SAM OHUABUNWA'S PARADIGM

Nigeria is the most populous Country in Africa with current population estimated at about 194 million growing at about 2.6% per annum. It is said that every one of Four black People in the World is a Nigerian.With an estimated GDP of $405 billion Nigeria is still the largest economy in Africa in spite of its recently ended descent to economic recession. So with the largest population and largest economy, it is natural that Africa expects leadership from Nigeria. The discussions for the conversion of the African Union (AU) into a common economic zone like the European Union (EU)  had been going on since 2012 and actually intensified since 2015. Nigeria's current Minister of Industry, Trade and investment, Dr Okechukwu Enalamah was the Chairman of the African Ministers of Trade (AMOT) that signed off the legal instruments establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) , thereby paving the way for the Heads of States and Governments to gather in Kigali Rwanda l

Nigeria is in dire straits,especially from a security perspective. Everyday that passes, it looks like things are falling apart and the centre is finding it difficult to hold. I do not know how the government and party in power view this situation. Some how, it seems to me that they are essentially hoping that things will soon sort themselves out. But that strategy seems not to be working well so far and I am getting really worried that by the time this strategy eventually comes to work, things may have completely gone out of hand, because in the long run we would all be dead as the economists say. It is true that Nigeria has a high fertility rate, but the way Nigerians are being slaughtered everyday these days,soon we will begin to depopulate Nigeria at a rate much higher than the birth rate. I do not think that this is a valid population control strategy. Boko Haram is bombing and killing daily and those they fail to kill, they abduct. The militant Fulani herdsmen have gone com

Most Nigerians agree that we need change in many aspects of our national life and national institutions. But in my mind, if there is one place, we needed urgent and revolutionary change, it is in the Nigeria Police (Force or Service). This is because Nigeria Police is fully symptomatic of what is troubling Nigeria and therefore, if we get the Police right, many other matters will fall into place. For example, our perennial low position on the Transparency International global   Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is influenced strongly by the pathetic picture of our Policemen extorting money from drivers in the full glare of the public. It must however be pointed out that this seems to be an embedded culture of the Nigeria Police,which has long characterized the force, almost from creation. This matter has troubled me for many years and I had taken a few actions to see if I could help stop this practice without any iota of success while putting my life at risk. First was as a pri

Last week the Independent National Electoral Commission  (INEC) released what looked like the Periodic Table which we used in the O-level Chemistry class to determine the valency of metallic elements, announcing the dates of elections in Nigeria up to 2043 or so. Some people saw this as a strategic and audacious move of projecting the future. Indeed INEC said they did this to bring some certainty to election dates in Nigeria. Many other commentators have mocked INEC for 'forming work', that is pretending to be working when actually there is no work being done. They think that INEC is leaving the substance and pursuing the shadow. Some think all this was INEC's response to the "effrontery" of the National Assembly in trying to change the sequence of elections in Nigeria. The executive is decidedly unhappy about this and it looks INEC has gone on overdrive to project the President's desire.  But there is little INEC can do, as it is their lot to implement