Conflict of powers and interests by DAYO SOBOWALE

The African wisecrack that when elephants fight it is the grass that suffers is the compass  for our safari today into the corridors of power globally. We  shall  look at events in Nigeria where the President of  the Senate is on trial on his asset  declaration in the past and   has  declared in open court that his trial is  political. We shall  draw an inference and lesson from that in the light of Nigeria’s presidential  system which operates on the concept of strict  separation  of powers. We  then  proceed to  Russia where the President received the Prime  Minister  of Israel in the Kremlin amidst global  concern that Russia had decided to step  up militarily  its support for the Assad regime in its fight against rebels and ISIS and  the import  of  that for the influx  of  refugees to  Europe. We  then round up on the role of  German motor  giant  Volkswagon  in   using technology to fool environmental regulators in the US on  diesel engine emissions tests and  the import  of that for global  corporate  governance  and ethics

Power, corruption and anxieties by DAYO SOBOWALE

I start today  on the premise  or saying that power  corrupts and absolute power  corrupts absolutely. To  dilate on this matter I will  look at the life and times of three personalities  in the news recently  and the high expectations and anxieties hanging  on their actions and inactions given their offices and ambitions in their  environment. The first  is our  President Muhammadu  Buhari, his fight against  corruption  and the  public fury over the fact that most  of the appointments he has announced so far  have been lopsided in favor of  the Northern  part  of the nation.

The  second  personality is  Donald  Trump, American  real estate  billionaire  and for now the   leading  candidate of the Republican  Party  for the 2016 presidential  elections in the US. The  third  is the EFCC  Chairman  Lamorde who is being tried for diversion  of seized money by Nigeria’s  Senate  whose leader  and his wife are good  customers  of the EFCC