Newswatch Best is a collection of articles published in the magazine in its early days and months between 1985 and 1986. The selections, put together by Ray Ekpu, the publishing company’s current chief executive officer are not whimsical. While it is true that they are not representative of what Newswatch emphasised in the years covered, they are a thumb-sketch of some of the events, issues and ideas that gripped the public consciousness through their own life force or through the compelling force of their rendering.
The Kiss of Death: Afenifere and the Infidels is a graphic and candid assessment of the transition of Afenifere and its leaders into their twilight or, at best, into a long-drawn dormancy. The book is about high-wire politics, personal intrigues and political vendetta. It captures the process that led to the opening of the underbelly of Afenifere for piercing by a lurking enemy.
The House in Session has been long overdue in the market. But it could not have come at a more auspicious time than now that a civilian government is once again trying to build democracy in Nigeria after many years of military dictatorship.
House of War is a chronicle of the bitter and bloody struggle for political power in Nigeria’s Second Republic, especially among the followers of the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo. This is the story about the schism in the Awo camp and how Awoists turned against one another in the great scramble for political office. The book exposes the politicians’ grand auction of principles and the political intrigues, double dealings, back stabbings, stealing of votes, arson and killings, that characterised the Second Republic, especially during the 1983 elections. It is a relevant book, especially for those who have been following Nigeria’s new attempt to establish a worthwhile democracy since the end of military rule in 1999.
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.
A definitive work that has laid to permanent rest the controversy that has dogged the results of the parliamentary elections into the Western Nigeria Regional House of Assembly in 1951. Was there really, as claimed that some parliamentarians crossed carpet to enable Action Group form the government? The Action Group (AG) led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo won the elections and formed the government, which he headed. But the NCNC led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, also claimed victory, but without establishing sufficient evidence for this “victory”. The claims and counter-claims have endured in political discourse in Nigeria for nearly half a century after the event.
On June 8 1989 , the Abacha-led military dictatorship in Nigeria came to an abrupt end. General Sani Abacha had in the early hours of that day died in mysterious circumstances. The advent of his regime in November 1993 had led to significant political developments. The hitherto critical human rights community in Nigeria and the country’s President-Elect, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, not only turned a blind eye to Abacha’s impending coup, they tacitly endorsed it. They were soon to learn that Abacha has his own agenda, albeit to rule Nigeria at any cost. Nigerians were, however, no longer ready to accommodate military rule. Consequently, the political class, including Chief Abiola, who died in incarceration a month before Abacha himself died, and the human rights community sank their differences and formed the National Democratic Coalition of Nigeria, NADECO.
The late Alfred Rewane was an icon of Nigeria's pro-democracy movement during the dark days of the later dictator General Sani Abacha. He campaigned tirelessly democracy and human rights, true federalism, honesty, transparency and accountability in public office, and ethics in business. While alive, he was at paint to let the younger generation of Nigerians know that there used to be a Nigeria where things worked, a country which was safe to live and work in. Hardly did any issue of national relevance pass during the latter part of his lifetime without his public intervention.
Diplomatic Baggage is the riveting story of the attempted kidnap of a former Nigerian minister Umaru Dikko from his London home. The story, as told by the author Kayode Soyinka, a London based Nigerian journalist and publisher, reads in part like a Le Carre thriller, with the involvement of at least two secret services. It is also a sober but intriguing account of Umaru Dikko’s legal battles for asylum in the United Kingdom, a shrewd analysis of Nigerian politics, exclusive interviews with Dikko himself, and, like all good stories, has a bizarre denouement.
Clapping With One Hand is an insider’s account of what is known in Nigeria as the June 12 Struggle, the epic political battle fought over the annulment of Nigeria’s presidential election of June 12, 19993. It is a story of betrayal, hatred and calculated self-interest that is bound to jar the mind of the reader. But it is also a book of the failure of the Nigerian project and how that failure continues to manifest itself in every sphere of the country’s life.
Newswatch Best is a collection of articles published in the magazine in its early days and months between 1985 and 1986. The selections, put together by Ray Ekpu, the publishing company’s current chief executive officer are not whimsical. While it is true that they are not representative of what Newswatch emphasised in the years covered, they are a thumb-sketch of some of the events, issues and ideas that gripped the public consciousness through their own life force or through the compelling force of their rendering.
The Kiss of Death: Afenifere and the Infidels is a graphic and candid assessment of the transition of Afenifere and its leaders into their twilight or, at best, into a long-drawn dormancy. The book is about high-wire politics, personal intrigues and political vendetta. It captures the process that led to the opening of the underbelly of Afenifere for piercing by a lurking enemy.
The House in Session has been long overdue in the market. But it could not have come at a more auspicious time than now that a civilian government is once again trying to build democracy in Nigeria after many years of military dictatorship.
House of War is a chronicle of the bitter and bloody struggle for political power in Nigeria’s Second Republic, especially among the followers of the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo. This is the story about the schism in the Awo camp and how Awoists turned against one another in the great scramble for political office. The book exposes the politicians’ grand auction of principles and the political intrigues, double dealings, back stabbings, stealing of votes, arson and killings, that characterised the Second Republic, especially during the 1983 elections. It is a relevant book, especially for those who have been following Nigeria’s new attempt to establish a worthwhile democracy since the end of military rule in 1999.
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.
A definitive work that has laid to permanent rest the controversy that has dogged the results of the parliamentary elections into the Western Nigeria Regional House of Assembly in 1951. Was there really, as claimed that some parliamentarians crossed carpet to enable Action Group form the government? The Action Group (AG) led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo won the elections and formed the government, which he headed. But the NCNC led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, also claimed victory, but without establishing sufficient evidence for this “victory”. The claims and counter-claims have endured in political discourse in Nigeria for nearly half a century after the event.
On June 8 1989 , the Abacha-led military dictatorship in Nigeria came to an abrupt end. General Sani Abacha had in the early hours of that day died in mysterious circumstances. The advent of his regime in November 1993 had led to significant political developments. The hitherto critical human rights community in Nigeria and the country’s President-Elect, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, not only turned a blind eye to Abacha’s impending coup, they tacitly endorsed it. They were soon to learn that Abacha has his own agenda, albeit to rule Nigeria at any cost. Nigerians were, however, no longer ready to accommodate military rule. Consequently, the political class, including Chief Abiola, who died in incarceration a month before Abacha himself died, and the human rights community sank their differences and formed the National Democratic Coalition of Nigeria, NADECO.
The late Alfred Rewane was an icon of Nigeria's pro-democracy movement during the dark days of the later dictator General Sani Abacha. He campaigned tirelessly democracy and human rights, true federalism, honesty, transparency and accountability in public office, and ethics in business. While alive, he was at paint to let the younger generation of Nigerians know that there used to be a Nigeria where things worked, a country which was safe to live and work in. Hardly did any issue of national relevance pass during the latter part of his lifetime without his public intervention.
Diplomatic Baggage is the riveting story of the attempted kidnap of a former Nigerian minister Umaru Dikko from his London home. The story, as told by the author Kayode Soyinka, a London based Nigerian journalist and publisher, reads in part like a Le Carre thriller, with the involvement of at least two secret services. It is also a sober but intriguing account of Umaru Dikko’s legal battles for asylum in the United Kingdom, a shrewd analysis of Nigerian politics, exclusive interviews with Dikko himself, and, like all good stories, has a bizarre denouement.
Clapping With One Hand is an insider’s account of what is known in Nigeria as the June 12 Struggle, the epic political battle fought over the annulment of Nigeria’s presidential election of June 12, 19993. It is a story of betrayal, hatred and calculated self-interest that is bound to jar the mind of the reader. But it is also a book of the failure of the Nigerian project and how that failure continues to manifest itself in every sphere of the country’s life.