Kabiru Danladi Lawanti

With a population of about 150 million and more than one-fifth of Africa’s total population, Nigeria represent the sad story of the failure of most developing countries to meet the MDGs by the stipulated time of 2015. Although there are indications in some quarters, especially in Asia and Latin America, that the MDGs are achievable, available statistics in Nigeria indicate otherwise. In September, 2000, 189 world leaders gathered in New York for the Millennium Summit and pledged to meet certain goals by 2015. These goals are what is referred to as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The goals include a 50% reduction in poverty and hunger, universal primary education, reduction of child mortality by two-thirds, cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters, promotion of gender equality, and reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. In September, 2005 the summit met again to review progress towards the goals and set the development agenda for the next dec...

What started as a one man problem has now metamorphosed into a national catastrophe. Few saw it this way. The Boko Haram crises started as a minor problem of a state Governor, who used them to achieve his political objectives, when he was through with them he tried to discard them. Ali Modu Sherrif should be held responsible for the boko haram crises in Borno State. He started it and therefore he should come and partake in solving the problem. In Nigeria we are fond of cover-ups. One singular incidence that led to the escalation of the Boko Haram violence in Maiduguri and now to other places in Nigeria was the extra-judicial killing of its leader, Mallam Muhammadu Yusuf last year. Confirming this killing, the spokesperson of the Police, Isa Azare proudly told news men in Maiduguri, sometimes in July 2009 “He has been killed”. He was even inviting reporters to follow him and see the police ‘heroic’ job. “You can come and see his body at the state police command headquart...

Like a script copied from a Hollywood movie, Moshe Ram, the Israel Ambassador to Nigeria tried to play with our collective intelligence in a piece titled ‘Daily Trust, Israel and the Gaza flotilla problem’(Daily Trust, July 6, 2010 pg 25) which was a respond to an earlier editorial of Daily Trust (June 11, 2010) in which he accused the management of the paper of bias by that editorial and two op-eds that appeared on the 10th and 11th of the same month, that condemned Israeli violation of International Laws by attacking the Gaza flotilla on international waters carrying aid and other humanitarian items to the already wretched Palestinians caged in the Gaza enclave for over 4 years, no thanks to Israel. The arguments advanced by the ambassador was that, Daily Trust has either ignorantly or deliberately choose to ignore all the atrocities committed by Palestinians, Hezbollah and other ‘terrorist’ organisations against his people. One thing is very clear from the Mr. Ram’s pi...

One of the criticisms levelled against the press in Nigeria is their irresponsible, reckless, and sensational nature of reports. However one fundamental issue that cannot be denied is the role the press played in Nigeria’s political history and process. Since early 1920s through to early 1940s the media in Nigeria acquired the status of being a mouthpiece of the anti-colonial struggle and also a forefront in the struggle for enthronement of democracy and the return to civil rule in the 1980s and 1990s. That is why it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible for anyone to discuss Nigeria’s transformation and ignore the role media play in the sustenance of the nation as indivisible nation. Despite these outstanding credentials, the media again has found itself in a dilemma at this difficult moment of our nation’s history. It has performed beyond expectation in its role of an arbiter of the various ethnic nationalities that made up the nation. No time has the nation f...

The Nigerian government was a signatory to the Jomtien Conference, 20 years ago, where from March 5 to 9, 1990 participants from all over the world met to come with solutions to provide quality education to over 100 million children, including at least 60 million girls, who have no access to primary schooling. Education for All (EFA) programme by 2015 was born. Governments made commitments to be part of the programme. In Nigeria, policies were put in place to achieve the stated goal which includes the Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme, in order to check the problem of dwindling enrolment in primary and secondary schooling and educational deterioration generally in the country. Earlier, the UPE scheme was instituted by the military government in 1976 to develop the educational capacity of illiterate Nigerians. The scheme was not as effective as expected though more people were able go to school, read and write their names and become better informed as a result of the scheme. The Un...

As unconstitutional as the zoning formula arrangement adopted by the PDP is, the idea was floated because every part of the country felt that it is eligible to produce the presidency of this country. The presidency, being the most powerful office, (since 90 per cent of the nation's revenue comes from the centre), certain parts of the country, especially the South-West, which boasts of having the highest number of Western-type- education elite, felt it was time for the region to produce the president for Nigeria, especially in the aftermath of the June 12 elections. So much noise and tumult were raised, especially in the Lagos/Ibadan axis's press for power-shift until it culminated into making the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) adopting a zoning arrangement whereby, General Olusegun Obasanjo emerged as the PDP candidate. while the then APP went for Chief Olu Falae. That ushered in the introduction of the zoning formula, which is a kind of unconstitutional rotational agreement wh...

There is a lot of paradox about the People’s Democratic Party, a party that claimed to be the largest in the continent. Prior to 1999 the party had earned the respect and admiration of Nigerians from all walks of life due to the calibre of its founding fathers. But barely a decade, the party has become the most hated political party in Nigeria due to its anti-people policies. The government in the centre, which the PDP controls, has grossly disappointed Nigerians in the way it managed the affairs of the country in the last decade. What Nigerians witnessed under the PDP in the last 10-11 years is total debasement of the values of governance as reflected in the rising index of poverty, widespread corruption, and political crisis ranging from election rigging, violence and total disregard for the rule of law, which is the foundation of democratic governance. Under the PDP, the country also witnessed gross human rights violations, insecurity with the rise in the spate of kidnappings in the...