Author: Martins Oloja

AS I was saying the journey through the public service wilderness took me to the pre-national assembly forerunning too: Even before the inauguration of the first session of the National Assembly in June 1999, I had been covering the forerunners who prepared the way for the return of the most sensitive arm in a democracy: the National Assembly, Abuja: Let’s read my account to the retired federal Permanent Secretaries: ‘…Alhaji Ibrahim Salim was then Director-General/Clerk-Designate, National Assembly Liaison Office. He was later to be pioneer Clerk, National Assembly, (CNA). At the same International Conference Centre, I met several officers including…

IT is beginning to appear that our leaders are not ready to read any writings on the walls. They don’t seem to be interested in any risk analysis of these difficult times. They appear too busy to be aware that our democracy isn’t working. Plato thought democracy was a terrible system, a prelude to tyranny, giving power to selfish and dangerous demagogues. Watching what is happening these days in democracies around the world, especially in Africa’s most populous country, it’s hard to disagree with Plato. Democracy seems to be producing an abundance of incompetent and dishonest political leaders, who exploit…

AS I wrote here on Sunday May 10, 2020, the report of the 2012 Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies also known as the Oronsaye Panel Report, is a significant public document, which neither time nor event can obliterate from my memory as a document-minded journalist. I would like to restate without hesitation that if the Tinubu administration can handle current recourse to the report well, it can actually be a game changer as I have written several times on the document. Below is an excerpt from what I wrote on the report…

‘Lagos NURTW generates N123bn annually’ THE above was the subtitle of the last paragraph of the third piece last week, which was a report of how a transport workers union inside Lagos taxes their members to generate revenue for some unknown powers. And so there is a correlation between the oppression of that oppressed class in Lagos and the present darkness that can trigger a revolt of “the wretched of the earth”. Read on: “On July 22… 2021 the International Centre for Investigative Report (ICIR) revealed in a major report that the Lagos chapter of the National Union of Road…

‘WHEN we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe… And it is clear that in the colonial countries, the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms; colonisation and decolonisation is simply a question of relative strength’. ― Frantz Fanon On Sunday July 23, 2023, the oracle in this column looked into…

I HAD planned to write on leadership lessons from the late General Murtala Muhammed who was assassinated 48 years ago. Tuesday this week is the anniversary of that sad memory. I had wanted to remind our leaders in Nigeria who are beginning to blame their predecessors for their poor leadership after eight months in office that the great leader, Hurricane Murtala spent only six months in office and was able to achieve three significant things we can’t easily forget. The three remarkable things include incredible creation of a brand new capital for the federation. He set up a powerful panel…

AGAIN, Abuja as an idea and reality, clocked 48 years yesterday (February 3, 1976 – February 3, 2024) without any fanfare. There should be some plaudit, however, to the management of the Abuja History and Archives Department because they marked the 32nd anniversary of the capital relocation proper (December 12, 1991 – December 12, 2023) in Abuja last December where I delivered a keynote, among other influential speakers and stakeholders in Abuja. My keynote then included the fact that even the very tolerant Abuja original inhabitants should not be allowed to continue to campaign for Abuja to be made one…

BEFORE some headline and title readers arrive on this scene to deplore this article before reading it, let me quickly state from the outset that this stuff isn’t about the elite in the North some of whom have been quite remarkable in their interventions on National issues. This commentary is about our nation’s capital some crisis merchants in power would like to use to get attention again at this perilous time. And here is the thing, Abuja, the symbol of our national unity has never been in short supply of such scoundrels. In the same vein, there have been good…

‘So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom’ (Psalm 90:12). I WANTED to write on the possible return of Donald Trump to power and what it means to the world when this classic prayer of Moses, hit me again like a thunderbolt at the weekend. The jolt came when I was told that death struck in Abuja and I lost a dear sister in-law, I fondly call Sister Gloria. I wrote the first part of this article here on Sunday July 25, 2021 after witnessing a remarkable funeral service where we celebrated the…

I POSED this same question to former President Muhammadu Buhari here on Sunday July 24, 2022. I noted then that this is a time to be cynical and censorious about the state of the nation. It isn’t too much to claim today that things have become more complicated than what they were in July 2022 when I asked the then president whose government was directionless and wobbly. Doubtless, this is also a defining moment to counsel crisis merchants who live by the temple of sycophancy and propaganda that they should sheathe their swords at this perilous time. We need to…

IT is beginning to appear that our leaders are not ready to read any writings on the walls. They don’t seem to be interested in any risk analysis of these difficult times. They appear too busy to be aware that our democracy isn’t working. Plato thought democracy was a terrible system, a prelude to tyranny, giving power to selfish and dangerous demagogues. Watching what is happening these days in democracies around the world, especially in Africa’s most populous country, it’s hard to disagree with Plato. Democracy seems to be producing an abundance of incompetent and dishonest political leaders, who exploit…

ON Sunday December 25, 2022, I wrote an article here titled, ‘No-Happy-New-Year Wish For Southern Leaders’.But for today, I had planned to write on the quantum of intellectual dishonesty going on in Ondo State where people are on one hand hailing the courage of the just departed Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and on the other hand, blaming the tragedy of corruption in the state on members of his household. I can’t understand that logic which ignores the sanctity of the ancient word that any man who cannot take care of members of his household is worse than an infidel. Apparently, this…

‘Destruction of education and destruction of a country’ LET’S study this classic that most of us have received many times across platforms. It is on ‘why collapse of education is the collapse of a nation’. Recall that the following words posted at the entrance gate of a South African university sums up the problems we are now facing: “Destroying any nation does not require the use of atomic bombs or the use of long-range missiles. It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in the examinations by the students”. The result is that: “Patients die at the…

‘The universal city and global relevance’ THERE is therefore no doubt that the ‘Universal City’ called the University needs internationalisation at this age of digital technologies when artificial intelligence (AI) is threatening to take over everybody’s job schedules in the world of work. Note the contextualisation in North America, China, U.K; the goal is ‘public diplomacy overseas’ and great and strategic public relations for their (universal cities) Universities. ‘Where are we on internationslisation? We are nowhere for now!’ Recall I said to you earlier, this topic, ‘Internationalisation of University Education for Global Relevance…’ isn’t to entertain the Adekunle Ajasin University…

AS I had noted earlier to my friends and colleagues across platforms, the wind of convocation time blew me to the Sunshine state, Ondo on Thursday December 7, 2023 where I delivered the 12th Convocation Lecture of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko. The Vice Chancellor, Professor Olugbenga E. Ige, led me into temptation of writing 11, 544-word lecture. The lecture titled, “Internationalisation of Universities for Global Relevance”, was quite remarkable for various contexts and contents. In some historical excursions, a correlation between federalism and internationalisation was established to the extent that both concepts aren’t new, after all. We lost…

THE dynamic nature of federalism manifested last Tuesday November 28, 2023 at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) when The Guardian publicly presented a book titled, ‘Federalism Is The Answer: ‘The Guardian’ Federalist Papers’. The book is based on a serial of 61 editorials the newspaper published on Federalism from 2000 to 2021. What is more interesting, Professor Eghosa Osaghae, the reviewer of the book who doubled as the keynoter on a topic: If federalism is the answer, what is the question? shocked the distinguished audience when he did a brilliant review of the book and spoke to the…

PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the weekend played host to a meeting of the factions in the protracted political crisis in Ondo State. And when the fog on the meeting inside the presidential villa Abuja was clear, the factions in the political crisis in the state were said to have reached a truce after the meeting brokered by the President. There was even a storm in a teacup before clarity that there was going to be a doctrine of necessity as it was in 2010 when the doctrine was the political strategy that brought President Jonathan to power. The coast…

THE 19th All Nigeria Editors Conference (ANEC-2023) , which ended in Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom state at the weekend has opened the eyes of the aristocracy of the Nigerian media to three issues that may have challenged some myths about development strategies in Nigeria. The first issue is that federalism matters a great deal, if we must make progress in this complex federation. The second issue is that it may not be true, after all as often claimed that government has no business in business. The third issue is that management of succession plan and its discontents within the…

THE Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, counterparts, have resolved to stop the ongoing nationwide strike from midnight today (Wednesday) after a meeting with the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu. The National Deputy Vice-President of the TUC, Tommy Etim told News Point Nigeria via a telephone conversation that the Labour Leaders communicated their resolution to stop the strike to the office of the NSA about an hour ago. This newspaper earlier reported that the Federal Government held a meeting with the leadership of the NLC and the TUC to negotiate for the suspension…

THE oracles have looked again into the seeds of time again and seen that soon and very soon, the political establishment in Nigeria will take advantage of the unfavourable climate in the political economy of a free press to move against good journalism. And so this is a time to warn their operatives against such retrogressive policy strategy that will set back democracy. I mean, we should warn those who are beginning to feel uncomfortable with good journalism in the world’s most populous black nation that there is indeed some remarkable link between good journalism and development in a democracy.…