Chikelubawritings

At their summit in Nassau, The Bahamas, in 1985, the Commonwealth Heads of State and Governments (CHOGM) decided to establish an Eminent Persons Group to explore difficult dialogue with the   Apartheid   regime in   South Africa . The EPG was to be led jointly by Australia’s former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser and Nigeria’s former military ruler, Olusegun Obasanjo. Emeka Anyaoku, the Nigerian diplomat who would later serve with considerable distinction as Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, headed the secretariat of the EPG. In 1986, the Group undertook its first insertion into South Africa. In his memoirs,  The Inside Story of the Modern Commonwealth , Chief Anyaoku narrates that the mission was underwritten by a bargain with the Apartheid regime that all persons whom it met would suffer no reprisals. However, in Cape Town, Chief Anyaoku recalls, Trevor Manuel, who was then one decade away from becoming Finance Minister in the post-liberation adm...

In July 2023, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, presided over a meeting of the National Judicial Council, NJC, to appoint his own son a judge of the Federal High Court. On October 4, as his father presided over the swearing in of his own son, it fell to the Old Students Association of Ikolaba Grammar School, which the new judge attended for his secondary education, to defend his appointment with the cringe-inducing statement that “contrary to claims in some quarters, Ariwoola Jr.’s appointment as a judge was not on the influence of his father, who is the CJN”. They lacked the standing to say this, of course, because they could not possibly know how he was appointed. In June 2023, the NJC convened to approve the elevation of the President of the Court of Appeal’s son-in-law. This individual has previously been appointed as a judge of the National Industrial Court of Nigerian, NICN, a mere six years earlier in 2017.  In July 2023, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, presided over a m...

There is a negative   pattern   that has been established by some personages under the canopy of religion with the ultimate aim of spreading falsehood and engendering hate between tribes, tongues and faiths in Nigeria. We are all supposed to bow and tremble before their sanctimonious thrones because theirs is the voice from Above.  Many  analysts  still argue about the best nomenclature for the political clerics. Are they politicians hiding under religion or clerics in politics? Whatever be the case, governments have habitually avoided any confrontation with them. And the clerics in question seem to interpret this to mean that they are untouchable and above the law. Gumi’s Antics During the Buhari days, Sheik Abubakar Gumi announced himself as the authentic go-between regarding any negotiation with bandits and terrorists in Nigeria. Government played down the issue, although many people thought the sheik was overreaching in posturing as an alternative power cent...

On Wednesday, I attended a foreign policy lecture organized by the Society for International Relations Awareness (SIRA) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja. At the event, Professor John Kayode Fayemi, the former Governor of Ekiti State and a renowned foreign policy expert, dissected the root causes of Africa’s lack of a cohesive and comprehensible foreign policy agenda on the   global   front. In his remarks, Fayemi called for an end to the age-long dependence on foreign aid by African nations. He emphasized that for Africa to truly become independent on the global stage, it had to redefine itself and its partnerships with the rest of the world. After the lecture, I sat down with a few older diplomats — former  Ambassadors  who had served in Europe, Africa, and North America — to discuss the former Governor’s comments, and we all agreed that as a template, his recommendations for Africa works; however, on a case-by-case basis, each African nation ha...

The seeming opposition by many Nigerians to president Tihnubu’s fuel subsidy removal has no doubt been generally misunderstood. Of course, it is an open secret that the subsidy regime had been more of a cause than a blessing to the people. But no one is convinced that fuel subsidy removal can be done without dialogue and more importantly without a clearly well-thought-out statement on how to manage its devastating consequences. Even the International Monetary Fund which is a pro-subsidy removal body has admitted that in addition to the decision to remove fuel subsidy, Nigeria must make efforts to protect poor citizens from the high cost of living crisis. Last week at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Marrakesh, Morocco, the IMF told Nigeria to complement the fuel subsidy removal with a set of policies that could help lower inflation and protect the most vulnerable citizens. In many other countries, the percentage of the society that is described as vulnerable can be quite insig...