Opinion

OPINION By Suleiman A. Suleiman WHEN I read the news and commentary about an attempted coup in Nigeria since October last year, I have asked myself many times if this is nothing more than a “coup” on the pages of newspapers, and a “trial” of a coup only in the news.    Journalism, like the law, and science, is a business of evidence and verifiable facts. But so far, the facts of this case have been inconsistent and contradictory, and the evidence all but evident. It is the responsibility of the media to report the news about anything, including coups. But it is also the responsibility of the media to provide evidence of its reporting, be it a coup or a wedding. This responsibility is not to be taken lightly, and the higher the significance and likely public impact of a s...

OPINION By Valentine Obienyem YESTERDAY, I attended a function in Igbo-ukwu – the 100th birthday celebration of the mother of Fr. Louis Ezeilo. As I was stepping into the venue with my friend, Comrade Celestine Ostende Oguegbu, we noticed Fr. Paulinus Anaedum enthusiastically taking selfies with one of the masters of ceremony. My instinctive reaction was to wonder what could be so special about this MC that warranted such excitement from my old teacher. On closer look, I realized it was Ceelos Media (Oga Uwa). For the first time in my life, I found myself also struggling to take a selfie with him. Ostende did the same. In what felt like a moment of mutual recognition, the three of us simultaneously commended him for the quality of his work. Even his partner, whose face we are y...

OPINION By Valentine Obienyem WHENEVER I witness power tussles among nations, I naturally recall the realist who once said that nations weigh words by counting guns. Is this true? At such times, I remember how the Great Ideas, in A Syntopicon, begins its treatise on justice by invoking the encounter between the Athenian envoys and the Melian representatives, when they stood on a sword’s edge. This dialogue, preserved by Thucydides, serves as the ultimate historical collision between the idealism of “right” and the realism of “might.” When the Athenians arrived at the neutral island of Melos, they did not offer a moral justification for their aggression, but instead extended a cold invitation to acknowledge the reality of power. They swept aside the usual diplomatic appeals to just...

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu OPINION “A Judge who takes advantage of the judicial office for personal gain or for gain by his or her relative or relation abuses power…. such abuse of power profoundly violates the public’s trust in the judiciary.” *Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Rule 8:3 (2016)* Eight and a half years ago, in May 2017, a viral audio clip circulated, purportedly featuring a conversation between a male Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a female judge who had presided over an election petition involving the Senator in the preceding year. In the sound clip, both could be heard importuning one another. The female voice asked the Senator to ensure that whatever he delivered, he must “make it in USD (American dollars)...

OPINION By Steve Osuji  THE Battle Of Megalomaniacs: Why does everyone seem to miss the point? Why can’t Nigerians see that the ruckus in the Nigerian oil and gas sector is a battle between two sharks who seek total acquisition and complete takeover of the industry as part of their burgeoning personal empires? But Providence is kind to Nigeria and Nigerians. It is Nigeria’s good fortune that Alhaji Aliko Dangote was able to build and complete his mammoth-size refinery against extreme odds. It is also by a divine hand that President Bola Tinubu is the man at the helm in Nigeria today. Were the set up otherwise, if the heavens had not purposed the twain to tango at this crucial juncture, Nigeria’s story of the oil and gas system would have been different and indeed, much ...

OPINION Tunde Akanni “Like play…”, as they say, Dangote emerges the Man of the Year 2025!  A consumerist perspective, you may say. But who could have imagined that the 2024 Gen Zs’ “no gree for anybody” slogan would get a lease of life from the least likely quarter? Dangote volunteered. He tore through the muscles of powerful oil sectors’ big men. Only one was in sight but big ones fell! And even a third. Dangote no gree for anybody.   He has come to reaffirm his conquest of the sector. May the conquest signal better future for citizens. Yeah, unlike POTUS Trump, Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote, ran an unusual race and breasted the tape. By all means, Trump, strangely, sought the Nobel Peace Prize this year, 2025 but it all ended in praise.  For the judges, as you k...

OPINION By Valentine Obienyem I often write about religion, and by its very nature it is a subject on which I am frequently and deliberately  misunderstood. Any serious engagement with religion, especially one that questions its social consequences, almost inevitably provokes hostility. I recall an interview granted by Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu in which he spoke about religious war. He said he would never wish such a war on Nigeria because, once people begin to fight in the name of religion, they take leave of their reasons. That observation has stayed with me. This, indeed, is the kind of reaction one encounters when writing critically about religion. No matter how rational or carefully argued one’s position may be, the responses often come in torrents of abuse rather ...

Photo courtesy: X RNR EDITORIAL The Federal Government’s announcement that it collected ₦360.29 billion from the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) between January and October 2025 should be welcome news. It signals a country embracing digital payments, expanding its tax net, and reducing reliance on oil revenues. But for millions of Nigerians, the numbers ring hollow. At a time when citizens endure punishing inflation, epileptic electricity, dilapidated roads, failing schools, and overstretched hospitals, the question is simple: Where is the impact of all this revenue? Nigerians are not blind to the irony. Every electronic transfer above ₦10,000 attracts the ₦50 levy. Yet the same citizens who fund this revenue struggle to charge their phones because the power grid c...

OPINION By Ambassador Lilian Onoh EVERY single Nigerian should take a look at the emblem of the Nigerian Army and try to read its motto – the banner under which every single soldier must fight.  The vast majority of Nigerians will fail, not because they are illiterate, but because it is written in Arabic  – a language known only to those whose recite passages from the Islamic Koran, many of whom are only able to recite passages by rote and not by ability to read or write Arabic.  Thus, more than 70% of Nigerians do not actually know what the Arabic writing on the Nigerian Army emblem says. In regular English script, the Arabic writing on the Nigerian Army Emblem is, “Nasrun Min Allah”, or, “Victory is from Allah alone.“ From my research, it is actually the war...

OPINION By Sa’adiyyah Adebisi Hassan  WHEN a man of God opens his mouth in a bleeding country, people expect comfort, clarity, and courage. Not cold statistics that sound like they were drafted in a government PR office. Bishop Matthew Kukah allegedly said:  “There’s no genocide or persecution of Christians in Nigeria. You can kill 10 million people and it still won’t amount to genocide…If you are a Christian in Nigeria and you say you are persecuted, my question is: how? At least 80% of educated Nigerians are Christians, and up to 85% of the Nigerian economy is controlled by Christians. With such figures, how can anyone say Christians are being persecuted?” Let’s dismantle this 1. Genocide Is Not Cancelled Because Some Christians Are Rich Genocide is not def...