The Petroleum Industry Bill and the Quest for a New Nigeria
By Obadiah Mailafia LAST week, Thursday July 1, the Senate finally passed the long-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB. A milestone in the history of our legislative affairs. Too many interests had repeatedly scuttled it over the years. According to the auditing and advisory firm, KPMG, previous attempts in 2009, 2012 and 2018 failed “because of […]
Genocide and religious freedom
By Obadiah Mailafia Freedom of worship is one of the most sacred rights of humanity. Human beings are creatures of faith. In the midst of antiquity, they worshipped the wind, fire and lightning out of dread, fear and trembling. The ancient Egyptians were the first to come up with idea of one Supreme Being whom […]
Cecil Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson and the revenge of history
By Obadiah Mailafia THEY don’t teach history in our schools anymore. Today, we have a generation of Nigerians that do not know where they came from, let alone where they are going. Those who took decision to expunge history from the school curriculum are traitors. History is the queen of the human sciences just as […]
When government goes for broke
By Obadiah Mailafia Our government is broke. And it’s official. The Minister of Finance, Planning and Budget recently revealed that during Q1, revenues stood at N950 billion while debt-servicing obligations stood at the staggering magnitude of N943.12 billion. This means that 99 percent of revenue is being committed to debt-servicing alone. Economic science as we […]
Who is Afraid of the Middle Belt?
By Obadiah Mailafia Last week a bill was presented to the House of Representatives, entitled “Geo-political Zones of the Federation Bill 2020”. It was sponsored by Kpam Sokpo (PDP, Benue). It aims essentially to enshrine the Six Geopolitical Zones in our Constitution, with “North Central” being renamed “Middle Belt”. The Six Geopolitical Zones were first […]
There is nothing like Farmers-Herders clashes
By Obadiah Mailafia THE National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, was recently quoted as saying that Fulani own Nigeria and will rule our country forever. He also revealed that their organisation had trained between 5,000 and 100,000 “vigilantes” that are being deployed throughout the states of the federation. He asserted that […]
The looming fiscal crisis and the wisdom of Obafemi Awolowo
By Obadiah Mailafia IN terms of financial wizardry and sheer genius in economic statecraft, the only master I bow to is the legendary sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon once observed: “If you know of a man greater than Obafami Awolowo, I would like to meet him.” He is in […]
The coming Antichrist and Africans
By Obadiah Mailafia THIS is an imaginary essay, but I urge my gentle readers not to take it lightly. I was recently taken by dream-vision to the Infernal Kingdom. I beheld Satan sitting on a golden throne with diadems and glittering pomp. The powers and principalities paid obeisance to the King of Darkness; lying prostrate […]
Managing the economy after the pandemic
By Obadiah Mailafia LAST week, a Citizen Dialogue event was hosted by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Budget to examine the fallouts from COVID-19 and the implications for management of the economy. First, it was agreed that our GDP is likely to contract by 3.5 per cent year-on-year for 2020, even as oil earnings […]
Reflections on the post-Coronavirus International Economic Order
By Obadiah Mailafia THE novel coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest global economic shock since the 1929 Wall Street Crash. In fact, its ramifications might be even bigger, given that, unlike the 1929 crash, our world is today an integrated global marketplace. The 1929 crash was triggered largely by the twin crises of over-speculation and […]
Viruses and civilisation
By Obadiah Mailafia THE history of our planet has been a titanic struggle between viruses and human beings. Viruses probably played a role in the disappearance of dinosaurs that failed to adapt to a changing eco-system. The first settled civilisations appeared some 5,000 years ago around Mesopotamia. Then we had the predominantly black civilisation of […]
What does a chief of staff really do?
By Obadiah Mailafia DURING last year I had the honour of being received by Abba Kyari, the larger-than-life Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari. His office was neat and well-organised; the furnishing in the classic Nordic minimalist style. Sitting next to me on the sofa, he softly asked if I needed coffee or any […]
Building economic resilience in a time of adversity
By Obadiah Mailafia BLACK swans are rare, unpredictable, large-impact occurrences. The theory of complexity provides a good framework for understanding black swans and for learning how better to cope with uncertainty under the dynamics of open, complex adaptive systems. The paradigm of Complex Adaptive Systems, CAS, draws insights from multiple disciplines, ranging from evolutionary biology […]
China’s Wuhan ends its coronavirus lockdown but elsewhere one begins
China sealed off Wuhan, a central city of 11 million people, on Jan. 23, a drastic step that came to symbolise its aggressive management of the virus. More than 50,000 people in Wuhan were infected, and more than 2,500 of them died, about 80% of all deaths in China, according to official figures. READ ALSO: […]
The perfect storm and the re-alignment of global economic power
By Obadiah Mailafia EVOLUTIONARY biologists tell us that viruses have been with us since the beginning of time. Civilisation itself has been a struggle between humans and viruses. Conspiracy theories abound. The Chinese and Americans have been at each other’s throats. Some claim it was a Chinese invention to get even with the West. Others […]
A destiny among the nations (2)
By Obadiah Mailafia THE late French agronomist, René Dumont, once lamented that African nations have no purpose. I would imagine he was starting from the premise that the majority of our countries emerged as colonial contraptions that did not follow the linear path of nation building and political evolution followed by the European Westphalian state. […]
