom on their release. Mansoor Al-Kadriyar, a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) resident, was abducted by bandits in his family home in Bwari Area Council on Wednesday, 3rd January, along with his five daughters and their cousin, a daughter to Mansoor’s brother who got killed in the kidnap operation. Two days later, Mansoor was let off by the bandits to go raise N60million for the release of the girls. One of the abducted sisters was Nabeeha, a 400-level Biological Scienc...

It’s been happening for as long as time existed. (Pardon the hyperbole.) Only that now, it is demonstrably shown that pizza certificates are available from supposed institutions of higher learning, and those certificates could pass scrutiny test sufficiently to get accepted for institutional schemes like the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). And we know too well  that once a certificate passes the youth service scheme crucible, it gets absorbed into the labour market. Actually, holders of phony certificates could find themselves more advantaged in the labour market than those with genuine certificates if they have the right ‘connections.’ We have Investigative Reporter Umar Audu of Daily Nigerian newspaper to thank for the expose that has set off a flurry of measures targeted, as it were, at shutting in horses that may already have bolted out of the stable door. In a December 30, 2023 report, the journalist revealed how, in December 2022, he contacted a syndicate that specialise...