I honestly don’t know which one is easier – rubbing buttocks with the porcupine or having sex with a man you loathe! The instigation for talks, at all costs, with Niger’s military junta must feel that way for Tinubu
Engaging Nigerien Military President Is Like Having Sex with Someone You Hate Read More »
I’m not sure any Chief of Staff since 1999 has assumed and executed with a comparable degree of passion the task of dispatching nominees’ lists the way Gbajabiamila has done so far. Those who know him well, famously called Gbaja-philes in Villa-pedia, however insist that his performance is out of the goodness of his heart; and so, I won’t let anyone put words into my mouth or ideas in my head about his sterling qualities
Tinubu’s List, Gbaja-nisation and Nigeria’s Politics Read More »
The other important part was Tanja’s confrontation with French state-owned atomic energy group, Areva, which had enjoyed a de facto monopoly of the country’s rich uranium, a strategic resource for France’s nuclear power. Areva’s profit from uranium is twice Niger’s GDP. In a multi-million-dollar deal with China in which Tanja did not mind cutting Niger’s nose to spite the face of France, he pulled the plug on Francophone Africa’s most significant player, making the French play second fiddle to the new Chinese bride. When the tables turned following Tanja’s ouster, Paris was more than happy to dance on his political grave. But the story did not end there. According to Tom Burgis in his no-holds-barred book, _The Looting Machine_ , Niger spent $47 million from the proceeds of the uranium deal on arms to suppress the Tuareg rebels; and when a further $300 million came later from signature payment by China National Petroleum Corporation, to develop an oil block, the question was no longer whether Tanja could afford to make trouble, but how much
Again, A Bizarre Joke in Niger Speaks French Read More »
Is it true that social media influencers are ‘motivated to undertake organised campaigns during the election using their platforms, largely due to the need to bring about a better social order?’ It does appear to me (and perhaps this was unique to the 2023 elections) that social media influencers were just a force for good as they were a force for mayhem. The sludge of fake news sometimes unleashed by so-called influencers, not to mention toxicity of the avatars in that space who often insisted it was either their way or the highway, left people like me bereft and alienated
Does Social Media Affect Your Voting? Read More »
Museveni told a meeting of the Pan-African parliament in Midrand, South Africa, that a plane conveying six African heads of state to Tripoli, including his own minister who represented him, was asked not to proceed by NATO as the aircraft approached the Libyan airspace on its mission. “How can African leaders nominated by an African continental body, on African soil, be stopped by NATO from doing their duty,” he asked the parliament, pointing out that even the Mauritanian President, Mohammed Abdul Aziz, who was chair of that session of the parliament, was also on the trip.
Why Museveni Video Shames Africa Read More »
Nobody knows more than Tinubu that even though he carries the same party flag with Buhari, he does not have the luxury of Buhari’s honeymoon period. And should he make any wrong choices – hopefully not – given the scale of the challenges facing the country, he must immediately remove such appointees, instead of indulging them like his predecessor, as if it was some complicated conjugal misery
Tinubu And Burden of Ministerial List Read More »
We may be looking at over 3,000 fired, that is, assuming each of the roughly 570 affected establishments has a board of at least six members. Often, the figure is higher. Regardless, every job loss is different in its own way, both in how it affects those directly involved and those who depend on them. Each political appointee has a personal story not conveyed in the usual press headlines of how many have been beheaded, politically, and how many more heads may roll. Like sharks, the press loves the smell of blood, as long as it is not their own
Buhari’s Legacy Puts Tinubu in Tight Spot Read More »
Petrol subsidy is gone, means petrol subsidy is gone. Anything short of saying so on day one, would have amounted to kicking the can down the road, again. And that, we have seen, has been the graveyard of speeches in the last several decades full of economic philosophy and poetry but meaning nothing. Enough.
Tinubu Biting the Bullet from Day One Read More »
Obasanjo being Obasanjo, he did not mind imitating a low-grade version of Otto von Bismarck’s philosophy, that the business of Nigeria’s redemption at the time – restructuring, corruption and a pariah economy – required bloody noses and a hand of iron. By the time Buhari was elected eight years later, the landscape had changed somewhat. Yet, Buhari’s hands-off approach was dictated just as much by the relatively mature political landscape as by his complicatedly insular, almost abdicatory political style. Tinubu is a different matter altogether
What Should Tinubu Do About the Assembly? Read More »
The real elephant in the room is that the NPC knows the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government would reject the outcome of a census rammed down the country’s throat with only days before President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration leaves. They’re dealing with a familiar customer. It was Lagos State, under Tinubu, that dragged the Federal Government to the tribunal over the 2006 census, on grounds that the state’s population had been underreported by nearly half its size
The Fowl of Mecca and Nigeria’s Census Palaver Read More »