By Abdul Sule Last week or so, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi was in the news again. This time it was with utter shock that Nigerians greeted the return of the Sheikh to limelight after a seeming hiatus from the national scene. What was even more astounding was the relentless emotive absence with which he resurfaced from hibernation. Delightfully, he dared to lead in the negotiations he was hoping for, to facilitate the release of about 300 abductees, of whom over ninety percent were vulnerable Nigerian school children all between the ages 8-12. He based his critical argument around the notion that government is losing its war against the bandit abductors and, hence must dialogue them out of their hostilities. Gumi’s open reaffirmation of wanting to lead the negotiations while suggesting that such negotiations have become quite conventional evokes only nostalgic irritation. It sounded utterly abrasive yet again, coming from none other than himself, to say the least. This is because, in retrospe...
By Daniel Ojukwu Exactly seven days before the September 21 Edo State governorship election, Godwin Obaseki, the state’s then-governor, described the exercise as a ‘do-or-die affair’ with violence and manipulation in the offing. “This election is do or die; if they do, we will die. Next Saturday by this time, vote for the PDP [Peoples Democratic Party] to become the next governor,” he said during his party’s rally in the Ekemwan area of the state. As 17 political parties prepared for election day, over 35,000 policemen arrived in the state. Military personnel and officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) joined to boost security and help the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). When the exercise ended, Frank Mba, a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) charged with security during the election, said the conduct was peaceful and there were no incidents of violence or manipulation. But FIJ has...
Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe wrote this beautiful piece, read and learn. Lagos State belongs as much to the ethnic Igbo as to the Yoruba, Ijaw, Hausa, Fulani, Efik, Idoma, Urhobo, Itshekiri, Edo, and so on who live in it, pay tax, identify with it, and settle in it. That compact was made the moment Nigeria became a single nation, and a successor power to the old principalities who were subdued and who ceded their sovereignty for the new commonwealth of Nigeria. It was pragmatic. The Igbo had the skill and the industry, and Lagos was the seat of the Federal Government of Nigeria and its major port. The Igbo have lived in Lagos since the 15th century when the Aro and other Igbo first settled in good number in a place we now call “Oyingbo” in the era of Benin and the Portuguese trade. The arrival of Dr. Namdi Azikiwe to Lagos in 1937 from Accra after his studies in the United States, stimulated the political and cultural environment of Lagos as no other has before or after ...
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