Tag: Azu Ishiekwene

When Are You Going To Get A Proper Job? By Azu Ishiekwene

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He was a young freelance journalist when his father asked him the question. Even if he had lived to see his son syndicated globally by some of the world’s most prestigious newspapers and magazines, I’m not sure he would have retracted it: When will you get a proper job?   Jonathan Power is now 83 and arguably one of Europe’s most widely published columnists. Yet, his father didn’t consider journalism a “proper job.” Instead, he saw it as a mere keyhole through which one views serious professions like engineering or…

An Accidental Christmas Story By Azu Ishiekwene

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If I’ve learned anything these past 35 years of journalism, it’s looking for a story in every situation. It wasn’t different when I left home for the airport on December 14, except that this time, the story found me. My Uber driver started the conversation: “Are you Mr. Azu of LEADERSHIP?” he asked.   I confirmed I was but didn’t make much of his question since he could have gotten the information from Truecaller. I also found from my Truecaller that he was identified as “Doc. Jibrin.” However, in a…

The Trouble with Giving to Caesar ,By Azu Ishiekwene

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It’s a famous story in Christendom. Palestine, a vassal territory under the Roman Emperor Caesar, was obliged to pay tributes and taxes to Rome. A radical teacher in the territory, Jesus, taught things that the teachers of the law and local administrators in Palestine were uncomfortable with.   After setting traps for him but missing, they pitted him against Caesar by asking him a question that could have gotten him in trouble and possibly gotten rid of him for good.   “Is it lawful to pay taxes?” the Pharisees asked…

LEADERSHIP: A Story Still Telling 20 Years After By Azu Ishiekwene

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Several good things happen in the bedroom, often the place of rest and renewal. Sometime in 2004, Sam Nda-Isaiah and his wife Zainab conceived the idea of a newspaper there.   She told the story before of how her husband got up in the wee hours, scribbled a few things in a jotter, and asked what she thought of the names and the sketch. That was not the day the newspaper started, of course. But it was only a matter of time. That idea, which later became LEADERSHIP, has evolved…

Home Run For Oshiomhole By Azu Ishiekwene

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had barely finished announcing the result of last Saturday’s Edo governorship poll when I got a call to eat the humble pie. Senator Adams Oshiomhole, the man I called a product vendor in my last article, had pulled off another big one!   Why? I had no dog in the fight. But I got the drift. I had warned that given Oshiomhole’s reputation for campaigning for candidates for whom he often ended up apologising, voters could hardly ignore the warning label on his candidate,…

APC Digging Its Own Grave in Edo,by Azu Ishiekwene

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Nigeria’s politicians have perfected the art of burying themselves with one foot sticking out. And it appears that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will, once again, stage this rite of self-destruction in the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State.   The party’s primaries on Saturday was such a shambles, it has now been forced to conduct it again, with no guarantee of a sensible outcome for an exercise involving perhaps less than 500,000 members (parties routinely inflate their roll). If Governor Godwin Obaseki’s ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had paid…

ECOWAS: Is This the Beginning of The End? By Azu Ishiekwene

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Mali and Burkina Faso obviously have a lot more in common than squaring off in a game of football like they just did in the Round of 16 knockout stage of the African Nations Cup (AFCON), in Cote d’Ivoire. Along with Niger, these countries have been a great source of misery for the continent in the last four years, with rogue military leaders there playing a game far more deadly with the lives of their countries than anything football can ever hope to imitate. They announced to the continent’s shock…

Reflections on Adesina’s Work with Buhari ,by Azu Ishiekwene

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I knew Femi Adesina when he was “Daddy Tobi.” He still is, of course. But back in the day when we were neighbours in “Olowora Inside”, a Lagos suburb, when you could call to a neighbour from your frontage, often by using the name of their first child, that was how we called Femi: Daddy Tobi. I have heard people complain that a friend in government is a friend lost. I have seen it too – friends who are not only lost but who are also happy to lose themselves…

Letter to Rich Nigerians: Why the Poor Are Mad, By Azu Ishiekwene

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It’s not only the poor that are mad, if you get my drift. Even folks who once thought of themselves as middle class, that is, neither wealthy nor poor, are in maddening distress. They can hardly believe how life has come to be what it is today. Perhaps the most frequently asked question is: how did we get here? My mother used to pray that things should never be difficult for her and for those who could help in a time of need. Now, both the needy and the helper…

Begging for a seat at the table – Azu Ishiekwene

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After India, I have been amused by the debate about whether or not Nigeria should be more than a guest again at the next G-20 meeting in Rio, Brazil. If South Africa is a member, why not Nigeria? How do you offer Africa’s largest economy only a complimentary ticket every time to such an important global event, leaving it with the rather humiliating option of begging for a place? I thought that we had outgrown thinking that respect is earned by size or by simply hanging out with the right crowd, regardless of…