Izuu's Turn

Now that the presidential election has come and gone, friends are once again becoming friends while erstwhile enemies are now looking for and getting newer fraternizations. People who once belonged to one camp are now quickly re-adjusting and re-aligning themselves in order to be better positioned for the next four years and beyond. For the first time in my country, a ruling party is about to become an opposition party. I watch my kids throughout these events happening before our very eyes, and I wonder how they will appear in their History textbooks and eventually how their own teachers will coin them as exam questions. I just can't help imagining that we are today living our nation's future history. Am so glad am a part of it. I am not glad because I am overwhelmed by the CHANGE mantra. Not at all! At least, I am old enough to know that my country's specie of politicians talk from, not only both sides of their mouths, but from all sides of their bodily orifices. ...

This is my first post here this year. Apologies for the long silence. It's deliberate because I have tried not to be drawn into the wanton arguments following the campaigns of the two gladiators I earlier warned should relinquish their ambitions in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. An advice they spurned, being prodded by their supporters and deluded follow-followists. I am compelled to write this because for the first time in a long while, I watched NTA Network News tonight. As usual, the first five news items were about former President Shehu Shagari. Initially, I didn't turn the volume on. You can guess why, I think. And seeing the face of these man all over my TV, I thought maybe one other party has chosen to field him as a presidential candidate in the re-scheduled election. I had to quickly turn the volume on, only to realize to my chagrin that it is this wonderful stateman's birthday.  Happy birthday to you, sir. May you continue to live long to...

By Pius Adesanmi Copied from this ever-truthful professor! Crawling gradually back into Nigeriana after a busy week, I hear with one ear that the mental carburetor of the average career Jonathanian has been overheating this weekend because of some incident involving their spiritual leader at OAU. I have to read up on that and return with my two and a half kobo later. I also hear that Nigeria's former Foreign Affairs Minister, Gbenga Ashiru, has died in a hospital in South Africa. I am sorry to hear this news. Whatever you may think of him and his political choices and affiliations, he was a fine Nigerian technocrat. However, I am not sorry to hear that he died in a hospital in South Africa. We are getting to a point where the only criterion that the WHO will use in gauging the development of a country's healthcare sector is the data on members of Nigeria's rulership who go there to die. Your hospitals will be deemed underdeveloped only if there is no kn...

After watching the grand opening of Governor Akpabio-led administration's stadium at Uyo, certain questions began to jostle for prominence in my mind. My ind immediately went straight to Governor Akpabio's next door neighbour at Abia. Uyo is just about an hour drive from Aba and if someone happens to drive to the opening yesterday through Aba, one will think he just emerged from pre-historic to a digital society. I have come to conclusion that the problem with a good number of Nigerian politicians is not political party affiliation but the absence or presence of one item - shame. The difference between Akpabio and Orji is not party since both belong to the ruling PDP. What I think is that one has shame and the other has none. If Orji is blessed with the virtue of possessing an iota of shame, he would have resigned a long time again and allowed better people to run the affairs of his state. Aba is a complete eye-sore and it is in an oil-producing state. Other south eastern gover...

Assuming air is a commodity like water, found in different quantities at different locations. In a country like mine, how would it be distributed? There will surely be serious shortage because even with a dam, Water is not sufficient, Electricity is epileptic Fish is inabundant But flooding is most welcome Environmental degradation is rampant And huge sums of money, by way of visible abracadabra, disappear into private purses, pockets and personal possessions. We are a people who take pleasure in lack amidst plenty Assuming air is fuel, gas, kerosene or any of the derivatives we have in abundance In a land like ours, how much of it can an individual have? Of course, we have dysfunctional refineries In God's Name, how does one build, not just one referinery, but many of them With huge sums of money, only for every one of them to break down To the point of no "mmekwatalism?" All we get is stories, always from reliable sources on conditions of anonymity And I ask, what is wr...

Many things have been written and documented about the ten-year administration of Professor Abdullahi Mahadi at the Gombe State University, Gombe. People who know him more than I do and those who met him even before I was born have variously eulogized this great manager of people and resources. I have never met him one-on-one, but having worked under him in the past six years, I wish to say a few words to mark the end of his tenure at Gombe State University, Gombe. I joined Gombe State University in 2008. By that time, the University has existed for four years. I still remember the first time I walked through the gates of this great institution to attend my interview. I was shocked to see a well-planned environment that beat all my expectations hands-down. I am aware of how new universities in my country are: run-down facilitates, make-shift everything, and run-down uncompleted/on-going projects which may never be completed. With this kind of inchoate milieu, it is very improbable...

I've been away from here for quite a while. Reason: don't actually know. Maybe it's brain fatigue. Or the numerous trips I've been making recently from my kitchen, to the living room and all the other rooms in the "new house" as my older soon will call it. So much has happened also since the last time I was here. As much as I try not to see the news channels I always find myself scrolling back to Al Jazeera, Euronews and CNN. I don't know whether my mind has been remotely paired with bad news - wars in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan. Then Ebola in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and over a thousand dead already. Then, in the spirit of negative black comradeship, Patrick Sawyer decided to invent the deadly disease to my dear country. Since then, so much has happened! From bitter kola, to salt solution and while the whole world is waiting for the American Zmapp, our honorable Minister for Health tells us we are royals who must use precious ornaments - in came ...