Opinion

SIR: The attention of the Committee for the Protection of Peoples Mandate (CPPM) has been drawn to the report in the media of the assault on the constitution, public peace, safety and democratic rights of the government and people of Lagos State on Thursday, February 12, 2015 by some agencies of the Federal Government including…

THE ruling by the Court of Appeal the other day that military personnel should not be used to monitor the elections is a welcome pronouncement that puts a judicial seal on so undesirable a consideration. The role of the military is clearly defined in Section 217 (2) (a-d) of the Constitution and, except for such…

EXTRAPOLATING from the United Nations statistics, over 24 million Nigerians are persons living with one kind of disability or the other. They vary in the forms of their disabilities.  Thus, we have those with physical disability, that is those whose disability affects the functionality of their limbs; those with visual disability, whose impairment is the…

THE entire nation seems to be heading inexorably towards the cliff. Unless there’s an urgent shift in direction we all shall live to retell Chinua Achebe’s There was a Country, a Biafran war story written by the late author immediately before he died.       It’s never a thing of joy to think of one…

THE Guardian in its heydays as the flagship of journalism, had a constellation of professional stars, including academics who brought balance, fairness, objectivity, erudition and scholarship to the pages and made the paper very distinguished.      If you hadn’t read The Guardian, your daily newspaper menu was painfully incomplete. How would you miss reading…

“Do not pursue wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, business without ethics, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice and politics without principle.”  – Mahatma Gandhi (Oct 2, 1869 – Jan 30, 1948) IT is presidential election year in Nigeria. We have keenly observed the political intrigues, backstabbing and defections as the buildup…

SIR: A colleague has just shown me clips of where President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) pledged to spend only a single term of four years, and the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), was praising him for that “magnanimity”. But after his electoral victory in 2011, GEJ stopped mentioning the pledge. Instead, he started canvassing for…

SIR: The availability of both Garegu power plant phase one and two and Ajaokuta Steel industry has not been a blessing to Lokoja the state capital. When the Geregu one and two plants were to be installed, the government promised to ensure the availability of constant power supply to the entire Kogi State and the…

WHEN the Federal Government directed all airlines operating both general and commercial services in the country to recruit Nigerian pilots the other day, it was a heart-warming acknowledgement of the worrisome phenomenon of increasing number of unemployed indigenous Nigerian pilots. The directive not only envisages a reduction in the rank of unemployed local pilots but that it…

BY May 29, 2015, which marks the end of the current legislative year, it would be exactly eight years since the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was first presented to the National Assembly (NASS) for passage into law. By that date, two legislative assemblies would have sat over this critical PIB without passing it. The bill…