Columns

In the last three years, Babatunde Fashola has battled Nigeria’s eternal darkness with the doggedness that pushed back infrastructure decay in Lagos during his tenure as governor of Nigeria’s richest state. But the forces behind Nigeria’s eternal darkness are seemingly invincible. Power supply remains fitful and dubiously expensive. The minister of power, works and housing has not relented. Last week, Read More

  The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, has been in the eye of media storm in the past couple of weeks. The storm that is buffeting the honorable controller of the nation’s till has to do with the exemption certificate issued to her by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). It was an online medium, Premium Times, that raised Read More

Nigerians love football. The passion for the game is such that each time the Super Eagles play the atmosphere is always electrified and Nigeria supporters are one of the most adorable fans in the world. They drum, sing, dance and display such mien and flamboyance that even draw the opposing fans’ admiration. Whenever the national team plays, all the differences Read More

Once again Nigeria has broken world record for the wrong reasons. Africa’s largest economy has entered the Brookings Book of Poverty as the country with the highest number of extremely poor people. India had all along kept the record. And the reason is obvious. With a population of 1.299 billion and a jumbo growth rate, India is second only to Read More

If the educated citizen does not defend the pursuit of learning, it will not be defended at all. For there will always be those who scoff at intellectuals, who cry out against research, who seek to limit our educational system. Modern cynics and skeptics see no more reason for landing a man on the moon, which we shall do, than Read More

The unity, social cohesion and structural stability of the Nigerian federation are conditions precedent for its economic growth and development. There has to be a Nigerian nation before any form of progress can be achieved. Currently, Nigeria is a country of a collection of multi-ethnic micro nations whose localized interests are placed above that of the collective. The Nigerian populace Read More

The directors of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have a penchant for running Nigeria’s mega oil business like a small family business. No one outside the small cabal knows how much the business brings in daily. There was a time when the corporation would share the proceeds of crude oil sales among its cronies and chip whatever is left Read More

Curtains Raised… Girls with skimpy skirts dancing with the mammalians dangling to the rhythm but their faces bore no radiance. It was vintage Fela… Eh-ya! Everybody run run run Eh-ya! Everybody scatter scatter Eh-ya! Some people lost some bread Eh-ya! Someone nearly die Eh-ya! Someone just die Eh-ya! Police they come, army they come Eh-ya! Confusion everywhere Eh-ya! Seven minutes Read More

“May this mighty broom that we have become sweep aside that which needs to be swept aside so that all Nigerians may enter into their finest destiny with national pride and utmost dignity. We are ready. We are the APC. We are Nigeria”, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while addressing delegates at the Read More

The policemen did not attack the robbers People: No mind dem The policemen attacked the robbers People: Dem just wan kill themselves. I was watching some little kids play soccer. These kids were only five or six years old, but they were playing a real game – a serious game – two teams, complete with coaches, uniforms, and parents. I Read More

In the last few months, I have had to defend/explain our editorial decisions to someone in the industry that I respect tremendously; explanation engendered by what he called harsh headlines in Blueprint to castigate the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, his hero and idol. For man not used to questioning our editorial decisions/judgment, including casting of headlines, you’d wonder what Read More

Nigeria may gradually be returning to the days when agriculture was the fulcrum of the economy. Considerable strides are being made in key areas especially rice production. Audu Ogbeh, Nigeria’s minister of agriculture insists that rice imports have been reduced by 90 per cent. Ogbeh is so elated by increase in rice production that some months ago he talked his Read More

Unlike in 2015, no crystal ball gazers can say with precision how the next one year will be and what the next few months will unravel in Nigeria’s political space. By this time four year ago, things were already shaping up: the rebellion leading to the dumping of PDP by five governors, their friends in the Senate including the current Read More

Six months after it was submitted to the National Assembly, the 2018 Appropriation Bill finally lumbered out of the legislature with the expenditure raised by N508 billion. That raises the proposal from N8.612 trillion to N9.12 trillion. The Appropriation Bill holds the notorious record of spending the longest time in the legislature. With the bill now back to the presidency, Read More

We thought it was a dirty rumour. Apparently not. On May 22, President Muhammadu Buhari received the Buhari Support Organisation in Aso Rock. In the course of his address, the rumour became an unsettling fact. The president said that past administrations spent or wasted $16 billion on power between 1999 and 2014. Just like you and me, the president too Read More