Tag: Azu Ishiekwene

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…

Gas car rigmarole, questions Tinubu can’t ignore, by Azu Ishiekwene

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It was not meant to be this way. But like a good number of things Nigerian, the story is hardly complete without a twist in the tale. And so it has been for at least three years now with the story of the gas car that was supposed to lessen, if not end, Nigerians’ petrol misery. Sometime in 2020, state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (now NNPC Limited), launched what it advertised as the National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP). The major objective of the programme, according to NNPC Group…

BOOK REVIEW: Cyber Politics-Social Media, Social Demography and Voting Behaviour in Nigeria

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Author: Dr. Omoniyi P. Ibietan Publisher: Premium Times Books Year: 2023 Pages: 460 Reviewer: Azu Ishiekwene Date: July 25, 2023, Abuja, Nigeria My job today is to review the book, and not the man. But since the man made the book, I would, to slightly paraphrase Oscar Wilde, overcome by yielding to the temptation of reviewing the man. In case you didn’t know the meaning of the “P” as it appears in the middle of the author’s name on the cover of the book for review, “P” is for “Paul”,…

Why Museveni Video Shames Africa By Azu Ishiekwene

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An aircraft descending on the tarmac with the control tower telling it to return to base There’s a trending video from nine years ago. If you watched it casually, you might in fact think that it was done yesterday. It was a clip of Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, narrating what happened in 2014 when a delegation of African heads of state was asked by AU to mediate the Libyan crisis at the time. Museveni’s account of the outcome of the assignment, which has so far not been denied by NATO,…

What Does It Mean To Be A Father Today? by Azu Ishiekwene

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What Does It Mean To Be A Father Today I’m getting ahead of myself. Father’s Day is still next Sunday. But after the Executive Editor of LeVogue, LEADERSHIP’s Fashion and Lifestyle magazine, Nikki Odu-Khiran, asked me if I could write a piece to mark the day, it got me thinking.   If my father, who passed on May 28, 2000, ever had to write on Father’s Day, what would he have written? Of course, he wouldn’t have written anything. A pensioner who worked as a storekeeper at the Apapa (Lagos)…

Titan and Migrants: Two Tragedies, Different Stories by Azu Ishiekwene

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It doesn’t make sense to weigh tragedies on a scale. How do you measure them? Leo Tolstoy got it right in Anna Karenina when he said whereas all happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.   And so indeed it was on June 14 when it was reported that a boat carrying 750 migrants had capsized near Greece in the Mediterranean killing over 500 with dozens missing.     It was one of the most horrific tragedies in recent times, claiming the lives of…