Author: Ray Ekpu

I feel honoured to be asked to deliver this year’s lecture in honour of Pastor S. A. Odunaiya, founder and first President of the Young Men Christian League of the Christ Apostolic Church. I am informed that this is the 19th edition of the lecture series. That you have been able to hold this lecture for 19 years says something about your seriousness, your consistency, your resilience, your sense of history and your dedication to a good cause. I congratulate you. I have seen the list of eminent persons who have availed you of their thoughts on various aspects of…

In any election incumbency packs a punch. The incumbent always has something to show, completed projects to flaunt, ongoing projects that are nearing completion or even ones that are on the drawing board. He has the paraphernalia of the civil service, the MDAs, the contractors, women and youth groups hired and unhired, all of them are often in the corner of the incumbent. The incumbent is also seen as a bird in hand, the reality not the dream, the person on the job not the one who wants to be on the job. In most elections, all of these factors…

After the 1-0 defeat of Zambia at the Godswill Akpabio stadium in Uyo our nerves were at ease. That success announced our qualification for the 2018 World Cup in Russia with one qualifier to spare. The players joyfully tossed their coach in the air like a ball but they did not let him drop on the floor like a coin. Those of us who were in no position to toss the coach, Gernot Rohr in the air can simply toss our hats (and wigs) in grateful appreciation of that achievement. When it occurred to Nigerians that the Super Eagles were…

Quite a number of knowledgeable people have commented favourably on the 2018 budget recently presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly. In particular they are enthused by the size of the budget, N8.612 trillion, which is 30% over and above the 2017 budget. But the thrill lies more in the fact that N2.43 trillion will be devoted to capital expenditure. This is about 30.8% of the budget, a strong indication that the government is showing an equally strong commitment to the development of critical infrastructure. But this thrill is diminished by two factors (a) all our budgets always…

I lived in the Biafran enclave during the Nigerian civil war until our part of the world was liberated by Nigerian soldiers. The transistor radio was my inseparable companion as it was the companion of most of our people during that war. We needed to hear from the radio where we were in the shifting map of the war so that we would know where to run to next. But you could never be sure of the information you got from your radio because propaganda was an important part of the war. A lot of the information we got was…

The Abdulrasheed Maina story is a mosaic of sorts. Quite colourful. Quite confounding. It is like the different parts of a jigsaw puzzle. It will be a daunting task for President Muhammadu Buhari to disentangle it but it is a task he must perform if he wants to retrieve his anti-corruption campaign or what is left of it, from those who wish to bury it. From the pictures of him I see in the newspapers Mr. Maina is a huge and handsome man who wears nice, designer suits. He looks more like a banker or a rich corporate executive working…

Mr. Rochas Okorocha, Governor of Imo State is one of the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The APC’s signature tune is anti-corruption. Okorocha has just shot himself in the foot. He rolled out a red carpet for a man who doesn’t deserve it; he named a street undeservingly after him; he erected a multi-million naira statue to honour a man to whom honour is not due. He gave Imo State’s highest award to him as well. Many governors in Nigeria do whatever they like because they have sycophantic houses of assembly who have a rub-my-back-I-rub-your-own, avaricious and gold-digging…

There is a clinic called Aso Villa Clinic. It is a place where the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Vice President and their families are supposed to go any time their body aches so that the clinic can take care of the business of returning their bodies to normalcy. But we have just been told by someone who should know that that place of healing needs healing itself. Can we therefore say, physician heal thyself? The President’s wife, Aisha Buhari, is the story teller: “A few weeks ago I was sick. They advised me to take the…