Abia State

Eke O Ako’s Debt Arithmetic: When Liabilities, Loans and Debt Stock Are Thrown Into One Pot Eke O Ako has produced what looks, at first glance, like an intimidating collection of figures against the Abia State Government. Unfortunately, once the figures are separated into their proper accounting categories, much of the dramatic conclusion begins to wobble. 😂 Numbers may be stubborn, but numbers placed in the wrong columns can also become very obedient servants of propaganda. The first problem with Eke O Ako’s argument is elementary: total liabilities in a government financial statement are not automatically synonymous with DMO public-debt…

VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS AND THE ABSU CONTROVERSY: WHEN OWEI LAKEMFA’S POWERFUL HEADLINE OUTRAN THE FACTS, HISTORY AND ECONOMICS At first, the title “ABSU: Running a University as a Local Village Contraption”, published by Vanguard Newspapers and written by Owei Lakemfa, seemed to promise a serious interrogation of university governance, funding, labour relations and institutional autonomy. It sounded like the beginning of a rigorous public-interest intervention. Unfortunately, as one travelled deeper into the piece, the thunder of the headline increasingly became louder than the economics, history and institutional context required to sustain it. Mr Lakemfa is entitled to criticise Governor Alex Otti.…

A POLITICAL ECONOMY REVIEW OF THE RECKONING IN GOD’S OWN STATE: WHY ALEX OTTI DESERVES A SECOND TERM AND WHY HIS REFORMATIVE INNOVATIONS MUST CONTINUE By AProf Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke Agbeze Ireke Kalu Onuma, writing under the pen name AI-KO, has produced in The Reckoning in God’s Own State: Why Alex Otti Deserves a Second Term and Why His Reformative Innovations Must Continue an unusually expansive intervention in the political economy of subnational governance in Nigeria. The author identifies himself as a Nigerian writer, analyst and public intellectual whose writings traverse political history, governance and civic affairs. Although the work…

SO MOVING AN INDUCTION FOR SAFETY IS NOW EVIDENCE OF UNIVERSITY COLLAPSE? 😂 The Absurdity of Treating Safety as Collapse There is something almost comic about the argument that because an induction ceremony involving ABSU medical students was reportedly moved from ABSUTH to Rhema University amid tension and threats, this must automatically prove that the university has collapsed. Really? 😂 Since when did taking precautions become evidence of institutional failure? If there were credible concerns around the original venue, then relocating the ceremony was not weakness; it was common sense. The students still graduated, the ceremony still held, families still…