Corridors of power: The graveyard of conscience

…also published in Daily Trust 

Though conscience is inherent in man, ability to behave accordingly obviously differs from one man to another.  Also, though everyone can pretend to be a person of conscience, only time and circumstances will tell a real man of conscience from a charlatan. Besides, the fact that no one today can rightly claim the ability to maintain a perfect commitment to his conscience all the time, explains individuals’ points of strength and weakness in this regard.

With its complicated socio-economic and political challenges, Nigeria’s public sphere has always featured many supposedly principled public affairs analysts and critics analyzing the causes of its various challenges, proffering solutions and advocating good governance and accountability.

Nigeria’s compromised sovereignty

…also published in Daily Trust

Though one isn’t so naive as to assume that Nigeria’s sovereignty is uncompromisable, yet the obvious tendency of a typical Nigerian holding a position of authority to unnecessarily concede it is particularly disappointing.

As one of the basic elements of civilized statehood, sovereignty symbolizes the dignity of a country and represents its source of inspiration in its quest for political stability and socio-economic development befitting its potential. It also symbolizes the motivation that inspires particularly ambitious countries in their struggle for regional, continental and global politico-economic influence. After all, it’s a country’s level of success accordingly that determines the amount of respect it and its citizens attract on the global stage. This of course explains the obsession of many countries with the issue of sovereignty, and indeed the sheer seriousness that characterizes their reactions whenever they rightly or wrongly feel that their sovereignty is challenged or compromised.

Tackling insecurity: Alternative approach

..also published in Daily Trust

As a follow-up to my article titled “Killing spree amid intelligence gap” (Daily Trust, April 6, 2018), I once again address the costly impact of the huge intelligence gap in the way the Nigerian military and police tackle Boko Haram terrorists, ethnic militias, armed bandits, kidnappers and armed robbers that capitalize on the gap to perpetrate their crimes.

Though the military and police personnel engaged in these confrontations are constrained by many challenges that explain their failure to achieve a decisive victory, the ineptitude of the country’s three major security intelligence agencies i.e. the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), the State Security Service (SSS) and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) remains the most critical of all the challenges.

Leveraging diplomacy to tackle unemployment

…also published in Daily Trust

“I am Hajia Ramatu Damba, wife of the Ambassador of Ghana to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This message is in response to your article concerning the maintenance of mosques in Saudi Arabia. I read the article and feel I should contact you for more details because it happened that I travelled from Riyadh to Makkah and I saw so much filth in some of the mosques that I prayed in. So I ask you to direct me to the appropriate authorities to see if I could arrange for them to get some workers from Ghana for the cleaning of the bathrooms and the mosques. Both male and female.”

This largely self-explanatory note was a response to an article written by one Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi; a Saudi columnist with a leading Jeddah-based Saudi Gazette newspaper who had written an article lamenting the poor sanitary condition of public toilets attached to mosques along highways across his country, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He quoted the ambassador’s wife in a follow-up article titled “A suggestion from Ghana” (Saudi Gazette, Wednesday, July 18, 2018).

Where to stand in season of party switching

…also published in Daily Trust

As Nigerian politicians strategize to slug it out for nominations by their respective political parties in next year’s general election, the seasonal trend of party switching that usually characterizes the period towards the end of every four-year tenure is steadily gathering momentum.

While the political parties continue to receive their respective shares of gain and loss in terms of the number and calibre of politicians joining or leaving them, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would of course end up particularly affected given the looming exodus likely to hit it in favour of other parties especially its arch-rival, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).