By Biko Agozino

A colleague asked me to comment on his treatise on the just announced Nigerian policy of removing subsidies from petroleum products. The colleague started by stating that petrol is cheap in Nigeria and that the subsidies served as a form of wealth re-distribution especially given that there does not appear to be any other way of trickling down the oil wealth to the impoverished masses. He did not go the extra step in his logic to recognize that if his premise is right, then removing the subsidies is tantamount to raising taxation on Nigerians by executive fiat and without legislative authority. Not that it will be too difficult to obtain legislative rubber stamping with Ghana Must Go (or Imo Must Go from Abia and vice versa) bags.

By Chief Femi Fani-Kayode

April 7, 2011

I do not mean any offence to Nigerian women by asking the question that I am about to ask or by making the assertions that I am about to make in this note. However this is an important question that I have not been able to answer myself for a number of years even though I have tried my best to do so. And the question is as follows. What precisely is it about Igbo women that have made them excel in public office, business, politics, the arts, the sciences, religion, leadership and social activism in just the last 12 years when compared to their counterparts from other parts of our country?