Author: Martins Oloja

“THERE is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. Sadness and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one opens pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth,…

PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu will continue celebration of Nigeria’s 65th Independence anniversary on October 8, 2025 in Rivers State with formal commissioning of Nigeria’s first indigenous oil export terminal in 50 years at Ikuku Town, Andoni Local Government, Rivers State. So, what is the news here? An indigenous firm, Green Energy International Limited has completed an onshore crude oil export terminal at Otakikpo, Rivers State, which is aimed at reducing crude evacuation costs and addressing bottlenecks that have hindered Nigeria’s crude oil production targets for years. The commissioning of the oil facility by Nigeria’s leader will be the second breakthrough…

WE can always remember him for this: “I want to be remembered for courage for my faith … the most important thing is my faith in my life…” A single bullet silenced his voice on that platform on September 10, 2025 but it can’t erase his influence, his legacy, and his testimony for Jesus Christ. Just a few days before his death, he posted this: “Jesus defeated death so you can live.” Billy Graham’s son, Franklin noted this about Charlie: “He wasn’t afraid or ashamed to talk about his faith. Watching him makes me want to be even bolder! I…

IT has been a week of stories that touch the heart. It is a time that reminds us that too much politics without attention to weightier matters of governance may have robbed Nigeria of a place at the table of the Soccer World Cup, (USA-2026). It is a week that has challenged the exceptionalism of the United States where a 22-year old Utah-born, Tyler Robinson assassinated a very vocal conservative activist, Charlie Kirk, (32) an ally President Donald Trump. It is also a week young Nepali protesters brought down a corrupt government that intentionally shut down social media sites it…

THE President’s curious volte-face on NTA’s newsroom and boardroom operations he recently disrupted shouldn’t be construed as a wet blanket on a serial I began here last week – expediency of overhauling our national broadcaster, the NTA as the authentic ‘Voice of Africa’ and the black race. I was earlier disoriented by the president’s reversal of his earlier appointments of a new Director General and Executive Director, News (EDN) for the public broadcaster. The president’s radical move touched off the first part of this serial encouraging the president of Nigeria to consolidate on the good job of overhauling the NTA…

MEDIOCRE coverage of President Bola Tinubu’s recent diplomatic mission to Brazil has again triggered good reasons the president should solidify his recent remarkable executive appointments at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). I have personally interpreted the unexpected disruption to mean that the president means business, after all on restructuring of the national broadcasters to serve Nigeria’s overriding public interest. There is a little doubt that the President who has been widely criticised for tapping too many mediocrities into even his cabinet, is beginning to turn over a new leaf by his surprise talent hunt of Rotimi Pedro and Stella Din…

LET’s not get it twisted, this week’s noisy Mission To Tokyo has again exposed consequences of absence of ambassadors in our foreign missions for two years. Nigeria has again been under fire at the just concluded Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD-9) in Japan after observers noticed that the country’s booth was left unmanned despite the presence of a large government delegation. The TICAD9 2025 Nigeria’s President attended has been so mismanaged and poorly explained that a Nigerian entrepreneur based in Japan, Idris Ayodeji Bello’s alarm on social media, expressing embarrassment that Nigeria was the only country without representation…

What UK Newspapers Do You Read And Why? YEARS ago, on a very clever and funny British sitcom about government (yes, I know, but it really was clever, funny and very popular), called Yes, Prime Minister there was a lovely bit of dialogue on the subject of who reads which newspapers: PM Jim Hacker: Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people…

MY main task here is to deconstruct the relevance of two books written by a partisan journalist. Ike Abonyi’s declaration of himself as a partisan journalist should be curious. The work is a complex and dangerous combination of journalism and public relations, a subject I have been researching for a ground-breaking work: ‘Journalism Isn’t Public Relations’. Ike Abonyi has challenged the central idea of my ‘hypothesis’ as he has now dared to ask public policy and politics experts: what is wrong with being a partisan journalist? He is simplifying a question: why can’t journalists be partisan too in a society…

NIGERIA’s Super Falcons were on Monday this week hosted to a grand state reception at the Presidential Villa in Abuja by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in celebration of their historic victory at the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) in Morocco. The elated president lavished praises, national honours, and significant rewards on the team for clinching a record-extending 10th continental title, which came via a dramatic 3–2 come-back win over hosts Morocco in Rabat. During a grand reception at the State House, Abuja President Tinubu hailed the team’s fighting spirit and the inspiration they gave to the nation. “The…

AS I had noted in the first issue of this article for the attention of the Visitor to the University of Abuja: ‘How is the University of Abuja established in 1988 by an Act of the National Assembly as a federal government owned tertiary institution affected by the power of the FCT Minister to revoke plots of land for overriding public interest?’ As I was saying, the FCT Minister should visit the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital and other faculties and see things for himself before insulting them as land grabbers. The reasons for the needs assessment by the FCT…

“When you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.”― Ancient Sanskrit saying THE word on marble above shows the organic source of the topic. It is from a classic from Robin Sharma, the original ‘Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’. The topic derives from his book, “Who Will Cry When You Die?” It is a time to resort to motivational writing for our leaders who don’t seem to be listening to what oracles and sages in the civil society including the media have…

ANOTHER wind of time has blown me to the University of Abuja, I once tagged as the only federation university in the country. Yes, in my commentary on the curious policies that preceded the first major Visitor’s intervention, which led to the current interim administration at the university early this year, I had noted that the University of Abuja, renamed Yakubu Gowon University, shouldn’t be regarded as just a federal university. I claimed then that the federal university should be similarly regarded as a federation university that should not be trifled with, in the capital of the federation, Abuja. I…

OUR great country generally believed to be on the last lap of journey through the wilderness to get to the promised land, needs to benefit from some lessons of history as a news item. Yes there comes a time when history is worth treating as it were a breaking news item. And here is the thing, our political leaders and their followers who are becoming increasingly careless and reckless in their political speeches and actions should learn from this part of history of consequences of political blunders in global context. It is now a small world of unlearning and relearning…

Young Citizens Need Education, Not Lamentation… The young unemployed graduates need to know that poor and clueless political leadership that enhances poverty in the land begins with election processes. And the only specific exercise that can change that is participation in the same processes that brought them: elections. Lamentation isn’t a strategy; participation is it! They also need to know that the powers that have held Nigeria down, stunted our growth would not want to encourage them to vote. They know how they have been winning elections without votes. That is why they don’t want BVAS and its concomitant gains.…

TO the electorate, young and old… To the voters for participatory democracy, your PVC is your weapon and here is why: You possess enormous power of that small voter card called PVC. In the end, we will certainly face the consequences of our electoral choices. After the election, we may return to reading from another book of lamentation. We may have been complaining about the 26 years that the locusts ate through the PDP from 1999-2015. We may still be lamenting that the last eight years under the ruling APC have been unspeakably harrowing. We may still be saying that…

WHILE it is fitting to praise the effort of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in celebrating the courage of those he remembered on June 12, 2025 as ‘Heroes of Nigerian Democracy’, it is also important to bring to his notice that there are some other ‘heroes of democracy’ the chroniclers in the presidency forgot. And so as one of those who have institutional memories of the perilous times in our history I would like to plead that those forgotten heroes should be remembered in the next celebration of democracy. It is gratifying to note that the president’s preface to the honorees’…

… I REGARD Local Government election as a significant process because it should ordinarily be the most critical election to the people. The reason isn’t far-fetched: It is the closest level of government to the people. That is where destiny of the real constituents who employ our leaders begin to be shaped. We can’t easily have dialogue with the Governors and even Commissioners. But we should be able to have direct access to the Council Chairman and Councilors at any time. They most times don’t live in GRAs. They should live among the people. I call the new Chairman of…

INSTEAD of deconstructing the second year of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu today, I would like to celebrate one of our own on a thankless and dangerous beat that harbours what even the World Bank Institute once celebrated in a publication as ‘the best profession in the world: Journalism. I would like join others who are currently wrapping their hands around the shoulders of Akogun Tola Adeniyi who arrived on the 8th Floor on Thursday May 29, 2025. I was there when family members, friends, young and old including former Governors Olusegun Mimiko, Rauf Aregbesola, Professor Femi Osofisan,…

AS a reporter, writer, editorialist and columnist, I love good books and I have invested in a lot of them. So, when I see good books on any subjects, I buy anywhere I go. I have bought a lot through big brothers abroad and now the Amazon. That is how so many bookstores including ‘Glendora’ ‘Readers Are Leaders’ bookshops have somewhat made me ‘richer’, anyway. I will collect my long- patronage discount from them anytime soon. And so I have just looked into the seeds of our times and I have seen another good book in the works by one…