Kabiru Danladi Lawanti

One of the main arguments for supporting Jonathan by some people in the 2011 general elections was their belief that the man’s ideology is different from that of his party – the PDP. The self acclaimed biggest party in Africa was a bastion of hope for most Nigerians in 1998 due to caliber of its founding fathers – the late Pa Sunday Awoniyi, Dr Alex Ekwueme, Dr. Suleiman Kumo, Mallam Adamu Chiroma Solomon Lar, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and other prominent Nigerians. However, some few years after its ascendance to power, the political party under Obasanjo turned into a monster of a sort.   The founding fathers of the party became its first victims. PDP’s rule turned out to be generally a disaster – characterized by lack of internal democracy, violation of rule of law, corruption, open stealing of public funds, electoral malpractices and violence, rigging and short changing electorates will. Most Nigerians then believed that our socio-economic problems were essentially brought by o...

One of the simplest definitions of Northern Nigeria according to expert is poverty, insecurity, illiteracy and loss of political power. Whether this definition serves our present purpose or not, the crisis in Northern Nigeria has reached a boiling point. From poverty, unemployment, almajirci, begging and total loss of focus to now the mother of all – the Boko Haram. As it appears both the Federal Government and the Northern political leaders are clueless on how to tackle the issue. On its part, the Federal Government has turned the region into militarized zone with the region having the highest number of military officers in most of its major cities. Also towns and villages, government and private institutions, including Universities have been barricaded, restricting movements and strict stop and search. On the other hand the Northern elites – former leaders from the region, security personnel academics are also forming groups and making contact on how to tackle the issue. How...

In response to the crises that engulf some parts of northern Nigeria in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Presidential elections, the Arewa Consultative Forum felt the need to bring all people from various communities that made up the region, to sit down and table their grievances with a view to curtail recurrence of such an ugly incidence. However, the way we see it, the approach of the northern elders is rather doomed for failure from its inception. From the theme of the conference of “giving minorities the opportunity to put their social and political grievances”, the conference has from inception taken the usual cover-ups, characteristic of such conferences that were initiated by other groups in the past, which did not yield any tangible or positive result. Apart from that, from what the media reported, the conference is trying to portray a picture of a minority groups being oppressed by a majority ethnic group, which makes it look like what some public analyst see as the mi...

One of the main themes of Jonathan inaugural speech on May 29 this year was his promise to transform the nation’s economy and fight for the improvement of life of all Nigerians. For some of us who took Jonathan serious, we thought this was the beginning of the long awaited campaign promises he made of changing the way things are done in Nigeria. His campaign promises were catching and Jonathan was talking as if he has done his needs assessment and has mapped out strategies of tackling Nigeria’s myriad of problems. Here him ‘I do not make empty promises in my campaign because whatever I promise to do, I had already carried out adequate study to make sure I can accomplish it in the next four years’. But hundred days into his Presidency little can be said to have been put in place to ensure Nigeria reached the promises he made in the next 4 years. Although nothing much has changed since he came in after the death of Umaru Musa Yar’adua, the impression he gave Nigerians, after he wa...

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...