The ruling APC knows something about how opposition parties can come together, overcome their differences, create synergy around a single candidate, mobilise and defeat an incumbent president. They know the process very well because they did it between 2013 and 2015, when they came together, negotiated, agreed on how the candidate would emerge and then went ahead to agree on a consensus candidate. The said candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, was, in a sense, an easy candidate to agree on because the other leading contenders could see possibilities for themselves in the post-Buhari era. The outcome of the consensus position that emerged was that, for the first time in the…
Author: Editor
Africa’s automotive industry is often associated with the assembly of cars belonging to international brands, but several African countries have also developed their own vehicle brands and manufacturing operations. From Nigeria’s Innoson and Nord Automobiles to Ghana’s Kantanka, Uganda’s Kiira Motors and Morocco’s Laraki, these companies have developed vehicles ranging from passenger cars and SUVs to buses, pickups and sports cars. While their production volumes vary considerably, they represent some of the continent’s efforts to develop indigenous automotive manufacturing. Here are 10 African automobile manufacturers and vehicle brands to know. 1. Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing – Nigeria Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM)…
Diphtheria outbreak in Chanchaga and Katcha local government areas of Niger State has claimed the lives of 11 people in recent days, with health authorities warning of the growing threat posed by the disease. Executive Director, Niger State Primary Health Care Development Agency (NSPHCDA), Dr. Junaidu Inuwa disclosed this in Minna while speaking at a two-day capacity-building workshop on Strengthening Ward Development Committees (WDCs) on Community Engagement and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP). The latest deaths, according to him, are part of the 17 fatalities recorded from 124 confirmed diphtheria cases in the state between January and early August. “I…
OPay Digital Services has dismissed a viral social media publication claiming that the fintech company would suspend its operations from September 1, 2026, describing the information as false, malicious and misleading. The message, which circulated widely across social media platforms, purportedly advised OPay customers to withdraw or transfer their funds before the company allegedly embarked on an indefinite break from September 1. The claim generated concern among some users, with reports that some customers began taking precautionary steps with their funds. However, OPay, in a statement published through its verified social media platforms, assured customers that its operations remain fully…
The family of the late Muhammad Bello Alkali, popularly known as Dan Masanin Kabi, has donated 40 copies of his book, A Kingdom in Crisis: Kabi in the Nineteenth Century, to Northwest University Sokoto (NWUS). The book, authored by the late Alhaji Muhammad Bello Alkali, provides a detailed historical account of the pre-colonial Hausa Kingdom of Kabi and the conflicts, challenges and transformations it experienced in the face of two major historical developments: the Sokoto Jihad of 1804 and the subsequent colonial conquest of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Presenting the books on behalf of the family on…
My students can easily quote my statement that “high-ranking and successful farmers globally are mostly those coming from other professions and had no formal training as agriculturalists.” Like football, the love of farming is driven first by passion and family food security, then by business acumen. Farming has the widest standard deviation; you can invest heavily and lose every dime, or you can make profits in multiples of your investment. Arch Kabir Ibrahim Faskari was a typical example of a successful farmer driven by passion and love for the farming venture. My first meeting with Arch Kabir Ibrahim Faskari…
The four-year cycle in our democratic journey is here once again. The whistle for the next round of elections has been blown with the release of the campaign timetable. Across the nation, contestants from different political parties will soon go all out to convince the electorate to vote for them. There was a time when I was a starry-eyed idealist who believed that anyone who put himself forward for election meant well. I recall that in 2003, shortly before the governorship election, the late Bukar Abba Ibrahim, then governor of Yobe State and seeking re-election, asked me: “Do you think…
The essence of Nigerian politics is driven by a political economy model in which the formal economy of the country has a separate existence that is subordinated to a second, more significant economic model in which the real drivers are the political actors who inject and subsequently extract liquidity into and from the system. My good friend S. A. Ndanusa explains it in the following manner. Nigeria has two economies. There is the official economy monitored by the National Bureau of Statistics. That is where we find inflation, GDP, unemployment, exchange rates and enough decimal points to persuade us that…
Food security is usually discussed in terms of how much food a country produces. But producing more food does not automatically mean that people can afford nutritious diets, farmers are earning sustainable incomes, or the agricultural system can withstand the next flood, drought or economic shock. This is why Nigeria needs to broaden the food security conversation. Food security, nutrition, livelihoods and climate resilience are not four separate development challenges. They are different parts of the same economic system. How we invest in one affects the others. A farmer who loses a harvest to flooding does not only suffer a…
The Federal Ministry of Finance deserves credit for bringing Nigeria’s economic reforms into the public domain through its “Nigeria’s Economic Reforms: By the Numbers” platform. The initiative addresses an important question: where did the money come from, where did it go, what has changed since 2023, and what do those changes mean? This is a welcome move towards evidence-based fiscal communication and public accountability. But because the Ministry has put the numbers at the centre of the reform narrative, those numbers should be subjected to equally rigorous scrutiny. The government’s scorecard tells Nigerians what changed. It does not yet tell…