By Garba Shehu, OON, FNGE,
(former presidential spokesman)

This year, the Leadership newspaper is conferring its prestigious Man of the Year award on two Nigerian icons in recognition of their leadership journeys:

By Chekwas Okorie (Ojeozi Ndigbo)

I wish to state unequivocally that all our people who are pushed by our painful and unbearable situation in Nigeria to embark on and demand for our self-determination in Nigeria or outright exit for a separate state of Biafra are within their inalienable rights to do so. It is on record that the president of Nigeria Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu stated boldly and publicly that he did not believe in one Nigeria. He made this statement, which was widely published in Nigerian newspapers when he lost faith in the unity and oneness of Nigeria. Some years later, he became the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without being restrained as a result of disowning Nigeria in the past.

By Lawal Nasir

As the drums of politics begin to sound again with the commencement of campaigns for the 2027 elections, rallies, billboards, media blitzes and display of constituency projects are set to flood the country. While many, including media owners, see this as a harvest time, an opportunity to make money, the time is also critical for the health of the Nigerian economy.

By Tonnie Iredia

By providing a slot for feedback (responses and suggestions) many television stations in the past gave viewers a weekly opportunity to comment on the programmes they watched; the opportunity appears to have since been inadvertently blocked.

By Azu Ishiekwene

A few months before the 2023 general elections, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, warned voters to reject any politician who promised an easy road. “Anybody who tells you that it is going to be easy,” he said in Kaduna in October 2022, “please, don’t vote for him. It’s either that he’s lying to you, or he does not know what job he’s going to get.”

By Azu Ishiekwene

The piece by columnist and former Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Guardian, Martins Oloja, entitled “Why Should We Celebrate Daily Times @ 100, FRCN @ 75?” published on September 5, was an angry one. And Oloja had many good reasons to be angry.

• The Long Game: What Will Tinubu Leave Behind? (II)

By Adeola Akinremi

In September 2018, when I arrived at Johns Hopkins University–SAIS to study Public Policy, I did not anticipate that President Bola Tinubu would become a case study for one of my classes. But he showed up. The course was Energy, Resource and Environment, and the case study was titled Remaking a Neglected Megacity: A Civic Transformation in Lagos State, 1999–2012.

By Hassan Gimba

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up – Mahatma Gandhi.

By Hassan Gimba

The four-year cycle in our democratic journey is here once again. The whistle for the next round of elections has been blown with the release of the campaign timetable. Across the nation, contestants from different political parties will soon go all out to convince the electorate to vote for them.

By Steve Osuji

The market supremo, better known as Iyaloja has her fancy office on a loft near the centre of the market. It's the biggest market in the largest city in the land. From that elevated perch, she can see pretty much what goes on in the buzzing bazaar.

By Jude Ogechi Eze

Exactly one year ago, in the early hours of 29 August 2025, at Niger Foundation Hospital, Enugu, the Diocese of Nsukka lost the man who gave it shape, structure and definition: His Lordship, the Most Rev. Dr. Francis O. Okobo, her pioneer Bishop.

By Azu Ishiekwene

It was five years on Tuesday since I wrote a tribute to the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, who was 65 at the time.