Author: Martins Oloja

IT is on record that the President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyanhas accepted an invitation from the President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to visit the country this year. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was in the United Arab Emirates for the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) at the invitation of the President of the country. The sustainability forum aims to serve as a platform for policymakers, business leaders, and civil society representatives to discuss strategies for transitioning to a sustainable economy while fostering global prosperity. The President was accompanied by the Minister of…

TODAY, let us mourn the passing of a beloved destiny helper in Nigeria, our Nigeria, Comrade Meritocracy, who has been with us before our so-called independence. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in the labyrinthine state of our strange bureaucracy in our complex federation. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: The brightest and the best from schools shall be first employed; Recruitment can be by federal character but promotion is by merit; Performance metrics can’t be ignored in promotion; How long and how well…

IT is our shame we always gloss over. It isn’t discussed in our parliaments. Even the omnipresent social media influencers and activists don’t underline it as a social malaise. We all suffer it and smile thereafter. It has become a meretricious subject that aggravates our tribulation even in business. One legacy electronic media organ used to boast that: “you can’t beat the reach” but this reproach has turned around the brand equity slogan to: “you can’t reach the beat”. It is part of consequences of our reproach we can call ‘civic incompetence’. Yes civic incompetence: that reproach, that inability of…

THIS is a time of the year to choose ‘Persons of the Year’. Media organisations, which have editorial policy to name “Person Of The Year” would always choose who they believed had a stronger influence on history and who represented either the year or the century the most. The choice often features a person, group, idea or object that “for better of for worse…has done the most to influence events of the year or decade or century. But as I noted here in 2019 and 2022, when I characterised my choice then as a ‘Man of The Decade’ and later…

The case of Dele Farotimi, a lawyer and author, has raised concerns about the treatment of individuals by the police and courts in Nigeria, particularly in libel cases. Farotimi who has just been granted another bail was arrested and detained following a petition by Afe Babalola, a prominent lawyer, who alleged that Farotimi’s book, “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System,” contained defamatory statements against him. The petition led to Farotimi’s arrest by the Ekiti State Police Command, who then arraigned him before a magistrate court. The court granted an order remanding Farotimi in prison custody. This curious case has sparked…

THERE is a sense in which we can claim that Morocco’s bid to co-host the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Portugal and Spain and Saudi Arabia’s 2034 have been remarkable for the Arab world and Africa. This opportunity presents numerous lessons for both regions, highlighting the importance of strategic partnerships, infrastructure development, and sports diplomacy. This is where Nigeria’s duty bearers who are so obsessed with politics, which often takes a lot of steam from their governance and fundamental objectives of state policies. Let us get our political leaders at all levels to note these deliverables and lessons immediately: #…

NOW that election campaign promises, shenanigans and peccadillos are over, it is a time to engage the Governor and Governor-elect of Ondo State on managing distractions from the so-called godfathers who would normally seek jobs for their people who ‘helped’ to secure victory the other day. In all modesty, I know our country enough to know how the greed of the elite has crippled the most populous black nation on earth, Nigeria. This may not be a time to talk about how the greed of the elite has also crippled the national electricity grid that is supposed to trigger industrial…

THE conclusion of the whole livestock matter here is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu can get better rating without involving media blitz if he can harness the human capital and indeed the intellectual power in Nigeria to address the challenges people are agonising about. And here is the thing, the choice of a disciplined intellectual, Professor Attahiru M. Jega from inception of the Livestock Development Agenda till the present has enhanced credibility and knowledge development that is about to change the narrative about wealth and job creation in Africa’s most significant country, Nigeria. Having participated in all the deliberations, fact…

IN the first part of this piece I challenged the political leaders in the country to be technically ready too with a blueprint for solution to some of the challenges plaguing the country in a strategic manner a former Governor, Kano State Ganduje had done with the Livestock Sector. The Sector, which used to be a rejected stone in the old Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has become a cornerstone: It is now a purpose-driven Ministry. I hinted then at the quality of experts that have worked hard to ensure that the idea whose time has come isn’t…

PERMIT me to suspend my serial on Livestock Development, (though a significant, timeless policy shift in Abuja, to allow me comment on the outcome of the U.S 2024 election that will most likely change the media ecosystem and, of course, affect the new world order. Doubtless, the triumph of Donald Trump has been so extra-ordinary that no public affairs analyst would like to postpone a comment on it . We need to tell our politicians who have allowed bankrupt but powerful individuals to hijack political parties here how elite consensus elsewhere can defy powerful media propaganda and help regain political…

I HAVE been in the concourse of this unlocked potential called ‘Livestock Development’ for some time and it has been amazing learning, unlearning and relearning some aspect of science and financial journalism, we may have lost to our obsession with political journalism in our milieu. I mean here that the wind of time has since last year blown me to a conclave of public intellectuals who are unarguably some of the brightest and the best in the fields of animal science, veterinary medicine, extension services, agricultural economics and engineering. Which has made some of my friends and followers to be…

THERE are so many matters arising from the nation’s capital including the much trumpeted ‘cabinet shake-up’ that would have turned out to be a sad denouement but for the removal of the Education Minister, Professor Tahir Mamman and nomination of Minister-designate for the new Ministry of Livestock Development, Alhaji Idi Mukhtar, a successful dairy farmer and former chief executive of Kaduna Refinery from Adamawa State. And so I would like to join in deconstructing what I have considered a conundrum: I mean we need to debate the involvement of a senior and respected citizen and senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa…

IN this second issue of this serial on “Five more tactical errors Tinubu must clear” that, I would like to focus on one of the most disturbing discoveries – that rather than being an asset to the nation, NNPC Limited has become a liability that has plunged the nation into deeper debt. As I was saying, Brazil’s Petrobras reported a net profit of $25 billion in 2023, Petronas in Malaysia reported $19 billion, Russia’s Gazprom reported $14 billion, while the NNPCL reported a paltry $2 billion at the current ₦1,600/$ exchange rate used by the NNPCL in December 2023.” ~…

MEDIA veteran Martins Oloja’s piece on “Five Tactical Errors Tinubu Must Clear” dated September 7, 2024 is scintillating as usual. I don’t know that any journalist in Nigeria has achieved the mastery and understanding of how government runs like him (unless of course Azikiwe but he was just a titular president.) He’s certainly a top governmental expert ironically from without. I am highlighting a few more errors of my own in the spirit of helping a nation in doldrums especially as they were not addressed in the president’s broadcast. 1. THE DAM DAMAGE The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning,…

LET’S continue with the vital questions to our leaders in Western Nigeria on the points at issue in this serial – curious systemic failure (in Yoruba land). As I concluded last week, we need to continue this serial to ask the southwest leaders to pinpoint the future-ready constituency projects they have implemented since 1999 when we set off this unbroken democracy. Here is the thing, before they begin to celebrate the meretricious South-west Development Commission they have just conjured, we need to interrogate their legacies. As I noted in the 2018 preface to this serial, the power of the budgeting…

LET’S leave Abuja, federal powers and other federalism haters this week again and continue with some self-examination of our Western region we have been celebrating as the pacesetter region that sits on a hill that can’t be hidden. We need to use the passage of the South West Development Commission (SWDC) Bill this week to ask questions from leading lights of a region that is supposed to be the light of the black people of the world, Nigeria. Here is the real question, what has the region done with the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission set up since…

I WAS in Akure this week for a significant colloquium on the power of local government elections in a democracy that should ordinarily trigger development agenda. Specifically, the Chairman of the Ondo State’s Independent Electoral Commission, (ODIEC) Joseph Aremo, PhD, associate professor of Law, invited me to speak on ‘Voter Education, Civic Competence and Role of Stakeholders’ in the Local Government Election, which comes up early next year. The (two-day) sensitisation workshop for political parties and key election stakeholders under the theme: ‘Election Stakeholders, Grassroots Democracy and Good Governance’ afforded us an opportunity to speak some truths to powers. The…

IT is another time to relive the consequences of ‘the writing on the wall’ that our former leader, Muhammadu Buhari did not bother to read when the oracle drew his attention to it on Sunday February 16, 2020. The then President didn’t like anyone raising any alarms around him, even if they were of national security dimension. Anyway, there are records that the Daura strong man didn’t end well as the bogeyman of the Buhari era is still here with us. The writing has appeared again for Buhari’s organic successor. It is believed that he can’t afford to ignore the…

PERMIT me to reintroduce myself to those who may not understand why I have decided to write on detected ‘tactical errors’ the presidency needs to clear for the majesty of democracy to emerge in Africa’s most populous country. In the last 36 years of my journalistic legwork, I have covered nine (9) Heads of State and Presidents of Nigeria before our current leader emerged. And so I think in all modesty, I can look into the seeds of our presidential times and advise on how to clear some tactical, tragic or even strategic errors of any serving president of our…

‘THERE is a time for everything…’ as the ancient word reveals to us. I dedicated the last two weeks to ‘Why Teachers Too Should Get 300% Pay Rise’. I promised to continue this week but this is a time to look at a weightier matter of teaching – the socio-economic challenge that is threatening the foundation of tertiary education in Nigeria. Most of the media organs have been raising alarms on how unbearable electricity bills have begun to cripple academic and non-academic activities in Nigerian universities and polytechnics. Sadly, instead of managing the threat to our development as a priority,…