Greg Odogwu
Actions to combat climate threats in Nigeria
There is no doubt that the globe presently feels the accelerated impacts of climate change. Gradually, but steadily, shifting weather patterns, rising sea levels, ubiquitous flooding emergencies, and ...
25th April 2024
Junior Pope, Nollywood and art of dancing with death
It is said that film stuntmen dance with death all the time. Without them, the movies are not interesting. They fall from high-rise buildings, emerge from burning cars and houses covered with raging f...
18th April 2024
Nigerian manufacturers should also be protected
All over the world, there are many ways governments protect consumers, but little is said about protecting the manufacturer. Yet, the industrialised nations have a way of ensuring that their indigenou...
11th April 2024
President Faye’s 'abido shaker' cannot work in Nigeria
Over the past year, I intermittently followed political news coming from Senegal, the West African country that had never seen a military coup since its independence in 1960. It was as if the devil wa...
4th April 2024
Akwa Ibom and governance fragmentation
The Abuja Municipal Area Council, last week, unveiled a crescent named after the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Umo Eno. The Chairman of AMAC, Christopher Maikalangu, said that the crescent, located in ...
28th March 2024
How subsidy removal killed clean cooking
The removal of the petrol subsidy on May 29, 2023, has affected everybody and everything in Nigeria. But the most impacted of them all is domestic cooking. As the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, aka...
21st March 2024
Adesina, Nigeria and Awolowo’s impossible dreams
One of the most beautiful and inspiring news to come out of Nigeria in recent times is the Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership bestowed on our own Dr Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Develo...
14th March 2024
Seasonal Climate Prediction and heat of the moment
“Temperatures in most parts of the country are expected to be warmer-than-normal (i.e. hotter than the average seasonal temperature).” – Prof. Charles Anosike, DG/CEO, Nigerian Meteorological A...
7th March 2024
How Nigerian governors under-develop Nigeria
Anyone with an ear to the ground would notice that many Nigerians are presently calling out state governors right, left and centre. These are not ordinary citizens; most of them are experts and prof...
29th February 2024
Will our legislators take Obono-Obla’s advice?
Chief Okoi Obono-Obla, a former presidential aide to Muhammadu Buhari and former head of the Special Presidential Investigations Panel, recently urged the National Assembly to enact legislation that w...
22nd February 2024
Non-soccer tales from Cote d’Ivoire
For those Nigerians who console themselves about the current hardship by comparing our country to neighbouring West African countries, the just concluded Africa Cup of Nations provides some food for t...
15th February 2024
Let’s have a nation first before having firearms
The word on the street is that the people of Nigeria want to be armed in order to be able to defend themselves against bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and sundry criminals that plague our lives daily....
8th February 2024
Sometimes we need medicines, not prayers
There is something about Nigerians. In spite of our suffering, we are still our brother’s keepers. With the insane level of insecurity in the land, a ‘normal’ country would have developed the hi...
1st February 2024
How will Lagosians survive without plastics?
The Lagos State government has banned the usage and distribution of Styrofoam and other single-use plastics across the state. The singular reason behind this sudden decision is that these materials im...
25th January 2024
There is fraud in sharing, Nigeria is bleeding
The paradox is phenomenal. Intervention projects that are supposed to be a relief to the citizens and a fillip to the economy have become a fantastic drainpipe to the country. The poor masses, who wer...
11th January 2024
Once again, Pope Francis has seen the future
There is growing turbulence in the world’s spiritual space. Since Pope Francis declared that the Church would henceforth bless same-sex couples, there have been gales of backlash. This is understand...
28th December 2023
Has Fubara bitten off more than he can chew?
In what started like every political godfather’s worst nightmare, former Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike’s installed successor, Simi Fubara, began to wriggle like a caged reptile. All the struc...
21st December 2023
This dissonance is killing our children
Last week, there was a news item about a 22-year-old Nigerian student who committed suicide because, he reportedly said, “God failed him.” According to the Kwara State Police Command, the student ...
14th December 2023
NLC on the road to COP28
In about one week from now, world leaders will converge in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the 28th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, popularly known...
23rd November 2023
Why Nigerians are lonely at the bottom
A few days ago, news of the alleged suicide of Toluige Olokoobi, mother of the “mummy calm down” boy, swept through the social media space like a cold wind. Olokoobi and her son, Oreofeoluwa Lawal...
16th November 2023
Beyond France’s advancement of Nigeria’s creative industries
On November 3, 2023 at the invitation of Vice President Kashim Shettima, France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Ms Catherine Colonna, officially witnessed the unveiling of France’s co...
9th November 2023
Erisco Foods and the arrow that flies by day
It is high time we Nigerians told ourselves the truth. Patriotism has finally taken a back seat in our national life. Even without being conscious of it, our everyday activities betray that subconscio...
2nd November 2023
Nigeria in new decade of Belt and Road Initiative
As China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which took off in 2013, enters its second decade, there is the need to reflect on how our country has engaged this historic concept and what lies ahead on the Si...
26th October 2023
The insult they gave us as palliatives
The video of an angry Nigerian rejecting a quarter-bag-of-rice state government’s palliative has been trending, especially on the social media. In the video, the man directly addressed the governmen...
19th October 2023
Hope Uzodimma and temple of brown
Over the years, one has mourned the missed opportunities of our leaders failing to use Nigeria as a model for green growth in the developing world. From the teeming ‘almajiri’ in the North to the ...
12th October 2023
Success of SURWASH depends on civil society engagement
Last year, the World Bank began implementing a critical development project in Nigeria. Known as the Nigeria Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, aka SURWASH, it aims to i...
5th October 2023
NiMet’s ISO recertifications should inspire climate action
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency recently recertified its ISO 9001: 2015 and ISO 29990: 2010. The first is for the provision of aerometeorological services for the nation’s aviation industry, whil...
28th September 2023
Zephaniah Jisalo: Abuja’s loss, Nigeria’s gain
President Bola Tinubu made history by being the first Nigerian president to nominate an Abuja indigene as a minister of the Federal Republic representing the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. For a lo...
21st September 2023
Why Africa Climate Summit delivered half a loaf
Everyone is used to that popular colloquial quip, “half bread is better than none”, which is actually a corrupt version of the original dictum from John Heywood’s 1546 work (on Proverbs 17:1): �...
14th September 2023
China’s rejuvenation and Nigeria’s untapped potential
“Those who are impoverished are national assets waiting to be unleashed; waiting to be tapped. They are not objects of pity or mere humanitarian concern.” – Charles Onunaiju, Director, Centre ...
7th September 2023
Lagdo Dam alert: Politicians playing while we drown
Their cheekiness is shocking; and reeks of ingrained haughtiness, perhaps informed by that hare-brained self-deceit that they are ‘giants of Africa.’ A drowning giant so incapacitated that it coul...
31st August 2023