AHANONU KINGSLEY BLOG

Many complaints of police unpermitted search have continued to increase. And slowly, again, it appears we are forced to re-echo the need to have the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigerian Police scrapped. Just like what instigated the earlier call, with a massively trending hashtag of #EndSARS , to which then Acting president Yemi Osinbajo intervened and it quickly became as if the notoriety settled down, the selfsame insensitivity has begun to rear its head. We still hear of instances of police arbitrarily stopping young men and rashly searching their private properties such as wallets and mobile devices. We hear of contrived imposition on these young men by the same police to part with their money- on grounds of perceived fraud. Many, out of understandable fear have fallen cheaply and victims. But the responsibility of the SARS unit of the Nigerian Police and its duties are clearly spelt out; they must adhere to them. It doesn't encompass molesting and co...

The 74th United Nations General Assembly has just come and gone, without leaving many traces especially as it regards Nigeria. Presided over by Nigeria-born Muhammed Bande, the meeting which was focused on climate change and the need to protect the natural environment from the effect of climate change. It was indeed a gathering of world leaders from over 200 countries. And when it came to conversation about the mainstream issue at stake and for the world leaders in attendance to speak of what is and would be their contributions towards safeguarding the natural environment against the depleting effects of climate change, Nigeria's president, Muhammad Buhari had the fifth slot, just behind that of Turkey, USA, Egypt. Beyond the contents of the speech of President Buhari at the main session of the UNGA, focus would be made as regards the interactive segment of the meeting on the central discourse, which happened to be a sideline of the whole engagement. During an interactive ...

The conspiracies, which have been thrown up by the recent revelation as regards the P & ID (is it Nigeria Ltd or British Island Ltd? An issue, per se that would be looked into separately) botched gas deal, just revealed the rather frightening situation of how Nigeria was practically sold, in somewhat scurrilous means. The case in question brings to view how the nation, at present and in future, was mortgaged in a continuous graduality to outside forces by those that have access and control to our commonwealth through a highly sophisticated collaborations by both internal and external money mongers. The saboteurs have answered to their names and the unsuspecting Nigerian population have begun to know who they are by the indictment that has has quietly to expose their gran conspiracy. What sabotage could be more deleterious than one orchestrated with the support of internal mechanism that knows deeply the tendons that holds the joining of the internal structures, and how weakl...

To the few people that are astonished at yesterday's judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, I'd say please do not. The preview for this outcome has already been there: the deficiencies of our electoral laws. While advanced and developing democracies have realized how important the wishes of the people are in choosing their leaders and how sacrosanct it is to provide them with a free and untrammeled ground to exercise this inalienable right, through adopting policies and framework that would aid in this, the Nigerian system rolls in archaic modulation that stifles true popular expression. The verdict, yesterday of the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal is just a reflection of how our laws, especially as regards to elections are backward and lacking in contemporary innovation. It would be prepostoreous to accuse the panel members of insensibility as the case may be. They'd based their judgement on the ill-fated ground...

In true democracies, the dictates of the greater majority of the people prevail. Through a rather more crystallized and well regulated process of elections organised and supervised by an electoral commission- the umpire of the process, people are availed the opportunity to exercise their franchise to choose leaders of their choice. But, if by any chances of error committed in the process of elections (whether by the electorates, the umpire or the contesting candidates) that would be seen to have jeopardized the process, the judiciary is given the leeway of intervention to reshape and straighten what has become the crooked outcome. The place of the judiciary as the last hope of the common man is, in practice and in a more general term, emphasized through its interventions in the correction of shammed electoral process or, in the alternative, to maintain established valid general mandate of the populace. Today, the political space in Nigeria is charged, beaming with excitin...

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)  has described Nigeria as just one of the most unlikely places to live on earth.  In its annual index of liveable cities, Lagos state, Nigeria's center of excellence ranks as the worst place to live on earth, just ahead of Damascus, capital of war-torn Syria. The EIU , a sister company of   The Economist tabloid , Vienna, the Austrian  capital is the most liveable city in the world for the second year running.  Vienna scores a near-perfect 99.1 out of 100, putting it just ahead of Melbourne. On the EIU’s index, which ranks 140 cities on 30 factors bunched into five categories—stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Sydney and Osaka fill the next two spots in a top ten dominated by Australian, Canadian and Japanese cities.  

The film of ignorance, which has caused them to be segregative and prejudicial has blinded some yet powerful South Africans from the above. This dislike of a people because of the fear such people has imposed on the very citizens that should welcome them has become the cradle that has rocked the rude wave of xenophobia. The spreadsheet ingenuity of the Nigerian person as against been a great source of inspiration has pitched them against the people they've visited. These South Africans do not want to learn from whatever it is that has distinguished their visitor. All they see is the filming fear of dominance, and in no milder term, they want them out. In the same vein, Nigerians home are becoming worn out by the constancy of the prejudice that their brothers over there have been meted with. The reactionary force within has built up, bursting out of elasticity and pushing them to react, chiefly to show support for their own and to pass the clear message that they aren't ...

I have thought about the recent xenophobic attacks unleashed on Nigerians in South Africa and the many issues that have come to surround it. For the while, I've kept pondering and just regurgitating on the issue, while the attacks, counter-attacks and the rash condemnations continued. I have taken this position not out of indifference nor because I do not know what to say. My quietude somehow practically stems from the astonishment I've been thrown into by the situation. The very reality of a nationalistic biasness coming from people who are black and Africans towards fellow black people just cannot keep me from being astounded. It blew me a devastation that somehow numbed my sense of consciousness. Indeed I cannot fathom as to make a contributing take to the scenario that South Africans could take such humiliating and denigrating act of brigandage, and arson against a people that share integral values of blackness and Africanness, much less to Nigerians. It beats my ...