Title: Fellow Nigerians (Turning Points in the

          Political History of Nigeria)

Author: Dan Agbese

Publisher: Umbrella Books, Ibadan, Nigeria (2000)

Pages: 167

Price: £12.00

Two kinds of literature have emerged in Nigeria over the last decade or so—accounts by military men justifying coup making or the civil war and the largely boring ululations and lullabies of sycophants in the name of biographers. Fellow Nigerians addresses the curious connection between the profiles of Nigeria’s past leaders and their subsequent roles in retirement. The author gives us, largely unedited, a fascinating repertoire of the foibles, the recklessness, tardiness, the litter and glitter of the maiden addresses of Nigerian past heads of state and those whose dreams were aborted in the blind quest for power and glory from Major Chukwuma Nzeogu to President Olusegun Obasanjo. This book takes us into the mindset of those men.

 It has fourteen chapters with very apt, philosophical and crisp titles such as only the author, famous for his linguistic economy, grammatical dexterity and elegance, can capture. It is the result of the masterly application of a solid and very hard nose of a time tested journalist, which over the years, has been hammered on the anvil of experience and sharpened on the touchstone of intellectuality. It has logic in its sequence but not rigid in ideology, it is emotive in its textual presentation, but far from being explosive in its claims, it has painful conclusions and lessons for the patriot, but it is not disdainful of its subject matter.<![endif]>

About the Author

Dan Agbese, a veteran Nigerian journalist, was born at Agila Okpokwu in Benue State. He was educated in his country and the United States of America. He was a staff writer at the northern-based New Nigerian, a newspaper he later edited, before joining The Nigerian Standard in Jos as chief sub editor and later editor. Agbese was also General Manager of Radio Benue, Makurdi and Special Adviser and Director of Information, Benue State. He is a co-founder of Nigeria’s premier magazine Newswatch. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the newsmagazine.