ATTENCAO

We have never met. I only know you by reputation and I have had cause in the last year to write on your activities within the public arena and offer my own views about you, your persona, and your interventions in the Nigerian debate. I sincerely hope you would get to read this letter wherever you may be, that is assuming you are still alive. Your father’s house was recently invaded by the Nigerian military (surprised you don’t have a house of your own!). We were later told that you simply disappeared into thin air, along with your parents. The murderous Operation Python Dance II that was unleashed on Igboland by the Federal Government of Nigeria has since become a subject of national interest. Many people have proclaimed that you have been killed, abducted and that many members of your family and movement – the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have been wasted. Some people said you were called The Lion, but when trouble came, you were the first to run away from the zoo. You h

‘Only a peaceful solution must be found to arrest the present worsening stalemate and restore normalcy. The Eastern Region must be encouraged to remain part of the Federation. If the Eastern Region is allowed by acts of omission or commission to secede from or opt out of Nigeria, then the Western Region and Lagos must also stay out of the Federation… A war against the East in which Northern soldiers are predominant, will only unite the Easterners or the Ibos against their attackers, strengthen them in their belief that they are not wanted by the majority of their fellow-Nigerians, and finally push them out of the Federation’.-Obafemi Awolowo, May 1st 1967 ‘Those who advocate the use of force for the settlement of our present problems should stop a little and reflect. If it is claimed that an attack on the East is going to be launched by the Federal Government and not by the North as such and that it is designed to ensure the unity and integrity of the Federation, two other insupe

It has been one hell of a week or two particularly in the south eastern part of Nigeria. Prior to this time, the Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB), had assumed such a larger than life image that it could order a sit-at-home strike and people would comply strictly. The jury is still out concerning the reason why the order recorded that kind of total compliance. There have been debates about Nigerians loving public holidays and that the order coincided with another public holiday and that people actually complied out of fear of attack, if they were found on the road on the said day. The one I found most ludicrous is the argument about Nigerians loving public holidays. May be they were right about civil servants who were hardly committed to their jobs, since there was hardly any demand on them, but I also know that majority of businesses in the South East are private sector concerns and this is the sector that hates public holidays with a passion. In essence therefore, there mus

Both Nigeria and Kenya have been battling with electoral malpractice and political violence for over a decade. The 2007 general election in Nigeria was truly a “do or die” affair as declared by President Olusegun Obasanjo. Hundreds of people were killed by security forces for protesting the brazing manipulation of the results of the general elections. The Ahmed Lemu presidential panel set up by President Goodluck Jonathan to probe the mayhem that greeted the announcement of the result of the 2011 presidential election found that 943 people were killed while 838 others were injured. While the Federal Government paid over N10 billion as reparation to the victims of the riots, it failed to prosecute the 626 who were arrested in connection with arson, culpable homicide and other grave offences perpetrated due to official impunity. In 2008, the brutal killing of over 1000 people in Kenya over post election violence led to the setting up of a panel of inquiry headed by Mr. Kofi Anan, a

As one would expect from such IT persons, the duo of Mr Ye Zhenzhen, the CEO of People’s Daily Innovation and Mr David Chen, Vice President of Microsoft, dazzled their audience with the coming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the implications for the new media age. This was at a discussion session last Tuesday evening in Dunhuang, Gansu Province of Western China. But it was a personal story told by Ye that really got me. He recounted what happened when he was five years old, growing up in his village that had no electricity. According to Ye, at that period, the entire community decided to contribute money to buy a generator. After that, it took several weeks to get an engineer that would help them power it. And then on D-Day, all the children were gathered for a lecture on the danger of touching the electric bulb. They were regaled with tales of a tiger that could be unleashed from inside the bulb. When, after the session, I asked Ye for his age, he said 41. “So the event

• Separatists challenge FG to prove it’s a terrorist organisation. • Presidency: Marauding herdsmen are criminals, not terrorists. • North ready for dialogue, Saraki saved govt from embarrassment, says Nothern Elders' Forum (NEF). • Ohanaeze preaches peace in Sokoto France has denied the allegation made by the federal government that the financial headquarters of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was in its country. The denial by France came on the heels of the demand by the separatist group challenging the federal government to show proof that it is a terrorist organisation. This is just as the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), a major socio-cultural group in the North, has indicated that the North was ready for dialogue on the legitimate concerns being raised on the structure of the Nigerian state. Political Counsellor, Claude Abily of the French Embassy in Nigeria, in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja Thursday, expressed shock over

If the federal government will ever heed the repeated call on it to revoke the privatisation of the generation and distribution companies of defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) it sold to private investors in 2013, it will also demand the refund of billions of naira paid out to over 20,000 workers of the PHCN from them, the Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has disclosed. Speaking yesterday at the third edition of the annual National Council on Power (NACOP) in Jos, capital of Plateau State, Fashola said the repeated call for the cancellation of the PHCN privatisation was ill-advised, and that the country had made similar mistakes in the past with its refineries only to end up being worse off in terms of importation of petroleum products and expenses on petrol subsidy. He said the only reasonable request to make of the government in this regard would be to continue to ask for an improvement in the sector, which he claimed the government was alr

President Muhammadu Buhari has left New York, United States, where he participated at the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The president left New York for London probably to see his doctors for a further medical check-up. His chief spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, had in a statement issued last Friday ahead of his departure from the country, said Buhari would visit London en route Nigeria without stating the purpose for the stopover. The president had spent 50 days in London between January 19 and March 10 when he returned to the country. He returned to London on May 7, where he spent another 103 days. He eventually returned to Nigeria on August 19 after a series of protests calling for his return. The date of his return from London to Nigeria is yet to be announced but it is believed that it will not exceed this weekend. While in New York, Buhari participated in a general debate during which he delivered a speech tagged ‘national statement.’ He also held

The South-East geo-political zone is not marginalised by the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari, Kaduna state governor, Nasir Ahmad el-Rufa’i said yesterday in London. The governor stated this in a speech at Chatham House on restructuring titled ‘Next Generation Nigeria: What Is Restructuring And Does Nigeria Need It?’ He explained that four of the five states in the zone had senior ministers in federal cabinet despite the fact that they gave the APC government just about five per cent of votes in the 2015 presidential election. Some states including Kaduna, which gave the party more than 90 per cent of votes, only have junior ministers (ministers of state), he said. He described the cries of marginalisation as “the narratives of losers,” who decided not to vote for the APC but now they don’t want to live with the consequences of their decisions. The governor listed fear of domination, resource control, fractious politics, weird leadership and national dissatisfaction am

When Davinson Sanchez arrived at Atletico Nacional in 2012, Felipe Merino knew he had a job on his hands. The 16-year-old came with a personal recommendation from manager Juan Carlos Osorio, but to Merino, the youth coach responsible for Nacional's U17s, it soon became clear that extracting his talent was not going to be easy. "It was a difficult time for Davinson, psychologically," Merino tells Sky Sports. "The boy had been with Colombia's U17s, who held training camps every month, but it hadn't gone very well and he hadn't been called up again. Of course he was happy to be joining a big club like Nacional, but he was also sad and angry about his situation with the national team." Merino is speaking a few weeks after Sanchez became the most expensive player in Tottenham's history, but it was difficult to imagine such a scenario in those early years. In fact, when Sanchez made his move from boyhood club Deportivo Cali to Nacional back in 2