The biggest challenge to infrastructure development in Nigeria over the decades has been sustainable financing. Major projects require significant funding, which the annual Federal budgets are incapable of mobilising or deploying. But this has been the model over the years: seeking to tackle everything through the budget; releasing money in…

My 2010 Profile of fashion designer, Ade Bakare, for NEXT By Tolu Ogunlesi | January 25, 2010 Ade Bakare always knew he was going to be a fashion designer. “I used to draw a lot. I started with cartoons. I remember doing cartoons and then there was more emphasis on…

On Inflation By Tolu Ogunlesi We saw food and cooking gas prices go up significantly in Nigeria in 2021. Quite troubling indeed. But it’s also very important to situate these price increases within a global context — so let no one try to behave like rising prices are unique to…

Buhari Administration 2021 Highlights Part 1 (January to June) Happy New Year! I’ve put together this compilation of policy highlights and other accomplishments from the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, for the first half of 2021 (Jan — June 2021). It’s not an exhaustive list of course, I will keep updating…

Musings on ‘Halifax’ 2021 Every November the Halifax International Security Forum (HISF) assembles 300 people from various fields (politics, military, intelligence, business, media, academia/thinktanks, activism etc) for a week in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to discuss topical security issues facing democracy and democracies around the world. Fun Fact: Halifax is…

Public Communications Series (1) A multi-part series of musings on communicating as governments and policy-makers, in the hyper-partisan, Internet-dominated contexts of the 21st century. By Tolu Ogunlesi I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the challenges facing government communications in the age of Social Media. …

Infrastructure: Bonny — Bodo Bridges and Road Project, and the Presidential Executive Order 7 Every week, at the State House, Cabinet Ministers address the press at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) Meeting. …

Civil Aviation in Nigeria: 10 Buhari Administration Highlights Minister of Aviation, Captain Hadi Sirika was the Special Guest at last week’s #StateHouseBriefing (Thursday, July 8, 2021) Highlights of what he shared as follows: 1. Nigeria no longer has to send aircraft Cockpit Voice Recorders and Flight Data Recorders (“Black Box”)…

On the 4th of October 1976, Colonel Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Energy, signed, on behalf of the Federal Military Government, an agreement with Shell and BP for the establishment of an export-oriented 800MMscfd Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) on Bonny Island, at a cost of 1.8 billion…