April 22, 2025
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The politics of realpolitik

Ihesiulo Grace 0
It appears anti-Buharis are redefining the concept of ‘realpolitik’. Beyond its text book meaning as ‘practical realism’ or its street-wise interpretation as ‘end justifying the means’, anti-Buharis are now proposing that to be ‘realpolitik’ is also to ‘blackmail the opponent out of contest’.
diary
Columnist

2017: Diary of a columnist (III)

Ihesiulo Grace 0
By Mohammed Adamu Short speech, long speech “As the speech defines the occasion, and as the occasion defines the speech, great moments of decision making (like that by Shakespeare’s Hamlet when he said “To be or not to be”), are not attended with the distractions of unmerited anecdotes. Buhari (after his return from London) had […]
Columnist

The season of recanting

Ihesiulo Grace 0
By Reuben Abati “I wish I could travel to the US right now” “Why? Why not wait till summer time?” “No, I feel like going there physically to tell President Donald Trump exactly how I feel about the statements he has been making about the black world.” “You don’t need to go to the US […]
Buhari
Columnist

Buhari: Between yesterday and tomorrow

Ihesiulo Grace 0
I wrote the following piece, presented in italics, shortly after the postponement of the 2015 Presidential elections. It is important that the reader approaches it with an open mind, with an understanding of the context of its construction. The piece, titled “Buhari’s One Chance Campaign” never got published. One of my colleagues to whom I […]
blind
Columnist

Buhari and the two blind men

Ihesiulo Grace 0
By Azu Ishiekwene Something curiouser than the perennial fuel shortage emerged last week. President Muhammadu Buhari’s New Year message was the clearest indication yet that the three most senior managers of the oil industry do not agree on the cause of the problem or how to fix it. It may be a genuine epidemic of […]
columnist
Columnist

2017: Diary of a columnist (I)

Ihesiulo Grace 0
No sympathy, no antipathy “Nonetheless it is both a moral and legal requirement that in the fight against corruption a political leader must proceed with the utmost detachment and un-affection. He must approach the fight as much without fear or favour as without bias or malice aforethought. He is obligated both by law and by […]
mbaka
Columnist Opinion

Fr. Mbaka and the Voice of God

Ihesiulo Grace 0
“I do not believe in my mind that the way things are in Nigeria, any Catholic priest has the mandate to decide which of the political contestants should be voted for…I don’t believe a priest should be doing that…If he was in my archdiocese, I will have sanctioned him long ago for the kind of […]
liberia
Columnist

Liberia: The rise of George Weah

Ihesiulo Grace 0
George Weah’s emergence as Liberia’s President-elect after the December 26 run-off election generated considerable interest among Nigerians for a number of reasons. Number one is George Weah’s popularity. The first African footballer to win the Ballon D’or, FIFA Player of the Year, three-time African Footballer of the Year, ex-Monaco, ex-Paris Saint-Germain, ex-AC Milan,
Jerusalem
Columnist

Who’s Jerusalem? III

Ihesiulo Grace 0
We have seen that none of the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, came into possession of Palestine or Jerusalem by being the original owners or the earliest ‘settlers’. They were all virtually ‘strangers’ to the lands -just like God Himself in the Bible had said to Abraham in Genesis 17:8: “the land wherein […]
Jerusalem
Columnist

WHO’S JERUSALEM? (II)

Ihesiulo Grace 0
..Continued from last week We have seen from last week’s piece that neither Palestine as a territory nor Jerusalem as a city started existing only some 1000 BC when Israel’s King David was said to have declared it Capital of the Jews. Nor did they start existing only some 1500 or 2000 years before Christ […]
obasanjo
Columnist

Olusegun Obasanjo, Ph.D

Ihesiulo Grace 0
By Reuben Abati Perhaps in the long run, the most remarkable legacy of the Nigerian leader known as Olusegun Obasanjo would be his personal example, in terms of the manner in which he continues to creatively reinvent himself and the Renaissance quality and force of his achievements. In addition to all that we already know […]
Netanyahu
Columnist

Who’s Jerusalem? (I)

Ihesiulo Grace 0
It is a fact of religious history that all three Middle Eastern religions –Judaism, Christianity and Islam- consider Jerusalem a holy city. It is also true that Jerusalem contains sites that are sacred to all of these essentially monotheistic faiths. Sacred Jerusalem The Jews whose religious interests in Jerusalem preceded those of the Christians and […]
PDP
Columnist

PDP convention: The aftermath

Ihesiulo Grace 0
The elective Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that took place at the Eagle Square in Abuja on Saturday, December 9, was a charade and an anti-climax. Everyone who had been a witness to the travails of the once-upon-a-time ruling party which lost power to the All Progressives Congress in 2015 – viz, the […]
PDP
Columnist

PDP’s second chance at a new life

Ihesiulo Grace 0
The party would have been over by now. Peoples Democratic Party stalwart, Raymond Dokpesi, had, in fact, organised a mock funeral. When it seemed all but certain that the Ali Modu-Sheriff faction of the PDP was going to have the last laugh at the Supreme Court, Dokpesi registered the Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), as […]
Jonathan
Columnist

Abdullahi’s Inside Story On Jonathan

Ihesiulo Grace 0
Of the three presidents who ruled Nigeria between 1999 and 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan appears, so far, to have been the subject of more controversial books than his two predecessors. Five notable books about or significantly touching on former President Obasanjo’s tenure are his memoir, My Watch; Olusegun Obasanjo: The Presidential Legacy (Vols. I & […]
Isaac Oguntoye
Columnist

On Atiku’s ‘ambition’s

Ihesiulo Grace 0
“If I can conceive it, and believe it, I can achieve it. It’s not my aptitude but my attitude that will determine my altitude –with a little intestinal fortitude”. –Jesse Jackson Ambition as plague The English playwright John Webster, in ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, said “Ambition… is a great man’s madness”; suggesting that it is […]