When Henry Alfred Kissinger turned 100 on 27th May this year, I wrote this tribute in salute to a man who is undisputedly the greatest statesman and diplomatic centurion of the 20th and perhaps even the 21st century. I reproduce here a slightly amended version of that tribute as the world salutes...
CHIDI AMUTA On Sunday
After the first six months in office, the Bola Tinubu presidency has spent enough time to acquire a definable footprint and an evolving identity. It now has a character, style and flavor. There is no point rehashing what names people of the street have started calling the new...
The kingdom which is being referred to here is the Kingdom of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Every king enjoys preeminence in his Kingdom and he has the authority to establish a government or a rulership that portrays his vision and mission. Going straight to...
An academic colleague and close friend in an American university asked me to contribute some thoughts to a faculty discussion platform on the changing face of journalism especially as reflected in the interplay between legacy and social media as well as the interface between ‘fake news’ and factual...
As a political destination, Rivers State never ceases to excite and intrigue. It is capable of infinite political possibilities and great drama. In just one day this past week, the state gravitated from order to near anarchy and back into tenuous normalcy. Any one who has studied its political...
The subdued public anxiety over the final outcome of the 2023 presidential election petitions has ended. Predictably, the Supreme Court has acted faithful to what has become its extant tradition. It has done the obvious and predictable. It simply just turned its back on the minutiae of evidence and...
President Bola Tinubu is confronted with two identity fights united by politics. His political opponents have kept him busy with matters of personal identity and paper qualifications. Everything from his parentage, educational background, university records, work and career trajectory to his National Youth Service record is up for hostile...
Book Title: “The Price of Sonship” by Apostle Mercy Review by LINDA ASIMOLE ELLAH This Book – A Must-Read! Do you know that there is a school of God called the “Wilderness University”? The author wrote: “It is ironic to see men and women who...
On a number of occasions, I have felt the irresistible pull of homeland. Maybe it is the subliminal summons of my ancestors or the pull of my birth chord long buried beneath that immortal kola nut tree at the backyard of what used to be my mother’s hut. When...
My brother and friend, Kayode Komolafe (the man we all call KK) is an uncommon patriot. With an unassuming depth as a public intellectual, KK is equally disarming in his witty humour, a matter to which I shall return some day in the future. But he is unfailingly felicitous...
Ordinarily, it would be hazardous to judge the judgment of five eminent Federal judges over an issue as life threatening as the results of a Nigerian presidential election. Apex power is involved. Big money is at stake. Livelihoods are up on the hoist. The instruments of state and...
The immediate past president of Gabon, Mr. Ali Bongo Ondimbo, has joined the new crop of video -posting toppled rulers. The luxurious expanse of his gold plated presidential mansion in Libreville has shrunk into a tiny sitting space surrounded by book shelves and inconsequential furniture. From here, he has...
The APC was birthed out of Mr. Buhari’s resilient appetite for presidential power. Its victory in the 2015 presidential election satisfied that hunger and lavishly fed it for eight years. His victory then was a product of both his northern regional cultic followership and a nationwide rejection of...
On President Tinubu’s ministerial nomination list, I am surprised at our surprise. I am even more disappointed by our collective sense of disappointment. The note of public consternation is palpable and almost universal among Nigerians across all divides. Not only was the list late in submission, it was incomplete...
Very few presidents get the unhappy privilege of previewing the full gamut of worries that will torment their presidency all within their first 100 days. President Bola Tinubu is lucky to belong in this rare collection. In less than a hundred days in office, he has faced challenges in...
Nigeria’s immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, has a tragic sense of humour. His unrelenting indifference to the condition of the humanity of his compatriots often came out in the things he decided to make important or ignore. One of them is his kinship attachment to Niger Republic. In the...
Tomorrow, I shall be 70. I call it the 70th checkpoint. A friend calls it climbing to the 7th floor even though I do not know how many floors there are. It would be at exactly at 9 am tomorrow. It was at that hour on that rainy July...
The office of National Security Adviser in Nigeria has acquired a string of curious myths. Think of a public office somehow above open discussion by citizens except in whispers and hushed speculations. Imagine a department of state that can interfere in the affairs of other departments without much qualms...
In the dying months of the Buhari administration, an upsurge in terrorist activities in the Nigerian North East led to a resurgence of the debate as to whether Nigeria needed to engage foreign mercenaries in its war against jihadist terrorists in the country. The debate was not new. It...
President Bola Tinubu has displayed a commendable preparedness to be president. He has, in just one month, shown a keen familiarity with the current state of the nation. In line, he has made bold policy pronouncements indicating an unmistakable eagerness to be different from his tepid and clueless predecessor. Whether...