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# Azu Ishiekwene

Journalist | Publisher | Author 

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Shettima’s Final Test](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/shettimas-final-test) - Multiple sources said a US lobby group that had Trump’s ear strongly suggested to the President that he should lean on Tinubu not to tap Shettima for his second term. It claimed that if not the reality, then at least the perception of a Muslim-Muslim presidency could have been fuelling the indiscriminate attacks on Christians
- [Another View on the Matter of Akara](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/another-view-on-the-matter-of-akara) - "The First Lady should not be discouraged from well-doing. She’s in a different world from that of the Iya Alakara of old. This chill-less generation would not only welcome the Good Samaritan but also demand authenticity and scrutinise him"
- [Unusual Moments In the World Cup](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/unusual-moments-in-the-world-cup) - "With over two more weeks of football still to play before the finals, the FIFA president, Giovanni Vincenzo Infantino, must be very pleased at the event’s success so far, despite initial doubts by those who thought his cosy relationship with US President Donald Trump, almost akin to Trump-olatry, could spoil the games. The tournament has so far offered stories on several levels, all at once: good football, major upsets, compelling human moments, and dramatic fan culture"
- [Unusual Moments In the World Cup](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-encounter-with-a-south-african-editor-taught-me-about-nigeria) - "I’m not sure Minister Mohammed or the DG SS still remembers that the same mainstream press they’re calling on for restraint (including this writer), also called President Goodluck Jonathan’s government clueless and incompetent, mainly because of that government’s ability to tackle insecurity. And that Jonathan’s successor, Muhammadu Buhari, an army general and patron saint of the APC, didn’t do much about insecurity either. Now, the shoe is pinching where it hurts."
- [They’re Coming to America](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/theyre-coming-to-america) - "I wasn’t sure what to expect, especially given my very strong views on some of Trump's actions for which I have no apologies. Will it still be the same America that was warm towards visitors, friendly to strangers and generous in spirit? Or is the country now overcome by ferocious meanness, fear of otherness and narrow-minded insularity?...I walked off the Lufthansa plane at Houston International Airport on the morning of June 10, towards border security, unsure what to expect; that feeling you get approaching the yard of a once-dependable friend who has lately become the neighbourhood bully"
- [A Party for Nigeria’s Latest Abductors](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-party-for-nigerias-latest-abductors) - "That politicians can still manage to hold primaries in the midst of a worsening wave of horrendous attacks on communities and kidnappings in parts of the country, not to mention the economic hardship, suggests we must be living in different worlds...winning the party’s ticket is one thing, but more important, having a country in which to contest the election and govern is quite another"
- [Arsenal, at Last](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/arsenal-at-last) - "The relief and joy that erupted amongst Arsenal supporters was beyond belief – the pure, unbounded ecstasy of “Arsenalotary” was in full display after more than two decades of shattered dreams! And who knows what might happen if Arsenal were to defeat PSG on May 30, and also win the UEFA Champions League? The world has changed since Arsenal last won the English Premier League (EPL) trophy in the 2003/2004 season... iPhone was launched, and Facebook became a global giant. Twitter did not even exist, nor did Instagram, TikTok or ChatGPT"
- [Does it Matter to Africa if Nigel Farage Comes to Number 10?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/does-it-matter-to-africa-if-nigel-farage-comes-to-number-10) - 'What makes him effective is not simply his rhetoric, but his ability to position himself as the voice of the people who feel ignored by mainstream politics.' It would be an absolute disgrace for a racially bigoted twat to exploit voters’ misplaced economic and political grievances to advantage'
- [Who is After Obi, Kwankwaso Again?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/who-is-after-obi-kwankwaso-again) - "Why, even though he has flipped political parties five times in three election cycles, should he be compared to Vice President Atiku Abubakar in political vagrancy? Who is chasing Obi and his new soulmate, former Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso? There are three possible answers"
- [Tinubu-Ruto Banter as Food for Thought](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/tinubu-ruto-banter-as-food-for-thought) - "Kenyans may speak the best English (which I doubt), but the economic challenges they face, which Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu alluded to and drew the clap back, are real. The problems won’t be solved just because Kenyans speak in or mimic the late Queen Elizabeth’s mellifluous tone and accent. Ruto and Tinubu must brace for the messy, difficult task of fixing their countries’ economies, a task that is not a respecter of fine language"
- [Is there a Backstory to Wale Edun’s Exit?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/is-there-a-backstory-to-wale-eduns-exit) - "If the economy is not broken, why remove the finance minister, and how could one of the President’s most trusted men be removed in a press statement that describes his removal as a “minor cabinet reshuffle,” bundling him out with another minister, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, whose name many had barely heard until his sacking was announced?"
- [Amupitan’s Yanga Wakes Trouble](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/amupitans-yanga-wakes-trouble) - "If Amupitan digs in, as is likely, and his appointor, Tinubu, indulges him, the commission will struggle to retain public trust. INEC may argue that suspicion is not proof and that, in any case, no forensic, platform-level evidence has been found against it. That is precisely what the National Assembly should do: Initiate a forensic probe. INEC is independent, but not unaccountable"
- [INEC, ADC and the Latin Phrase: Another View](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/inec-adc-and-the-latin-phrase-another-view) - Delisting the ADC’s leaders was hasty and prone to needless controversy. Whatever its legal department may be telling the commission, Amupitan, a professor of law and senior advocate, should know that INEC’s action gives the impression that the commission is an interested party in the dispute, and calls his judgment and independence into question...I offer a comfort phrase to the ADC's distressed leadership from the diminishing repertoire of street Latin: Potestas non est ad libitum - power is not given at one's pleasure. It's not served a la carte
- [Adelabu’s Power Lines as Laundry Lines](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/adelabus-power-lines-as-laundry-lines) - "Adebayo Adelabu has performed so disastrously, saying he failed would be an honour. But it’s not his fault – it’s the fault of the President who appointed him and the Senate that cleared him for a job that he was clearly incompetent to perform, either based on his record or based on any hope of redemption"
- [Obi’s Transition From Serious Contender to Mascot](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/obis-transition-from-serious-contender-to-mascot) - "This Obi is a Peter of clay – malleable, confused, and lacking in staying power. He’s drifting, mistaking a jungle for a zoo. This should be a great source of worry for his troops, especially the social media-based avatars (without voter cards), who deify Obi and whose political signature tune is “Obi-way or the highway.”
- [ADC’s Problem is ADC, not APC](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/adcs-problem-is-adc-not-apc) - "I don’t know what other conspiracy the ADC might find before the next market day, but I think the party is its own biggest problem. If it continues this way, before the APC kills it, it will be long dead, and on its grave would be the epitaph: here lies the remains of a party that thought it would get power à la carte!"
- [Saving the Police from Itself](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/saving-the-police-from-itself) - "One major apprehension stems from the fear of abuse by state governors – quasi dictators who run riot over the state legislature, judiciary and local government administration. The fear is that adding the police to the above superstructure will make governors into wrecking balls. Economic and fiscal arguments have also been advanced against state police. For instance, most states are not economically viable or financially self-sustaining beyond relying on revenue disbursements from the Federation Account. While the fear of abuse by states and funding concerns are valid, they are insufficient to delay the commencement of state police"
- [Africa and the Deadly Dust from Iran](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/africa-and-the-deadly-dust-from-iran) - "Like the previous Gulf Wars, the current one poses severe economic risks to Africa, particularly for oil producers like Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, and Libya. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which handles 20 percent of global oil shipping, could spike energy prices worldwide, benefiting producers in the short term with higher revenues but fuelling inflation and import costs on the continent"
- [El-Rufai: What A Good Turn Didn’t Deserve](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/el-rufai-what-a-good-turn-didnt-deserve) - "I’ve often joked that even if you beheaded El-Rufai and minced his skull, his tongue would still be wagging. Those who have been in his crosshairs might agree. He once said even if President Muhammadu Buhari were hit on the head with a Blackberry phone, the former president might still not know the difference between the phone and a blackberry fruit"
- [The Road to A Doctor’s Nigeria](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-road-to-a-doctors-nigeria) - "Collis’s book is a personal encounter. It is part social observation, part memoir, and part travelogue – a journey through the heart of a country, where once upon a time, the lamb and the lion lay side by side, and people were kind to each other as if their lives depended entirely on charity. And they travelled with nothing to fear. Many Nigerians in their late 20s or early 30s might find it hard to believe there was indeed such a country where you were not afraid to travel alone at any time and didn’t need to share your live location or use a Google Map to get there safely. Safety feels like a very distant memory, a nightmare"
- [To Catch an Election Thief](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/to-catch-an-election-thief) - Two days of protests are good, but they will not be enough to hold the politicians and INEC to account this time next year. Voters, civil society, and the press must continue to exert pressure and maintain vigilance for free and fair elections. The ingenuity of the amended Bill is that it gives protesters a sense of victory while still retaining its pernicious essence: allowing INEC to determine what to do with election results and how
- [Can We Quench the Fire That Might Start in Mali?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/can-we-quench-the-fire-that-might-start-in-mali) - While the Trump administration’s interest in Alberta may also be to spook “stubborn” Prime Minister Mark Carney, the common thread between Alberta and the Sahel is critical minerals. The military leaders in the AES know that with this US president, business trumps rogue politics
- [Yusuf’s Red Cap on Tinubu’s Red Carpet](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/yusufs-red-cap-on-tinubus-red-carpet) - "What next? Kano often defies gravity. Its politics is sophisticated, dangerously contrarian, yet consequential. That explains why Aminu Kano’s NEPU defeated the pro-establishment NPC, and why PRP consistently beat NPN. In 2003, Ibrahim Shekerau’s ANPP defeated Kwankwaso’s nationally dominant PDP, only for Kano to birth a red-cap movement that is fanatical even without a cause, eight years later. Now, with the possible realignment of Yusuf, Ganduje, and Shekerau on one side against Kwankwaso on the other, the die is cast"
- [We Owe Putin an Unreserved Apology](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/we-owe-putin-an-unreserved-apology) - "If the price for world peace is to award President Trump a Nobel Peace Prize for ending eight wars, a delusion he firmly believes, then we should indulge his fantasy by granting this fervent wish. But since it would be grossly unfair to exclude Putin, or to ignore Xi, Kim or even Benjamin Netanyahu from such a list, it would not be a bad idea to propose to the Norwegian Nobel Committee a once-in-a-lifetime, first and last Nobel Peace Prize Quintet 2026, for all five"
- [ A British War Journalist’s Account of How January 15 Changed Nigeria](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-british-war-journalists-account-of-how-january-15-changed-nigeria) - Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi, who had been alerted by the wife of one of the murdered officers, ran to the police headquarters in his car to plot a counter-offensive. According to the book, Ironsi spent most of the morning of January 15 in the Lagos police headquarters trying to consolidate his position. Sixty years later, no one can say where a general confronted with a similar situation might turn for refuge and reinforcement. However, most would likely agree that it certainly would not be the police headquarters in Lagos or Abuja
- [What You Might Expect in 2026: A Valedictory Edition](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-you-might-expect-in-2026-a-valedictory-edition) - "From twice forecasting that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would lose (2019 and 2023, he’ll lose again in 2027), months before the election, to predicting that at least five ministers would be fired in 2025 (seven were fired), nothing has given me greater pleasure than the Nostradamus-like thrill of watching a situation foretold unfolding"
- [Ahmed’s Fall, the Dangote Challenge and a Rentier System](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ahmeds-fall-the-dangote-challenge-and-a-rentier-system) - Ahmed has fallen, but he may have fallen to save the system. While the war raged, he not only represented a regulatory agency, but he was also the nexus where pioneer desperation and entrenched power collided
- [What’s the Cost of a Merry Christmas?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/whats-the-cost-of-a-merry-christmas) - At the end of the year, we are faced with the same conundrum as Power faced when he was contemplating his love life: “If only I had been more lucky, wise, sensible…” But life is lived forward
- [Sam After Five](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/sam-after-five) - "Looking back, it appears that Sam wrote “Political Decline of the North,” or “Atiku is Finished,” in a glorious era. Of course, there are great Northern minds terrified by poor, crooked leadership that has wrecked the region. Yet, Northerners who helped to hasten the decline Sam wrote about now have children and grandchildren who have joined the business of not only killing the North, but also doing so quickly. As for Atiku being finished, his philandering is legendary, with his wild oats scattered across the major political parties, except those that have yet to be formed"
- [A Troubling Message from Guinea-Bissau](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-troubling-message-from-guinea-bissau) - "He started well, under the rallying cry of 'Embaloism,' which was supposed to rid the country of corruption, poor governance and instil discipline. He also attempted to rebuild confidence with regional allies and powerhouses, including Nigeria, and subsequently reached out to Portugal and the IMF to repair the country’s badly damaged economy...However, it didn’t take long before Embaloism gave way to 'Embalomylitis,' a condition that has left citizens poorer and poorer, eventually ranking 177th out of 191 on the UN Human Development Index"
- [Habits That Disgrace Us Are Not Trump-made](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/habits-that-disgrace-us-are-not-trump-made) - "If this was Matawalle’s idea of soft power, or the new meaning of non-kinetic engagement, then he should return to his farm in Bakura. His performance was deserving of nothing less than a caning on the rostrum where he was receiving that salute...The second embarrassment was the departure of the NSA Malam Nuhu Ribadu-led reconciliation team to the US, leaving Nigeria like thieves in the night"
- [Editors and the Missing Part of Uzodimma’s Trust Story](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/editors-and-the-missing-part-of-uzodimmas-trust-story) - If trust is broken, electoral integrity is undermined, and confidence in politicians and public institutions is eroded, it’s mainly because journalists, in this case, Nigerian journalists, have hypocritically blamed everyone else but themselves. This was music in the ear of politicians, who mostly erupted in applause and laughter, but a body blow to journalists who grinned or raised uncomfortable eyebrows across the hall
- [Why Is the Promise of 60 Years Unravelling?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-is-the-promise-of-60-years-unravelling) - If the convention went ahead, it would be a grudge convention, over the party’s dead body. What, by many accounts, would have been the party’s first convention in 17 years is now fatally derailed by court orders
- [Thinking about midlife](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/thinking-about-midlife) - An accomplished writer in his younger days, with several published books to his name, Nengi asked me if it was still possible for him to receive a reward or, to put it bluntly, earn money for his labours of earlier years, several of them either out of print or forgotten by a generation riveted on Kindle. Has he not been left behind by the new tech wave of e-books and digital migration?
- [The Log in America’s Eye](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-log-in-americas-eye) - To describe the attacks in Nigeria as a genocidal assault on Christians is like classifying the regrettable rise in homicidal incidents in the US as a genocidal attack on blacks and minorities. It’s like comparing apples and oranges
- [Aparutu and His Life Coach](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/aparutu-and-his-life-coach) - Every great editor has a legend. It wasn’t different with Osinubi, a reporter’s reporter, an editor’s editor and a manager’s manager. Tempered by age and experience, he comes across today as a gentleman’s gentleman. It wasn’t always so
- [Of Trump, Peace Deals and the Day After](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/of-trump-peace-deals-and-the-day-after) - Trump’s misdeeds have been as long as they have been disruptive and chaotic. Still, if he pushes for a two-state solution and manages to get Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a round table, that might be the medal-worthy deal of our lifetime!
- [What Will They Eat When They Finish the Money?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-will-they-eat-when-they-finish-the-money) - We are also not told of the extent of scrutiny by the Senate committee – only that the committee was so impressed it may well have approved the N140 billion for three months blindfolded. But the details provided in the LEADERSHIP report of Friday, October 3, capture the elephant in the room. It gives details of the three-month budget, with an imprint all over of the type of concession typically made when parties are in an overwhelmingly delicate position behind closed doors
- [How to Drink from a Poisoned Cup: Harold Smith and the Nigerian Story](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/how-to-drink-from-a-poisoned-cup-harold-smith-story-and-the-nigerian-story) - Okotie-Eboh, whose first appointment as Labour Minister was “like a child presented with the keys of a sweet shop,” sold government assets and pocketed the money without fear of a reprimand because he was as serviceable to British political interests as he was to his own. The British handed over the reins of power to a significant number of notorious politicians who, over the years, would make a fine art of notoriety
- [A Cabal in Plain Sight Wants More](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-cabal-in-plain-sight-wants-more) - When we thought the Dangote ship was out of troubled waters, the cabal showed up with another nasty and clumsy tackle. They can’t believe that the lucrative “subsidised” petrol fraud, from which they cornered about N2 trillion in questionable claims or N50,000 per petrol truck, is ending
- [An Unusual View of Banditry](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/an-unusual-view-of-banditry) - To speak Lawalese, the Zamfara State governor or any governor in Nigeria’s North West, who is interested in tackling insecurity, might need more than executive authority to succeed. They would need, in addition to state police (which I support fully), to understand the social psychology of the enemy they’re dealing with. Otherwise, we might be worse off in two times twenty months or whatever time Lawal might need
- [Useni’s Fight for London House from the Grave Shames Us](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/usenis-fight-for-london-house-from-the-grave-shames-us) - I desperately hoped that Ozekhome, a senior advocate of Nigeria and equivalent of a King’s Counsel, whom I hold in high esteem, would say it was not true; that what Judge Paton said about him recruiting his son, a young lawyer, to invent and contrive evidence to produce a charlatan to take over the property of General Useni who he said was his friend and client, was mistaken. However, in an extraordinary interpretation of the judgment that left many speechless, Ozekhome told LEADERSHIP that the judgment was “not an indictment.”
- [Why Jonathan Won’t Contest, Whatever the Courts Say](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-jonathan-wont-contest-whatever-the-courts-say) - Not that he cannot throw his hat in the ring, damning any legal consequences. Or because 10 years after he left office, life seems better retrospectively than it was. Whatever anyone might say, when Jonathan looks in the mirror, his incompetent five-year record looks back and responds with the question, Can this be true? The former president cannot believe his good luck
- [Nigeria’s Top Oil Boss Walking into A Trap](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/nigerias-top-oil-boss-walking-into-a-trap) - Among beneficiaries of the squalid mess – who would also be pleased by another futile round of multi-billion dollar rehabilitation – is a contractor responsible for importing “blend” from Malta, from which the Port Harcourt Refinery produces something like petrol and diesel. This is the trap Ojulari is walking into as he contemplates keeping the refineries.
- [Putin As the President’s Medicine](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/putin-as-the-presidents-medicine) - When Putin came, it was different. Not only did Trump wait for him on the tarmac, applauding as the Russian president walked the red carpet to meet him, they both travelled in the Beast, a rare privilege that bypassed a carefully planned last-minute attempt to prevent a one-on-one summit. For Putin, the special one, Trump wangled a one-on-one....What is it about Putin that fascinates Trump so much?
- [What Happened In the Matter of Bayo Ojulari?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-happened-in-the-matter-of-bayo-ojulari) - The problem with Haske is two-fold, each fold highlighting Ojulari’s naivety. Reports indicate that even though Haske’s company had had problems with NNPCL over some turnkey projects, it was to Haske that Ojulari turned to provide jets that flew the board and management for a retreat in Kigali, Rwanda. If there had been a lull in Haske’s business with NNPCL, Ojulari’s tenure has been something of a Haskean revival
- [Peter Obi’s Dangerous Game](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/peter-obis-dangerous-game) - For reasons best known to him, instead of focusing on repairing the LP, broadening his base and appeal, Obi has fallen for the seduction that his salvation lies with joining Atiku, Amaechi, and former Governor Nasir El-Rufai in a coalition to nowhere. I’m shocked. Obi has forgotten what brought him this far
- [Again, Trump’s Way or the Highway](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/again-trumps-way-or-the-highway) - A global trading system dominated by the dollar is no longer fit for purpose. Trump doesn’t think so. He believes the US can continue to eat its cake, preferring bullying and unilateralism to dialogue and multilateralism. The BRICS (now BRIC+) has a combined GDP that is two and a half times larger than the EU's. It would be foolish of BRICS to underestimate its advantage or indulge Trump’s tantrums
- [Musings on Muhammadu Buhari](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/musings-on-muhammadu-buhari) - It is speculated in some circles that his separation from his first wife and mother of his first five children, Safinatu, was due to what he considered extravagant overtures made to her by Babangida’s wife, Maryam, while he was in detention. Until the end, there was no love lost between Buhari and Babangida – a fact once made bare in Buhari’s angry response to my question about the report of a military panel that advised Babangida’s removal before the 1985 coup
- [Danger of the Single Story (DSS)](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/danger-of-the-single-story-dss) - I died and rose many times during the two-hour fifteen-minute trip, consumed by fear and sustained by a lingering sense of adventure that dying at 60 is not dying too young. Unknown to me, my wife had sneaked a rosary into my bag, with a small bottle of anointing oil
- [Ruffled Feathers: Rejoinders to My Article on the Israel-Iran War](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ruffled-feathers-rejoinders-to-my-article-on-the-israel-iran-war) - Both articles could have been from the spiteful fingers of one hand. Of particular interest, however, was the second article. It was WhatsApped to me by Karofi on behalf of his friend, a certain Mundadu, whose photo he refused to provide and whose name he faked
- [Not The Iran We Thought It Was: What Has Changed in the Persian Gulf](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/not-the-iran-we-thought-it-was-what-has-changed-in-persian-gulf) - How did mighty Iran lose its military footing so calamitously, so quickly? The weakening of Iran’s military strength is not as sudden as it appears. It is the result of years of isolation and economic sanctions, driven mainly by three suspicions
- [A Tribute to Uncle Sam at 90](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-tribute-to-uncle-sam-at-90) - "I (Sad Sam) write for the same reason that a houseboy cleans the house or a secretary-typist takes shorthand and types or a taxi driver rides the street, touting for fares…or an executive in business or government goes to the office or a professional burglar steals. For a living, that’s all. It’s none of my business to correct the ills or save this country!”
- [Understanding the Flight Announcer](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/understanding-the-flight-announcer) - From her appearance, she seems a full-blooded Nigerian woman, likely from the Southeast. As we neared landing, she unleashed a torrent of fake accents. She concluded by welcoming passengers to “Asaaabhaaa,” pronounced like a JJC would say Asaba, with enough drawl of the “Icheku” variety (the Nigerian TV drama series based on the foibles of the colonial courtroom) to spice the miserly inflight passengers’ lunchbox. Where did she acquire that accent from?
- [Inside the Oval Office, Trump’s new Lair](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/inside-the-oval-office-trumps-new-lair) - Trump wanted only one thing. He wasn’t interested in resetting trade talks or bilateral issues. He wasn’t interested in repairing ties between South Africa and the US or hearing firsthand the other view about the so-called genocide against white farmers. He wasn’t interested in conciliation. He was interested in only one thing: having Ramaphosa for lunch
- [Ishaq Oloyede’s Cross](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ishaq-oloyedes-cross) - I have criticised JAMB in the past for several reasons, mainly because I still believe that a decentralised placement system, as practised in pre-1978 Nigeria, the US, and South Korea, works better. Yet, whatever the inadequacies of JAMB, the board has, especially under Oloyede's leadership in the last nine years, transformed from a snake-infested wasteland of corruption and mediocrity into one of Nigeria’s most responsive and better-run public institutions
- [Do children of politicians in power make sense?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/do-children-of-politicians-in-power-make-sense) - Should blog posts, often typically lacking in depth and context, become the measure of what is truly important and enduring? Do they represent more than what they are – random outbursts of fleeting thoughts from entitled or angry tribes? Or do they teach us something we need to pay attention to?
- [How to Crown an Impostor](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/how-to-crown-an-impostor) - Traoré is not Sankara, a fact that may be lost on Burkina Faso’s predominantly young population, as well as millennials and Gen Zs across the continent, whose forlorn search for role models tempts them to canonise an impostor. Of course, both are soldiers, similar in age and rank and usurpers of constitutional rule. But that’s where the similarity ends. Like the demagogues before him, Traore and significant sections of the military and political elite from Maurice Yameogo to Blaise Compaore have been complicit in the misery of their citizens, feeding them instead on a diet of pseudo-ideological jingoism and Western bashing, but offering no genuine alternative
- [Adesina, Onanuga and the Matter of Being Better Off](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/adesina-onanuga-and-the-matter-of-being-better-off) - In two years, Nigerians will ask themselves if their lives have improved in the last four years of the Tinubu government. It’s a question that strips economics of its jargon, whether GDP or HDI, and goes straight to bread-and-butter issues. If President Joe Biden’s claim of a better life for Americans, even though essentially statistically correct, was insufficient to save him, then the Tinubu administration must roll up its sleeves
- [Atiku, Not Tinubu, Is the Wrecking Ball](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/atiku-not-tinubu-is-the-wrecking-ball) - If the worst fear of Atiku and the opposition comes through, as is likely, and President Tinubu returns to office in 2027, as is probable, it would not be because of the defections; it would be because Atiku paved the way for the destruction of the PDP. He has proved to be the party’s undertaker-in-chief, something not often said, because it is convenient to blame Tinubu
- [Waiting for an African Pope](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/waiting-for-an-african-pope) - Through the intrigues, rivalries and scandals of the plot, Adeyemi, a Nigerian cardinal at the Conclave, almost emerged as pope before a contestant snookered him with the scandalous love story involving him and a nun, Shanumi, who had a child for him while he was 39 and she was 19
- [Fake Outrage and The Making of the Uromi 16](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/fake-outrage-and-the-making-of-the-uromi-16) - The appearance of shock and outrage amongst politicians and the security services is hypocrisy disguised as empathy. They can fool themselves all day long. Unless they begin to rebuild trust in communities and people – whether farmers or herders – can see that there are consequences for breaking the law, Uromi will not be the last tragic crime scene
- [When Are You Going to Get a Proper Job?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/when-are-you-going-to-get-a-proper-job) - Power is a passionate husband and a doting father but a woefully unlucky lover. If you discount the tragic end of the Barnes in Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, in which Dickie Barnes is a principal character, Power’s account of his love and marriage life reminds you of how complications and unresolved issues in a marriage can undo even the best intentions, leaving emotional scars that won’t go away, even when it’s all over
- [Rasool’s Expulsion Was Africa's Missed Opportunity to Tackle the US Bully](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/rasools-expulsion-was-africas-missed-opportunity-to-tackle-the-us-bully) - During my visit to Israel last December, the talk at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs was that South Africa took a bribe of $2 billion from Iran to mount a case against the Benjamin Netanyahu government at the International Criminal Court (ICC), an allegation that diplomatic sources in Pretoria have denied
- [Rivers State Emergency Rule: A Different View](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/rivers-state-emergency-rule-a-different-view) - Parallels have been drawn between the state of emergency in Rivers State and the one in 1962 during the Western Region crisis, especially as the latter was believed to have led the country down the slippery slope that eventually ended in the removal of the Tafawa Balewa government and the Civil War. The underlying currents may be similar – local politics gone rogue – but the consequences or potential consequences are not.
- [The thing between Godswill and Natasha](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-thing-between-godswill-and-natasha) - After weeks of trying to see, hear, and say no evil, I’m compelled to overcome the temptation of abstaining by yielding. It’s not an easy road, believe me – not for those genuinely trying to make sense of it, not for the busybodies and certainly not for the parties involved. It's heartbreaking that despite the perennial underperformance of the legislature, managing the libido of its menfolk has piled on the hazards we must endure
- [African Lessons Zelenskyy May Use in Ukraine](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/african-lessons-zelenskyy-may-use-in-ukraine) - Africa’s experience teaches a different, nuanced lesson. From the betrayals of Haile Selassie during Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia to the murder of Patrice Lumumba of Congo, the continent learnt the hard way that only fools test the depth of a river with both feet. Unlike his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, Zelenskyy was just the fool the West needed
- [Babangida’s Long Journey to Sorry](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/babangidas-long-journey-to-sorry) - Those too young or indebted to Babangida to see clearly may believe what they choose. But it would be defamatory of reptiles to call the man a chameleon. When General Yakubu Gowon said in the Foreword that being a soldier and a politician was a virtue in Babangida, the old man was being economical with the truth. As Marshal Davout, one of Napoleon’s most outstanding soldiers, said, the best soldiers abhor politics. They take a professional stand… Instead of the five-letter word – sorry – Babangida tried vainly to use 111,281 words to exorcise the demon within. He failed. In his book On Writing, Stephen King, one of my favourite authors, said honesty is necessary for good writing. Babangida’s pseudo-memoir fails that test
- [Ribadu’s Fury Over Canada Visa Refusal](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ribadus-fury-over-canada-visa-refusal) - If the country’s status has moved from visa-on-arrival up to the early 1970s in many Commonwealth (and even non-Commonwealth countries) to a status of cautious admission and even outright hostility toward ranking government officials, Ribadu does not need to invoke hell. It’s a metaphor that painfully reminds us of our odyssey
- [From America First to America Alone: The Lab Meets the Street](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/from-america-first-to-america-alone-the-lab-meets-the-street) - When America Alone is mentioned today, it’s not a defence against threats to Western values or civilisation; it’s simply that Trump’s America First has turned the country into a clear and present danger to the values that built and prospered America and the rest of the world. America is losing its way, alone and aloof, in a brazen insularity that evokes pity and surprise in equal measure, even amongst its harshest critics
- [Understanding the Nonsense About State Creation](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/understanding-the-nonsense-about-state-creation) - It's not for nothing that none of the world’s most prominent federations, such as India, the US, Canada, or Brazil, has created a new state in the last 50 years. This is not because of a lack of demand or because these countries have no ethnic minorities who feel endangered. Instead, they are evolving ways of managing their diversity that reduce the salience of statism as a basis for social justice, such as prioritising merit and competence
- [Preparing for Trump Deportation Copycats in Europe](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/preparing-for-trump-deportation-copycats-in-europe) - It would be a defamation of the animal kingdom to call Trump a bull in a China shop. He is worse. Regrettably, Trump is inspiring copycats around the world, and it won’t be long before they start following his example, especially his anti-immigration hysteria
- [Trump’s Message from God for Africa](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/trumps-message-from-god-for-africa) - God had other plans, according to Trump. It could only have been divine because how come voters didn’t remember Biden’s record or, if they did, we are now told the record didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was how they felt at election time – a concept obviously outside the realm of logic
- [Trump, again….](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/trump-again) - "America is the only place on earth that confronts its diversity with courage, not shying away from its own worst demons; it is a land of both genius and demagogue, each pursuing their path, but within a system that also strives to protect the weak and vulnerable while, some would add, paradoxically creating its own weak and vulnerable"
- [Back Story of Tinubu Interview](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/back-story-of-tinubu-interview) - I had asked him why he ordered a shoot-on-sight against members of the militant Yoruba self-determination group Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), which operated mainly in the South West, Obasanjo’s home base. He was livid. He warned me, on air, that if I were going to bring the irreverence of my weekly column to the Villa, he would immediately throw me out of the panel. I insisted on an answer, to which he said, “If you’re a member of OPC, tell your people that I mean what I said!”
- [What You Might Expect in 2025](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-you-might-expect-in-2025) - I forecast that by May 29 or earlier, the president will replace ministers, especially those who have since outlived their IOU value. As pressure mounts ahead of the pre-election year, no fewer than five of them will be replaced or reassigned by the end of 2025
- [A Nation at War: Five Days in Israel](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-nation-at-war-five-days-in-israel) - As Flight ET 404 approached Ben Gurion... I thought, what if a stray rocket hit us? It may sound like the product of an overwrought mind contaminated by familiarity with bad news. But after Hamas killed more than 1,139 people, including women and children, on October 7 and took 364 hostages, many of the victims at a peace party in Nova, southern Israel, overthinking the worst appears to be the standard way of life
- [An Accidental Christmas Story](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/an-accidental-christmas-story) - "I paused in confusion. I have read many stories of graduate drivers or professionals doing odd jobs. Working odd jobs is hardly news in a country with 33 percent unemployment, mainly among young graduates. However, being a paediatrician Uber driver in a country with a paediatrician-patient ratio of roughly 1:525 was new for me"
- [Why Ghana’s Election Matters](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-ghanas-election-matters) - "Whether, apart from its business attraction, Ghanaian jollof would also best Nigeria’s jollof in the unending cuisine war between both countries in the next four years under Mahama remains to be seen"
- [Word of the Year 2024](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/word-of-the-year-2024) - If you are already “vibing”, millennial-speak for “losing oneself in great music or conversation”, or feeling “shook”, the colloquial noun or verb for “surprise”, then welcome to the evolving vocab world of young adults fostered by the Internet. From activism to fashion, sports, and dating, the language topography is changing, leaving older adults in a trail of incomprehensible slang
- [The Fuss about Kemi Badenoch](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-fuss-about-kemi-badenoch) - "Some have compared her with Trump, which is nonsense. The only way she resembles Trump is in her plain speaking, which is a rare quality in politics. Comparing Badenoch to Trump for depth, intellect, or character is a disservice to demagoguery for which Trump has no equal"
- [The Trouble with Giving to Caesar](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-trouble-with-giving-to-caesar) - Governors are concerned that the reform may not energise people and enable investment. Manufacturers also have these concerns, including the potential inflationary impact of an incremental hike in the VAT rate from the current 7.5 percent to 15 percent in six years. They worry that it does not address the economic realities of the different regions, may worsen existing inequalities, and may not benefit local economies. I have a slightly different concern. Centralising VAT and tax collection despite genuine concerns about a poor federal structure is ill-advised
- [Is AI Coming for the Journalist?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/is-ai-coming-for-the-journalist) - With improvements in infotech and biotech, it seems that what AI can not do does not exist... Journalists, for example, used to think of themselves as the masters of storytelling in a hurry and God’s gift to the world as gatekeepers. We’re humbler now
- [Unusual Reasons Africa Wanted Trump to Win](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/unusual-reasons-africa-wanted-trump-to-win) - Trump 2.0 will do at least two things for the world. It would further hasten the internal decay of the US by aggravating racial tensions and emboldening right-wing excesses. Two, Trump’s America First ultra- insularity and his off-the-fly foreign policy style will distance the US from its traditional allies and enable crazies around the world, like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to run amok. This sounds more like saying that if US voters were happy to be seduced by their worst selves, they deserve what they get.
- [Tight Race: Letter from Abroad to Michelle Obama](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/tight-race-letter-from-abroad-to-michelle-obama) - An inconvenient point, dear former First Lady, is that Kamala Harris is part-paying a backlash from Barack Obama’s era that your husband didn’t do enough for people of colour, especially blacks. This is a race of margins, and despite his charm and eloquence, your husband and former president has struggled to convince black male voters that Harris will serve them well
- [NNPC v Dangote: Where the Truth Lies](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/nnpc-v-dangote-where-the-truth-lies) - None of these charges is as unkind as those of Ahmed, who, if shame still means anything, should not have uttered the first letter of the “S-word,” never mind the phrase “Sulphur levels.” I’m not sure he can find his way to a viable lab owned by NMDPRA or NNPC because there isn’t one. The regulators rely on third-party labs in Lagos, such as GMO, Sewort, SGS, and others, to vet its imported petroleum products
- [Nigeria: Three Stories, One Message](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/nigeria-three-stories-one-message) - Twelve years after Mambilla was supposed to have been completed with all its transformative promises in power, rail, roads, infrastructure, and jobs (not to mention the missing N30 billion Obasanjo left in the project account), we’re still in a rut, stewing deeper and deeper in the misery of rolling blackouts and collapsing grids
- [Does it Still Make Sense to Trust Tinubu?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/does-it-still-make-sense-to-trust-tinubu) - I wouldn’t write off the government, however tempting. If Tinubu’s shock therapy has been disjointed, and his economic policies severely criticised by a despairing public, the tax-and-spend remedy by The Financial Times, the West’s standard response to budget deficits – apart from the added trope about transparency and corruption – is hardly the cure in Nigeria’s case for at least two reasons
- [How Africa is Paying for Pursuit of the Last Hamas](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/how-africa-is-paying-for-pursuit-of-the-last-hamas) - Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy and its most populous, has offered a muted, somewhat confused response to the Israeli-Hamas war. The official line, worn for use after decades of lip service and repeated at this year’s UNGA, is a two-state solution. That’s also the official position of the African Union (AU). However, the precarious, almost 50-50 Muslim-Christian population leaves the Nigerian government walking on eggshells in Israeli-Palestinian matters
- [LEADERSHIP: A Story Still Telling 20 Years After](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/leadership-a-story-still-telling-20-years-after) - Many [such] newspapers are harmless because they do not know how or when to strike. They are in themselves unloaded guns. But teach the man behind them how to load and what to shoot at; they become deadly
- [Home Run for Oshiomhole](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/home-run-for-oshiomhole) - In case you missed it, Senator Babafemi Ojudu shared a viral message last week: Asue Ighodalo was a member of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu transition committee after he was elected Lagos State governor in 1999. In another life, Ighodalo, a dyed-in-the-wool Lagos Boy, might have been on Tinubu’s side, as Obaseki once was. What politics can not divide does not exist
- [Edo Polls and the Famous Product Vendor](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/edo-polls-and-the-famous-product-vend) - I guess that Obaseki’s style – not to mention his take-no-prisoner politics, a bad habit he may have inherited from his estranged promoter, Oshiomhole – may have further alienated him and reduced the chances of his candidate, Ighodalo, making significant inroads in the North. Prominent people in PDP who sheltered Obaseki from vagrancy in 2020 against whom he turned his back are waiting to take revenge. Will it be the triumph or perhaps the redemption of the product vendor? Will President Bola Ahmed Tinubu get his vindication four years after Obaseki’s campaign mocked him with, “Edo no bi Lagos?” Or will this be Obaseki’s chance to affirm himself as the new political force in Edo and shut down the production factory of the decorated lousy product vendor once and for all?
- [Ghost of the Witchfinder General](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ghost-of-the-witchfinder-general) - It's not the business of police officers, the state security service or special advisers to run the government. That’s not their job. They cannot abridge the people’s freedoms in a quest for ascendancy. Those who breach the law in exercising their liberty should not face the justice that reminds us of Hopkins’ England but a process consistent with modern progressive society, one that Tinubu was voted to uphold.
- [The Journey to Yenagoa, After 19 Years](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-journey-to-yenagoa-after-19-years) - I didn’t plan to go there. And as if to validate my lethargy, days before this visit, there was something in the news that Bayelsa was the leading state in the prevalence of monkeypox. I kept the news to myself to save my family from panic. It was now looking like a suicide mission
- [The Trouble with Tinubu](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-trouble-with-tinubu) - His government's two most consequential decisions – announcing the removal of petrol subsidy and attempting to create a more transparent exchange rate system – touched a raw nerve. The biggest beneficiaries, primarily wealthy, powerful, and deadly people across the country, but particularly in the North, are determined to fight his government to a standstill
- [The Price We Pay When Legislators Die](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-price-we-pay-when-legislators-die) - I have only anecdotal evidence to support my theory, but the trend elsewhere does not support the view that the deaths of our lawmakers in office are the outcome of spiritual warfare. If religion or culture plays any role at all, it reinforces conditions that not only potentially increase the chances of early deaths but also increase the casualties among the affected population
- [In This Difficult Marriage, Democrats Must Love Biden](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/in-this-difficult-marriage-democrats-must-love-biden) - Teflon Trump thrives in scandals. Today’s Feeble Joe is not the same Biden who faced Trump four years ago and got away by the skin of his teeth. While he is weaker, frailer and poorer even at sharing his accomplishments in the last four years, his opponent, Trump, has been emboldened by his worst excesses. The race for the US presidency is a match-up between horror and uncertainty
- [Olatunji Dare: To Repay is To Owe More](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/olatunji-dare-to-repay-is-to-owe-more) - I still remember Dare refusing to mark our scripts once, and when we pressed him, he responded that the copies were so bad he would have shortened his life by at least 10 years if he read them all!
- [Rishi Sunak’s Next Life](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/rishi-sunaks-next-life) - When it was time to replace Boris Johnson, the country that copied Piper’s art from Egypt and popularised it didn’t need anyone to tell the Tory party that handing over the keys of Number 10 to Sunak could signal the echo of an unfamiliar tune. They kicked the idea of having Piper Sunak further down the road. Instead, they settled for Liz Truss, a former rebel and basher of the Crown, but a Brit, through and through, to lead the party. Truss didn’t last; her incompetence threatened to bring Britain to its knees. The Tories soon got rid of her, but apart from further endangering the British economy, her brief reign had also emboldened the Labour Party. Keir Starmer, Labour leader and the next British Prime Minister, is a gift to Britain from Tory hubris
- [The Book After Trial of Nuhu Ribadu](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-book-after-trial-of-nuhu-ribadu) - Azu’s new book, Writing for Media and Monetising It, is an idea whose time has come. No other person is more suited to write this book than Azu, a media management guru, content producer, and columnist who has made his mark nationally and internationally
- [Writing for Media and Monetising It: An entrepreneur's perspective](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/writing-for-media-and-monetising-it-an-entrepreneurs-perspective) - Azu’s new book, Writing for Media and Monetising It, is an idea whose time has come. No other person is more suited to write this book than Azu, a media management guru, content producer, and columnist who has made his mark nationally and internationally
- [A Reckoning in June](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-reckoning-in-june) - We don’t need foreign newspapers to tell us. The daily lives of most Nigerians today, whether at home, school, work, or in the market, tell the story unedited. And folks are beginning to ask, first in whispers and now in louder, angrier tones, what is the point of democracy that does not put food on the table?
- [Why Minimum Wage Is a Bad Idea](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-minimum-wage-is-a-bad-idea) - The argument for minimum wage is that if some folks, especially politicians, have assumed the prerogative of helping themselves to the treasury by ingenious means, what is sauce for the goose must also be sauce for the miserably impoverished gander. Yet, a minimum wage is one slippery slope guaranteed to take the gander from economic misery to wretchedness. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell makes the point very clear, and the lives of those who might disagree will bear out the evidence.
- [The Pathologies of a Throne](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-pathologies-of-a-throne) - Sanusi and Bayero fancy themselves as the centre of the drama. They’re not. Both men and their supporters are grist in a huge and complex power mill grinding through the heart of the politics of 2027 and beyond in the North. Whoever wins now will still yield the throne to pay a future debt
- [One Year of Tinubu](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/one-year-of-tinubu) - The rot was deep. But the treatment – the radical attempts to scrap market curbs and tighten fiscal and monetary controls – appears, for now, worse than the disease, leaving large sections of the population struggling and impoverished
- [Who Does America Listen To?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/who-does-america-listen-to) - No one is sure how many more dead would be counted before Netanyahu finds the last Hamas, but is there still a chance – just one chance – that the dog in this deadly hunt will hear the hunter’s restraining whistle? Is the US unable or unwilling or both unable and unwilling to call Netanyahu to stop?
- [Thrills, Joys and Surprises of Selling](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/thrills-joys-and-surprises-of-selling) - Kelly’s principle of 1,000 true fans says that a true fan is someone who will buy anything and everything you produce. This rule of true fans says that to be a successful creator, you don’t need millions. Not millions of dollars or millions of clients or millions of customers. If you’re happy to make a living, and not a fortune, you need just 1k true fans who will climb any mountain, cross any river, and jump any hurdle to buy a minimum quantity of what you have produced over a period of time
- [What’s in a Book? You’ll Never Know, Until…](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/whats-in-a-book-youll-never-know-until) - You don’t know I’m called Daddy DJ?” he joked in response to my puzzled look. Sam Amuka, I know. Uncle Sam, I know. Who doesn’t? He is the Jimmy Breslin of Nigeria’s journalism. Writing about Breslin, who died seven years ago at 88, Tom Wolfe described him as, “The greatest columnist of my era.” And that, from Wolfe, a master of the craft in his own right, says a lot.
- [Musings on Parties in Turmoil](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/musings-on-parties-in-turmoil) - To be fair, Abubakar has paid his dues. He has done so with the generosity of a rolling stone, gathering moss from PDP to the Action Congress of Nigeria (AC), then to n-PDP, and from there to APC, and back again to PDP. At each point, never failing to leave a mark in pursuit of the prophecy of a marabout about 26 years ago that he would one day become Nigeria’s president
- [Faye and France: The Tyre Meets the Road](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/faye-and-france-the-tyre-meets-the-road) - From Mali to Burkina Faso and from Guinea to Niger, France has become a dirty word, even though the elite in these countries are too ashamed to admit there’s nothing France has done without their helping hand. France is not just a metaphor for underdevelopment. You’ll be forgiven to think it’s probably also the reason some formerly virile folks in the former colonies have lost their libido. It’s not a laughing matter
- [Jonathan and Sam: Two Books, One Message](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/jonathan-and-sam-two-books-one-message) - The bulk of the entries however centres on the Atiku Syndrome, a condition that makes the sufferer utterly unable to see or seize an opportunity even if beaten on the head with it…
- [Is a Third World War Coming?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/is-a-third-world-war-coming) - It may be convenient to dismiss concerns about a possible outbreak of a Third World War as far-fetched, and perhaps even childish. Yet, remembering a few of the things that led to two world wars might help us not to take too much for granted
- [The Okuama Dead: Story Behind the Grief](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-okuama-dead-story-behind-the-grief) - Oil money, mixed with militancy and violent local politics in the area, has created and nurtured private armies with money, weapons, and political clout comparable to rogue states... But politicians don’t mind. In their desperate search for solutions to the problem of oil theft and also to consolidate their political hold, they have indulged the private armies. Officers deployed in the area are left to invent their own ways of serving two masters – the state and the communities on the one hand and the powerful private armies on the other
- [Photoshopping Princess and The Perils of Manipulation](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/photoshopping-princess-and-the-perils-of-manipulation) - What’s the point of it, really? Since the outbreak of the so-called Kate pic scandal, I have been brooding over images that I see very often as DPs and also on WhatsApp Status. I’m keeping myself to that microblogging site and the mainstream press. No need to bother with Insta, probably the worst photographic crime scene since Joseph Niepce invented the camera
- [Will the Humble Pie Heal ECOWAS?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/will-the-humble-pie-heal-ecowas) - If the Afrobeat icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, had rendered a welcome tune for the embattled regional leaders as they met in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, it would have been his famous “Confusion Break Bone (CBB).” Misery never had a better company than the current state of affairs in the 50-year-old regional body, which apart from SADC, was perhaps Africa’s most exemplary model of regional co-operation
- [Rolling Blackouts, Heatwave and Tales from Dead Bulbs](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/rolling-blackouts-heatwave-and-tales-from-dead-bulbs) - One day in the last week of February, for example, the light went off and came back, surging each time at different frequencies, four times in less than 10 minutes. It was as if someone somewhere was testing the supply or that in my confused state, I never quite saw the light come on before it went off again. That was late evening, after work. I’m not counting how many other times this erratic supply may have occurred after I went to bed that night. But the evidence was waiting the next day
- [The Famished Road to Kuriga](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-famished-road-to-kuriga) - Politicians who shed crocodile tears for a living visit crime scenes like Kuriga twice in their lifetime. They visit unfailingly during election campaigns and then grudgingly – more for the camera – at a time of grief, like this. Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, for example, was in Kuriga on Thursday, shortly after the students were kidnapped... It was as if was going to a war front
- [APC Digging Its Own Grave in Edo](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/apc-digging-its-own-grave-in-edo) - The result of the party’s “inconclusive” primaries on Saturday showed that the surprise came early. From reports, Oshiomhole, APC’s certified nemesis in Edo, managed to suborn forces in the Presidency to hand over the party’s flag to Dennis Idahosa – a candidate that Oshiomhole’s government had once described as “untrustworthy,” the most flattering of the government’s description at that time.
- [Cost of living crisis: A personal story](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/cost-of-living-crisis-a-personal-story) - Portion control was a frequent point of argument in my house. It’s a problem with men, of course, but it’s worse with African women brought up to believe that the proof of spousal care is in the size of the husband’s weight, measured by the amount of food on his plate. It's considered taboo in many places, especially in the South of Nigeria, for example, for a man’s plate of soup to have only one piece of meat or fish. Or for his dough, famously called swallow, to appear miserly...the cost of living crisis is finally driving the point home!
- [Sall Taking ECOWAS from Frying Pan to Fire](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/sall-taking-ecowas-from-frying-pan-to-fire) - A politically unstable Senegal is the last thing that the community needs at this time. Of course, it’s unlikely that the situation in Senegal will feature at the ECOWAS meeting, where an allegiance of hypocrisy, elegantly called the principle of “non-interference”, forbids members from telling one another the truth...Tinubu, who promised to promote a coup-free region when he assumed office as chair of ECOWAS last year, cannot afford another country added to the regional coup belt. He needs to pull Sall’s ear, behind closed doors, and ask him to stop playing games
- [Reflections on Adesina’s Work with Buhari](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/reflections-on-adesinas-work-with-buhari) - If military victory alone could guarantee peace, we might not have had the Second World War. The unfair terms of the Treaty of Versailles, for example, which included territorial annexation, demilitarisation and heavy war reparations, pushed Germany to the brink. It created conditions that led to the rise of Hitler. In its blind and desperate pursuit of the last “aggressive German” in particular, for example, the Allied forces sowed the seed that led to the rise of exactly what they hated the most: the Weimar Republic, and finally, Nazi Germany
- [ECOWAS: Is This the Beginning of The End?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ecowas-is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end) - But how far can they go? As far as they believe, they can continue to exploit the obvious indecision of regional leaders, the most distracted of which is Nigeria. The last time a member country – Mauritania – left (although for different reasons), the regional group ECOWAS was in a much stronger, more united place. It’s now a shambles of its old self
- [Miyetti Allah Vigilante Mocks Elite Hypocrisy](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/miyetti-allah-vigilante-mocks-elite-hypocrisy) - It would be a mistake to think that this once mostly feared and despised association of herdsmen and the police are in bed after only one evening of flirting. Of course, Miyetti Allah may have been motivated more by group self-interest, relevance, and survival. But the dalliance with the police, the indifference of the main press, and the muted public response are not an accident
- [The Road to Thanksgiving](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-road-to-thanksgiving) - Jurisprudential jiggery pokery has a very long history in Nigeria, even though it wasn’t always rampant or brazen. It was with a heavy, tormented heart, for example, that Justice Fatai Atanda-Williams said the judgment of the Supreme Court in the famous case of Awolowo v Shagari in 1979 was never to be cited as precedent. Today, the Supreme Court has made so many conflicting and confusing judgments that even if it were to make exemptions it would find itself too entangled in the knot of its own self-inflicted misery to know where or how to start
- [In Pursuit of the Last Hamas](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/in-pursuit-of-the-last-hamas) - If military victory alone could guarantee peace, we might not have had the Second World War. The unfair terms of the Treaty of Versailles, for example, which included territorial annexation, demilitarisation and heavy war reparations, pushed Germany to the brink. It created conditions that led to the rise of Hitler. In its blind and desperate pursuit of the last “aggressive German” in particular, for example, the Allied forces sowed the seed that led to the rise of exactly what they hated the most: the Weimar Republic, and finally, Nazi Germany
- [What You Might Expect in 2024](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-you-might-expect-in-2024) - In 2023, we had four years’ worth of politics in one year. Apart from a number of senior lawyers in particular who also made four years’ worth of money in one year, swathes of the political elite are broke, exhausted, and stranded. In 2024, they would be desperate for rehabilitation. Otherwise, their teeming supporters will dissipate, and their misery will be complete. Before June, some top politicians who had been discreetly reaching out to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for favours, would be obliged to take their fate in their own hands and pursue their ambition more openly and less shamelessly. By the end of the year, the scramble for presidential favours would leave an already fragmented opposition in a shambles
- [Kwankwaso After the Supreme Court](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/kwankwaso-after-the-supreme-court) - Gawuna’s backers appear to have gone even one step further to secure their current juridical advantage. On the state’s Wikipedia page, for example, some folks terminated the tenure of Yusuf in November when the Court of Appeal gave its ruling. Gawuna is described on that page as “incumbent governor” from November!
- [The Trials of Nyesom Wike](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-trials-of-nyesom-wike) - Happening on Wike’s 56th birthday, it was the most unlikely birthday present from the government of Siminalayi Fubara...If Wike was good enough to carry the governor through the dark, difficult days of their trials together when some of the governor’s ardent supporters today didn’t know him from Adam, the governor should be the last person to hang his benefactor out to dry so quickly
- [Ondo Back Story Imitates Insanity](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ondo-back-story-imitates-insanity) - The Akeredolus, still smarting from that defeat, are now also trying to get used to the fact that their man, Aiyedatiwa, is in bed with their foe, Uzodimma. Yet, if a politician sleeps with three women in one day, you can only thank God it was not four
- [Weah’s New Jersey for A Troubled Continent](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/weahs-new-jersey-for-a-troubled-continent) - Weah was determined to launch an earlier presidential bid that may have disrupted Johnson’s presidency. Regional leaders fearing Liberia’s fragile state prevailed on him to wait. After watching bands of mostly jobless and potentially vulnerable rural youths fall under the spell of Weah’s star power, Nigeria’s president at the time, Olusegun Obasanjo, advised the former World Footballer of the Year to suspend his ambition and return to school
- [Letter to Rich Nigerians: Why the Poor Are Mad](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/letter-to-rich-nigerians-why-the-poor-are-mad) - Multiple sources told me, confidentially, that what a number of state governors did after 36 of them received N2billion each, as the first tranche of the N5billion palliatives fund from Abuja, was to raid the black market. They converted significant portions of what they received into dollars, giving palliatives engineering a new currency
- [Can We Survive The “Attack” of Big Tech?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/can-we-survive-the-attack-of-big-tech) - Not all the challenges summarised by AI were brought upon the traditional media by big tech. Nor are we here solely because of Google’s malicious fiddling with its algo. We in the traditional media space share in the blame for what took our industry from distress to life support
- [Small Chance for INEC to Save Itself in A Big Way](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/small-chance-for-inec-to-save-itself-in-a-big-way) - No one wants to hear about glitches, attempted hacking, failing batteries, or poor networks. The bulk of the complaints in the last general elections, which later became the subject of litigation, have been about INEC’s competence, credibility, and the transparency of the process
- [Atiku, Obi and the Road to Kilimanjaro](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/atiku-obi-and-the-road-to-kilimanjaro) - On a good day, it’s improbable that any of Abubakar’s or Obi’s lawyers would say, with a straight face, that they believe that the constitution created Abuja as an enclave of super voters. Even for a constitution widely criticised for its clutter, it would be taking a malicious lack of clarity too far to suggest that the writers meant that Abuja voters were greater than the rest of us. Not even in the US, famous for its 'federational' oddities, does the capital, Washington DC, hold an electoral veto vote over the other states. In fact, the whole point of the Electoral College is to equalise the states. Nigerian courts have also made this point repeatedly. But obviously, the election petition industry will stop at nothing to reinvent its growth, expansion, and prosperity
- [Gumi’s Extremism Shames Decency](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/gumis-extremism-shames-decency) - His most deadly venom was not for Wike. It was for Tinubu, the enabler of the “Satan” called Wike, and the hundreds of smaller Southern devils of all faiths roaming the woods of the country in a murderous rampage since 1966 but who have resurged with Tinubu’s election, holding the trigger. Their poor, dispossessed Northern compatriots are left to occupy empty shells as offices. This translation is a mild version of what Gumi said
- [Making of A Better Society](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/making-of-a-better-society) - Perhaps it would be useful to talk briefly, at this point, on the use of language. In my experience, apart from their general staleness and lack of authority, one of the other reasons why a number of readers tend to ignore editorials is the use of ponderous language, like the one I have just used – ponderous!
- [Bring Bibi’s Head](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/bring-bibis-head) - Perhaps he might never have been prime minister or he might have been a different one if his brother, Yonathan, had not been brutally killed in 1976 in Entebbe when Yonathan led Israeli special forces to rescue mostly Jewish passengers who were taken hostage and their plane hijacked to Uganda by Arab terrorists. Bibi was only 27-years-old then
- [Are You in That Number Saved by Uzodimma?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/are-you-in-that-number-saved-by-uzodimma) - After listening to Uzodimma’s extraordinary redemption plan for Imo youths, his opponents should humble themselves and take remedial classes from this man who has been a consummate snake oil salesman long before Imo River
- [Begging for a seat at the table](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/begging-for-a-seat-at-the-table) - Nigeria is not even among the eight countries currently participating in AfCFTA’s Guided Trade Initiative (GTI), a platform that is supposed to boost the region’s trade policy framework. How can Nigeria, which ought to be in the forefront of turning this state of affairs around, but which is sadly one of the laggards in AfCFTA commitments, covet a table at the G-20? And on what terms when, like most of the continent, Nigeria is still largely a market for primary commodities with the inherent disadvantages?
- [A School Crime Scene That Won’t Go Away](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-school-crime-scene-that-wont-go-away) - As Keren-happuch’s mother’s story goes, the night after she took her daughter home, the girl became gravely ill. She had to be taken to Queen’s Clinic, Area 6, Abuja, where urine and virginal swap tests had allegedly revealed dead spermatozoa, apart from a piece of festering condom also removed from her inside. When her personal effects were retrieved from Premiere Academy, she had marked a place in her Bible, “What I always feared has happened to me (Job 3:25).”
- [To solve a problem like Wike, fix Atiku](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/to-solve-a-problem-like-wike-fix-atiku) - I’m not sure Atiku Abubakar expected this amount of pushback when he chose Okowa over Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike. But just as it is with the ruling APC too...
- [This thing called ageing](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/this-thing-called-ageing) - The cold blast of the air conditioner from the room hit me by surprise as I opened the door. I wasn’t expecting a draught from inside at eight on a damp morning. .
- [Follow me to the market](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/follow-me-to-the-market) - Everyone has their meal of the day, and mine happens to be dinner. Having dinner, for me, is a ritual, but one that has evolved over the years.
- [Lessons About Change from Ruto’s Playbook](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/lessons-about-change-from-rutos-playbook) - In six African countries, the heads of government have been in power for 20 years or more.
- [How Meghan, the Witch of Windsor, Killed the Queen](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/how-meghan-the-witch-of-windsor-killed-the-queen) - If large sections of the British press needed any proof that Meghan killed the Queen her Saturday visit to Windsor confirmed it.
- [Do campaigns have to be bloody to win?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/do-campaigns-have-to-be-bloody-to-win) - The stakes to play for are not only high, they are dangerously seductive for two contenders - the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the PDP candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar - two deep pockets who may well be taking their last shot at the nation’s top job.
- [Anatomy of Wike’s endgame](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/anatomy-of-wikes-endgame) - When the row between Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, and his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), spilled onto the streets after the party’s presidential primaries...
- [Why is Africa playing with fire?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-is-africa-playing-with-fire) - There is fire in Ouagadougou. And who’s to say where it’s catching next? For the second time in eight months, the military in Burkina Faso struck in a palace coup that removed military leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
- [Pathetic Stories Washed Up by Floods](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/pathetic-stories-washed-up-by-floods) - Back in the day, weather forecasts were a joke. And I mean literally. The weather forecast segment which used to come at the end of the news bulletin on Nigeria’s national broadcaster, NTA, was the butt of cruel jokes amongst folks.
- [A professor’s pay-slip and lessons from ASUU strike](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-professors-pay-slip-and-lessons-from-asuu-strike) - After eight months’ strike, one of the longest in the country’s history, university teachers finally returned, at gunpoint, to the classrooms on Monday.
- [Briturkey, Britaly and fear of Britainistan](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/briturkey-britaly-and-fear-of-britainistan) - In a widely shared story last week, The Economist likened the political carnage in Britain to the situation in Italy in the 1940s. Italy was a major theatre of the First World War at the end of which the country was in ruins.
- [In search of vaccine for toxic marriages](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/in-search-of-vaccine-for-toxic-marriages) - But the news of the ordeal of two-month-old Miracle Chikwe at the hands of his father in Owerri, Imo State, takes the flood of bad news to the realm of an epidemic. We need to find a moral vaccine — and urgently too.
- [Will Ghanaian President Survive This Storm?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/will-ghanaian-president-survive-this-storm) - Not so long ago, he was the poster boy of what looked like an African renaissance. Ghana’s President Akufo-Addo didn’t only know what to say, he also knew when and how. I still remember 2018. Barely one year after Akufo-Addo was inaugurated, he was on the big stage.
- [In Love, As in Football, Size Does Not Matter. Here’s Why](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/in-love-as-in-football-size-does-not-matter) - It’s a great time to be a football lover. It might not feel exactly so if your country is not one of the 32 taking part in the 22nd edition of the World Cup in Doha, Qatar. But being a fan means managing to love the game without having your dog in the fight.
- [The letter, the spirit, and "The Letterman"](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-letter-the-spirit-and-the-letterman) - Until I read The Letterman, I wasn’t quite sure who the real letterman was — whether it was Mojeed, a journalist with well over two and a half decades of extraordinary variety of stories — or Obasanjo whom most might be forgiven to think used Babangida as first target-practice at letter-writing.
- [LEADERSHIP Editor-In-Chief, Azu, Wins Columnist of the Year Award](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/leadership-editor-in-chief-azu-wins-columnist-of-the-year-award) - Senior Vice Chairman/Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP, Mr. Azu Ishiekwene, has won the Columnist of the Year Award in the 30th edition of the Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA) 2022, held in Lagos on Sunday.
- [A letter to Sam](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-letter-to-sam) - It was about this time eight years ago, wasn’t it? I’m talking of course of when you took what was perhaps the most audacious, some may even say, most controversial political decision of your career at the time to run for the Presidency.
- [Amidst chaos, 13-year-old boy vows to rebuild broken bridge of hope](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/amidst-chaos-13-year-old-boy-vows-to-rebuild-broken-bridge-of-hope) - At an age when his mates are dodging bullets and running scared with nothing on their backs in the midst of the chaos that Borno, a Boko Haram hotbed in Nigeria’s North East has been for nearly two decades, Musa is building things, literally, with his bare hands.
- [Western hypocrisy loses in epic Qatar match](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/western-hypocrisy-loses-in-epic-qatar-match) - Hypocrisy is a flaw embedded not just in the West’s historical relationship of exploitation, slavery and a sense of entitlement, it remains the hallmark of a number of its current engagements with other parts of the world, especially Africa and the Arab world. Yet, a number of fairly recent sporting and social events organised in a number of Western countries bear the same marks of abuses and significant social displacements, over which Qatar was threatened at gunpoint, but which the western press was very pleased to turn a blind eye in its own backyard
- [What you might expect in 2023](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-you-might-expect-in-2023) - "Perhaps the biggest electoral blow to the PDP in the South-South will come from Rivers State, the largest PDP vote bank in the region, second in the entire South to Oyo. I forecast, based on what I have heard, that whereas there are less than five billboards of any presidential candidate in main town Port Harcourt as of today, before the end of January, Wike, the most influential of the G-5 governors, will openly declare his support for Tinubu"
- [The Trouble with Obasanjo’s Wish](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-trouble-with-obasanjos-wish) - "It’s a measure of the complexity of the animal called man, that PDP, the party where Obasanjo was alpha and omega for eight years, was – and apparently remains – unable to provide a pathway for Igbo presidency. APC, the Siamese of the PDP, has fared even worse. Ironically, it is the Labour Party, the child of political necessity whose roots and forebears Obasanjo sought to crush, that has produced the cornerstone of his newfound affection"
- [Why they shoot friends and spare the enemy](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-they-shoot-friends-and-spare-the-enemy) - "A senior advocate of Nigeria, Olumide Yinka-Fusika, on a live TV programme was obliged to recommend the outsourcing of the force. While that may sound extreme, only few would argue that the quality and structure of the force is serving anyone other than a privileged few who pay for special police protection and their bosses who profit not just from this elite indulgence but also from other sordid purposes in which they deploy policemen"
- [Why We Love Expensive Rituals](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-we-love-expensive-rituals) - Asking politicians to legislate campaign manifesto is like proposing to prosecute the goat for the yam kept in its care. It’s never going to work. The good news though, is that as a result of improved demand on service delivery by citizens and other stakeholders, governments in a few states are making conscious efforts to create self-tracking mechanisms, which include monitoring and evaluation units
- [A leader like Jacinda Ardern](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-leader-like-jacinda-ardern) - I’m leaving because with such a privileged role comes responsibility – the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple
- [Musings After 48 Hours with Raila Odinga](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/musings-after-48-hours-with-raila-odinga) - Speaking off tempore, Mutua hammered the Kenyan Supreme Court for obstructing access to vital evidence and for its complicity in perverting the course of justice. It’s only a matter of time, he said, before the shenanigans would unravel. As Mutua said that the hall erupted in applause and I spotted Odinga smiling.
- [Looking back, facing forward as Nigeria decides](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/looking-back-facing-forward-as-nigeria-decides) - New problems have replaced old ones. The most debilitating being the calamitous absence of Buhari. Never a man to interfere with his subordinates once he has appointed them, in his last days in office, things have gotten worse. He is present only in name, going from delegation of authority to spectatorship and from spectatorship to surrender. Abdication next? The cat is away and the mice party was never so boisterous
- [What Really Matters to Obasanjo](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-really-matters-to-obasanjo) - I’m bereft that the irony of Obasanjo’s demand was lost on him. How the man whose government committed one of the worst electoral heists in Nigeria in 2007 has the audacity to demand stoppage of election results, mid-count, on the grounds of a suspicion, defies belief. But Obasanjo is apparently too fortified and absorbed in a public life of hypocrisy to care much about irony, that quality of existence without which tragedy becomes blatant
- [Osinbajo: A Leader for All Seasons](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/osinbajo-a-leader-for-all-seasons) - I strayed into one of Osinbajo’s classes in what can only be described as ambulatory trespass. I was struck by his charm, ease of delivery and how his students connected with him. I thought to myself as I snuck out, with a lecturer like this, perhaps I should have studied law? I never returned to his class but that encounter stayed with me
- [INEC Server and Other Election Day Stories](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/inec-server-and-other-election-day-stories) - One unintended consequence of the prolonged grieving is further loss of faith among voters who braved the odds to vote on February 25. This is the last thing the opposition needs at a moment of promise and significant electoral gains. Voters have sacrificed a lot for this moment and it would be a shame if politicians mismanage it
- [Louis Odion: The Matter of ‘Capacity’](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/louis-odion-the-matter-of-capacity) - This fearless quality of attacking injustice or hubris which he showed early in his career remains the hallmark of his journalism. We sometimes joke that it is a carry-over from his unfinished career as an amateur boxer. Anyone who knows Capacity knows he doesn’t choose his battles carelessly. He is a fighter you would rather have in your corner
- [A British Example in Our Rascally Times](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/africa-why-does-burna-boy-rock-more-than-nigerias-elections) - I took particular interest in four anglophone countries with a fairly vibrant and robust tradition of press freedom and randomly browsed coverage, just before, during and after the polls, to see if I would be disappointed. I wasn’t. Not by Ghana, Nigeria’s western neighbour, which has its own district and local elections later this year...The Editor of a major Ghanaian newspaper, The Chronicle , Emmanuel Akli, explained why: 'The Ghanaian economy is in a very bad shape,' he said. 'The press is struggling. Readership is very low. Advertising is even worse. We are all struggling, and that includes Daily Graphic the biggest daily. We can’t even cover internal issues well, never mind sending reporters to cover elections in Nigeria!
- [A British Example in Our Rascally Times](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/a-british-example-in-our-rascally-times) - The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for example, campaigned in the South East that he deserved their vote because he has an Igbo wife. And then, to the embarrassment of his Igbo wife, he went to the North to say, “only a Northern president can best serve the interest of Northerners.” Others are on their own.
- [Why Trump’s Trial Doesn’t Make America Special](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-trumps-trial-doesnt-make-america-special) - It would have taken extraordinary nerve for the government under Buhari to formally bring charges against Abubakar, his main rival and leading opposition candidate on the eve of the elections. And even if Buhari’s government succeeded in doing so, it would have been interesting to hear what the US and other Western countries would have said...It is difficult to imagine that the prosecution would come up with this raft of charges against Trump – and press them in court now – if he was not interested in running again in the 2024 elections
- [Hadiza and the Toes of the Nigerian Big Man](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/hadiza-and-the-toes-of-the-nigerian-big-man) - As Hadiza would later find out, office politics for a political appointee could be more fierce, more complicated and often more vicious than electoral politics. And if you’re going to make too much noise about principles or patriotism, Hadiza wrote, you must be prepared to resign or have your head served on the platter of the big man
- [What Nigeria’s Election Cannot Teach Does Not Exist](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-nigerias-election-cannot-teach-does-not-exist) - In the last election, Buhari showed himself as the master of strategic ambivalence. He did not want Tinubu as his successor. Yet, in his valley of indecision, he knew that the surging wave would land the shore and was quite pleased, in spite of his misery, to go with the flow. It was not always like that
- [The Fowl of Mecca and Nigeria’s Census Palaver](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/the-fowl-of-mecca-and-nigerias-census-palaver) - 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
- [Dangote Refinery Challenges Global Narrative](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/dangote-refinery-challenges-global-narrative) - Aliko Dangote was dealt a bad hand in a failed transaction. Later, he vowed revenge. Not in a pound of flesh, but by venturing to make his own success where he had been ambushed. At issue was the decision of the government of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2007 to reverse the sale of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries (two of Nigeria’s moribund refineries) to Blue Star, the Dangote-led consortium. Blue Star had paid about $670 million for the plants in the twilight of the Obasanjo administration and gone away thinking it was a done deal. It wasn’t.
- [What Should Tinubu Do About the Assembly?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-should-tinubu-do-about-the-assembly) - 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
- [On Eve of Transition, Nigerian Chef Cooks Up A Storm](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/on-eve-of-transition-nigerian-chef-cooks-up-a-storm) - She was having weight problems and had undergone liposuction, a process which she later described as one of the darkest periods of her life. To come through that period and announce a plan to challenge the world’s record holder, a task that would test even the very fit seemed like a bridge too far. Yet, Hilda was willing to try
- [Tinubu Biting the Bullet from Day One](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/tinubu-biting-the-bullet-from-day-one) - 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.
- [What Does It Mean to Be A Father Today?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-father-today) - My father would not be surprised, for example, that I didn’t know his real age and never once asked him until he passed. Of course, I wrote 84 in his obit because I had to write something. I got that from asking several sources I thought would know. Not from him. For the over four decades that he lived and as far back as I can remember, I never could ask him his age. What it meant to be a father was for the son to stay in his place. Father’s authority was final, unquestionable. Mucking about asking him about his age would have been crossing a line
- [Plugging Gaps in The Students’ Loan Scheme](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/plugging-gaps-in-the-students-loan-scheme) - How can students’ loans be justified under this unsustainable cost structure? I think it can, but not at the scale contemplated by the new law. And certainly not within the existing structure of the public university system. With a few exceptions, the public university system is no longer fit for purpose. The system is retrograde, stifling, and underperforming
- [Buhari’s Legacy Puts Tinubu in Tight Spot](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/buharis-legacy-puts-tinubu-in-tight-spot) - 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
- [Titan and Migrants: Two Tragedies, Different Stories](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/titan-and-migrants-two-tragedies-different-stories) - From the way the networks covered the two accidents, you would be forgiven to think that they had weighed both and concluded that the lives of the 750 migrants mattered less, if they mattered at all. It was not an issue that the number of migrants who died in the Mediterranean on June 14 was over one-third of the fatality when RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912
- [Mmesoma: What really happened?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/mmesoma-what-really-happened) - Candidates get their results through one of two means: either by SMS or through the JAMB portal. The board has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that both methods are significantly secure. Of course, there are numerous fake sites offering everything from “upgrade” of JAMB scores to “self-service results,” complete with options for grades a la carte. I guess you would find similar Ochanja markets, even for politicians
- [Tinubu And Burden of Ministerial List](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/tinubu-and-burden-of-ministerial-list) - 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
- [Why Museveni Video Shames Africa](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/why-museveni-video-shames-africa) - 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.
- [Zik’s death story which turned out to be false, taught me a profound lesson —Azubuike Ishiekwene, ex-Punch Editor](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/ziks-death-story-which-turned-out-to-be-false-taught-me-a-profound-lesson-azubuike-ishiekwene-ex-punch-editor) - Ex-Punch Editor, Mr. Azubuike Ishiekwene relives some of his journalism experiences in this interview by SAM NWAOKO.
- [Does Social Media Affect Your Voting?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/does-social-media-affect-your-voting) - 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
- [Again, A Bizarre Joke in Niger Speaks French](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/again-a-bizarre-joke-in-niger-speaks-french) - 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
- [Tinubu’s List, Gbaja-nisation and Nigeria’s Politics](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/tinubus-list-gbaja-nisation-and-nigerias-politics) - 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
- [Engaging Nigerien Military President Is Like Having Sex with Someone You Hate](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/engaging-nigerien-military-president-is-like-having-sex-with-someone-you-hate) - 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
- [Gas Car Rigmarole, Questions Tinubu Can’t Ignore](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/gas-car-rigmarole-questions-tinubu-cant-ignore) - As surely as big money never fails to follow big talk in conspiracies that often end in heart-breaking scandals, the Central Bank offered N250 billion to “support” the NNPC’s gas car value chain. All of this was nearly three years ago. As you read this piece, no one is sure how many of the estimated 12million registered cars in Nigeria are gas-powered or how many of the estimated 6.7million of registered commercial vehicles out of the 12m are on gas...Was the CBN’s N250 billion gas value chain support fund disbursed? If so, how much and what is left of it? Who were the beneficiaries, and what have they done with the money? I tried in vain to get the answers. Perhaps the bank or the Ministry of Petroleum Resources can help
- [Saving Abuja from Wike, Really?](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/saving-abuja-from-wike-really) - Any revival plan by Wike that excludes the satellite towns where the bulk of Abuja’s population resides, and respect for the culture, landmarks and wellbeing of the indigenous people, will return to haunt the city. Abuja needs a minister who will save it from elite abuse. Or perhaps we hand it over as a zoo franchise to Walt Disney!
- [Obaseki and Shaibu Deserve Each Other](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/obaseki-and-shaibu-deserve-each-other) - Obaseki, the other significant party in this pathetic drama playing out in Edo, is a man of infinite contradictions, whose chameleonic gifts are matched only by his ruthless deployment of power. Against the run of fair play, Oshiomhole imposed him as his successor in 2016, in a self-aggrandising bid to copy the Tinubu-Fashola model in Lagos; he being the Tinubu of Edo, and Obaseki, the former stockbroker from Afrivest, Edo’s Fashola. The experiment turned out to be a catastrophic fiasco. Barely two years after take-off, the falcon began to defy the falconer, and the monster created in the process now threatens not only the creator but also the supplicant who has dared to challenge it
- [From the Mouth of His Lordship](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/from-the-mouth-of-his-lordship) - Akintan was assigned 52 petitions in Port Harcourt alone. On top of that, the President of the Court of Appeal told him he had to go to Jos for eight pending governorship election petitions, which the president of the court obviously needed a trustworthy judge to handle. To avoid contact with litigants and their lawyers, never mind the felicity of some determined folks even thinking of sending him Sallah ram directly or by proxy as we heard in a recent case in Kano, he moved his base from Port Harcourt to his home town, Idanre, Ondo State
- [Nigeria’s election and the pollster’s albatross](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/nigerias-election-and-the-pollsters-albatross) - In three of the six states where Stears said it obtained its booster samples — Lagos, Kwara, Rivers, Benue, Plateau and Kano, for example — only three Lagos, Plateau and Benue have a historically likely chance of fetching Obi more than 25 percent of the the votes cast. He will be lucky to get an average of 10 percent in the remaining three, where APC and PDP run a tight ship
- [America, watch your back!](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/america-watch-your-back) - A darling of the Christian right, he may as well have borrowed his moral compass from the Crusaders, an earlier generation of Christians, who lacked the grace to accommodate what they could not change, but did not lack the courage to undermine or destroy them.

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- [Books](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/books) - Books On the Road to 50 A Collection of Inside Stories Get the Book Gbenga Adefaye The Media Man @ 60 The philosophy behind the book is to change the narrative that it’s only when a man’s corpse is before us that we shower him with praises. That has to change. A man that is
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- [Volunteer Work](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/volunteer-work) - Volunteer Work Part-time Lecturer of Journalism Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos. Part-time Lecturer of Journalism Nigeria Institute of Journalism Member of Faculty School of Politics, Policy and Governance. Committee Member Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) OpenFees Chairman
- [Awards](https://www.azuishiekwene.com/awards) - Awards Babatunde Jose Prize for Journalism Best Graduating Student (1988) Dame Awards Informed Commentary (1993) Dame Awards Informed Commentary (2001) Dame Awards Informed Commentary (2004) Dame Awards Informed Commentary (2006) Dame Awards Editor of the Year(2006) Nigeria Media Merit Award Editor of the Year (2006) Dame Awards Informed Commentary (2008)

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