By Reuben Abati There have been interesting arguments over Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun’s observation that “recession is just a word”, and NAN MD, Bayo Onanuga claiming that reports of hardship in the land is exaggerated propaganda. I think we need to break down the subject further from a layman’s perspective. Recession is a word, […]
Continue ReadingBy Reuben Abati Mark Zuckerberg’s two-day visit to Nigeria has done a lot for the country; it is a pity no government official or agency has tried to tap into the gains of that visit. He arrived at a time there was much talk about economic recession, concerns about companies folding up or retrenching staff, […]
Continue ReadingBy Reuben Abati The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog – George Graham Vest (1870). Joe Fortemose Chinakwe, the man who named his dog after President Muhammadu Buhari is right […]
Continue ReadingBy Reuben AbatiOne other outcome of our democratic experience since 1999 is how demanding and insatiable the Nigerian voter has become, and because political office holders and the professional political class are yet to fully decipher and understand the implications of this, they continue to make similar mistakes and draw the same responses from the […]
Continue Reading“ I hear we are no longer Nigeria, but the United States of Nigeria” “You didn’t hear anything. Stop being hypocritical, my friend.” “But the incumbent Minister of Sports is on record as having said something like that” “I know. That dumb Minister who wears the red cap that looks like something taken and approved […]
Continue ReadingBy Reuben Abati If there was any hope that Donald Trump would change tactics and be more restrained after winning the Republican party Presidential nomination for the November 8 US election, that hope is now lost. The fellow has remained aggressive, incorrigibly brash and completely negative. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson has asked: “Is Donald […]
Continue ReadingBy Reuben Abati I was shocked by the trenchant reaction to my piece on the July 15 attempted coup in Turkey from at least two persons. The piece titled “Nigerians and the Failed Coup in Turkey” (The Guardian, Sunday, July 17) had fetched a mail and direct messages from a concerned Nigerian who objected to my […]
Continue ReadingBy Reuben AbatiI wrote a piece recently, a tribute to the late veteran actress Bukky Ajayi and the multi-instrumentalist OJB Jezreel, in which I raised a number of issues, including how in Nollywood today, there is an obsession with the whitening of skin, an anti-Negritude yellowing, what I referred to as “the bleaching, chameleon crowd […]
Continue ReadingNigerians love events and ceremonies. The engine of governance in fact runs on this special fuel, which in many ways has become an occasional excuse for waste and idleness. I have in the course of work attended and compered many of such events; one thing that I find curious is the obsession with acknowledgements. If […]
Continue ReadingBy Reuben Abati Turkey is about five hours away from Nigeria by air, about 2, 634 miles from here, but the night there was a coup attempt in Turkey, July 15, with soldiers shutting down parts of Ankara and Istanbul, you’d think Ankara is a city somewhere in Nigeria and Istanbul is an extension of […]
Continue Reading