Azuka Onwuka
From fuel subsidy to currency subsidy?
One piece of good news from Nigeria in the past one month is the rapid recovery of Nigeria’s currency, the naira. The naira was rated as the best-performing currency in the world in the last one mon...
23rd April 2024
Boat tragedy, Lagos Island fire signal deeper problems
When the news of HIV broke in Nigeria in the late 1980s, it came with a lot of exaggeration. I was in secondary school in my hometown Nnewi in Anambra State then. HIV was portrayed as something that c...
16th April 2024
Many Nigerians don’t know Ghana is larger than southern Nigeria
One ridiculous point some Nigerians raise any time they want to prove their supremacy over Ghana is that Ghana is the size of one state in Nigeria. And many people who don’t bother to investigate th...
9th April 2024
Politics may be dirty but shouldn’t scare away clean people
The Christian fasting period and the Muslim fasting period ran concurrently this year. Over the weekend, Christians celebrated Easter to mark the resurrection of Christ and the conclusion of that seas...
2nd April 2024
Import of barbaric murder of 17 soldiers
Reports of mass killings in Nigeria ceased to be news long ago, but last week’s killing of 17 soldiers in Okuama community in Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State could not escape the ...
26th March 2024
Is it true that respect is earned?
One saying that has gained currency is: “Respect is earned, not given.” Many say it with so much conviction that it has acquired the tag of truth. But like many not-well-thought-out expressions, w...
19th March 2024
APC vs PDP: When a woman marries a second husband
There is an Igbo proverb that says: When a woman marries the second husband, she understands the true worth of the first husband. It is the same for a man who divorces his wife and marries a second wi...
12th March 2024
As economy worsens, pastors exploit it with fear-mongering teaching
Over the weekend, while Nigerians were mourning actor and comedian John Okafor, popularly known as Mr Ibu, a Facebook post by a pastor trended and brought to the fore the growing distorted brand of Ch...
5th March 2024
Hard times don’t affect the ostentation of Nigerians
Those who do not understand Nigerians very well would assume that the present skyrocketing cost of things would make Nigerians cut down on their ostentatious lifestyle. But that is almost an impossibi...
27th February 2024
Why should women still receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees?
Many countries have adopted gender-neutral language in all their communication. Gender-specific words are no longer accepted in public communication. For example, “mankind” has been replaced with ...
20th February 2024
What Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa can learn from USA and Canada
The relationship between Nigeria and Ghana or Nigeria and South Africa can be embarrassingly petty. Forget the usual rivalry that exists among nations when it comes to sports, as exemplified in the re...
13th February 2024
The challenge non-natives face over Yoruba names
Any time Nigerians are participating in an international sports championship, one challenge that arises is the pronunciation of names. Some sounds exist in some Nigerian languages that don’t exist i...
6th February 2024
Why Awotona’s tech billionaire status in the US matters
One striking thing about Nigerians is that once a Nigerian excels in any field of human endeavour, that field becomes attractive to other Nigerians. That is why the emergence of Tope Awotona as a tech...
30th January 2024
Is it too early to judge Tinubu?
As the administration of President Bola Tinubu goes into its eighth month, some people believe it is too early to judge him while some believe it is enough time. Given Tinubu’s public relations savv...
23rd January 2024
That embarrassing police reaction to ‘No gree for anybody’ slogan
It was disconcerting watching the spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force, Mr Muyiwa Adejobi, holding a press conference where he warned Nigerians about the use of the slogan “No gree for anybody.�...
16th January 2024
How ‘village’ has harmed the Igbo people
During the Yuletide, the hashtag ‘Igbo village mansions’ trended on social media. The hashtag, which started on Tiktok, was a reaction to a denigrating remark someone made about the Igbo people li...
9th January 2024
Nigerian comedy may never get global acclaim unless…
The Nigerian music industry has never had it so good. In addition to the Grammy awards that Nigerian musicians win these days as well as the sold-out concerts they have in different cities of Europe, ...
2nd January 2024
Should Christmas be celebrated because of its origin?
Every Christmas, there is always an upsurge of arguments about the appropriateness or not of celebrating Christmas. There are those who argue that it should not be celebrated because it has pagan orig...
26th December 2023
Can Nigeria ever be an organised society?
The level of disorganisation in Nigeria is so overwhelming that one wonders if it can ever be surmounted. And it is the root cause of Nigeria’s underdevelopment. A visitor to Nigeria will be shocked...
19th December 2023
Eight words Nigerians misinterpret
There are some words that have been wrongly named and interpreted among Nigerians for a long time. When a Nigerian uses such words outside Nigeria, it conveys a different meaning and creates confusion...
12th December 2023
How school uniform colour impacts behaviour of students
Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, white was the most popular colour for school uniforms, whether primary or secondary. For boys, the shirt was usually white, while the shorts or trousers could be blue,...
5th December 2023
Democracy is not Nigeria’s problem
Last week, Nigeria’s former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, reiterated what some Nigerians tend to say when they are frustrated about the way democracy has progressed in the country. That point ...
28th November 2023
How Nigeria has progressed backwards
As a child growing up in Nnewi, Anambra State, in the 1970s and 80s, it is shocking to remember that we had some facilities that are not available in Nigeria of today. In the 1970s, Nnewi was a semi-u...
21st November 2023
No sign of Nigeria’s transformation in next 20 years
The narrative from certain quarters is that President Bola Tinubu is laying the foundation for a new Nigeria which will only manifest in years to come – probably when his presidency has ended. The s...
14th November 2023
How Canadians merged British English and American English
One of the biggest sources of confusion in the English language is the word “football.” If you live in Europe, Africa or Asia, you may not feel the impact of that confusion much. But if you spend ...
7th November 2023
Decision-making: Could Okonkwo have avoided killing Ikemefuna?
This year, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart celebrated 65 years since it was published. Although it was not the first African novel, when Things Fall Apart was published in 1958, it redefined Afric...
31st October 2023
Diaspora Nigerians should participate in resident country’s politics
Last week, while Wab Kinew was making history as the first indigenous (known as First Nations) premier of a Canadian province, Uzoma Asagwara was also making history as the first female-born Nigerian-...
24th October 2023
Private universities have arrived but there’s danger
Many people did not understand the import of the recent university ranking that placed Covenant University, Otta, Ogun State first in Nigeria. On the surface, that ranking showed that Nigeria’s priv...
17th October 2023
Why politicians and mischief-makers excel in Nigeria
There is a growing trend of people intentionally releasing false news to the public and later withdrawing, deleting it or keeping quiet when it is proven to be false. This is rampant on social media. ...
10th October 2023
My encounters with sex, alcohol, cigarette and hard drugs
I tried to smoke because I was 100 per cent sure that cigarette can’t overpower or control me. I smoked for about four weeks when I was almost 24 years old. It was tasteless and made no sense to m...
3rd October 2023
‘Side chick’ vs ‘side chic,’ ‘anyway’ vs ‘anyways’
When a wrong expression is used repeatedly, especially by trusted sources like media houses, many people who are right assume they are wrong and start using the wrong expression. That is what has happ...
26th September 2023