Category: Opinion

Rt. Honorable Dr Baffa Baba Danagundi assumed duty as the new Director General, National Productivity Centre NPC after the appointment by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and announcement on Saturday July , 13, 2024. His announcement was greeted with loud ovation among Labour stakeholders particularly his experience with the downtrodden, public service and politics of cosmopolitan Kano state and by extension the entire country. As the new helmsman taking over the wholly training and research centre is expected to chart a new productivity process capable of resolving the lingering wage ,…

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN This write-up has become necessary as it now seems every day belongs to the thief. You are aware of the popular saying that “Every day is for the thief but one day is for the owner of the house.” When will the owner of the house step in to save our democracy from the hands of insatiable looters? It is ironic how some judges make witnesses swear in court with either a Bible or a Qur’an to tell the truth, while they themselves go behind…

Chief Lateef Fagbemi SAN, the federation’s attorney general, became born again, after having previously supported the Nigerian governors in their attempt to deny local governments (LGs) financial autonomy. Insofar as the brief is good, lawyers, you know, can represent anybody, even rapists and killers.   This time, the minister of justice and learned Silk has a different perspective on the subject of LG autonomy. Or, to put it another way, he works for the Nigerian president, who appointed him as the head of the federation’s no1 legal officer. He went…

The Ministry of Police Affairs under the supervision of two Ministers, Senator Ibrahim Geidam and Hajiya Imaan Suleiman -Ibrahim along with the able technocrat, Dr Nasir Sani Gwarzo as Permanent Secretary have refocused not only the policy framework of the Ministry , but operations in it’s entirety with a view to delivering on the national security mandate of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the present administration. Under the erudite political and administrative heads, and under the guise of the roles and mandates a lot of vision , transformation and road…

An old friend reviewed the ways of this government and said he thought Bola Tinubu should be afraid of the Greeks. “Yes, especially if they come with gifts,” I added to my friend’s warning. He smiled; I nodded. In that short conversation, we had just gone through the mythical Trojan War, the Greek story of a siege, a gift, a city and its destruction. For ten years, the Greeks and the Trojans fought a war which you and I would describe today as senseless. A Trojan prince eloped with the…

For the better part of the last two decades, I had cause to severally disagree or oppose the viewpoints, statements or actions of Adams Oshiomhole either as President of the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC, or Governor of Edo State or National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress APC. In order not to belabour the issues of the past, I will only just say we fell apart many times and quite often used the media to put our different positions in the public domain. It is therefore quite likely that many…

It is difficult to marshal a credible and persuasive argument against local government areas (LGAs) getting all the federation allocations due to them. In fact, it can be argued that the LGAs should receive additional support and grants from the Federal Government and the state governments to enhance their financial viability, increase their capacity to discharge the critical responsibilities assigned to them, and reimburse them for acting as agents of the other two tiers of government. But it was never envisaged, and is simply indefensible and reprehensible, that LGAs would…

Nigeria, our beloved country, is full of promises and the potential to be a great country. Why we still have not got it right is not only surprising and frustrating to us Nigerians, it is a big letdown to the international community. Because of all the hiccups associated with our bumbling growth, every day comes up with issues that not only bewilder but befuddle concerned citizens. It is like every day comes with a closed box, and from it, every hour, a matter of profound national effect rears its head.…

Last Wednesday, Nigeria’s upper parliament became a grammar class where semantics, syntax and structure are examined. His Excellency, the Senate President of Nigeria, Godswill Obot Akpabio, suddenly became an emergency interpreter and lexicographer. Akpabio’s interpreter’s dilemma reminds me of Field Marshal Gerald Templer. A senior British Army officer, Templer was best known for the implementation of strategies that heavily contributed to the defeat of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) during the Malayan Emergency of 1949 to 1960. On the instruction of Prime Minister Winston Churchill to temper communist insurgency…

Perhaps the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) didn’t know: Since the days of Paschal Bafyau, Nigerians have had a huge trust deficit for so-called labour activists who sell their people at the drop of a hat. So, when on Thursday last week, officials of the NLC walked to the Aso Rock Villa, singing a mimed “three Gbosas” song like kindergarten children just given a pack of noodles, the people suspected that the ancient alimentary consideration had interfered with a laudable activism.   How did the wage construct of N650,000 that the…