[responsivevoice buttonposition=”after”] Nigeria is bleeding dangerously and inexorably falling apart. But the urgency of the moment, when the country is virtually leaderless as myriad groups of criminals overwhelm the state, hasn’t stopped ambitious politicians from advertising their 2023 presidential quest so early. The leading aspirant among the expanding field of presidential hopefuls, is Bola Ahmed…
The Imperial President And His Self-Absorption
[responsivevoice buttonposition=”after”] Muhammadu Buhari is hypocrisy personified in very vivid colours. The irony of the cosmic distance between his words and deeds seems to be always lost on him. He and his shrinking army of core supporters think that he shouldn’t, and cannot, be judged by his words and what he does or fails to…
The Embarrassing Impotence Of Federal Might
[responsivevoice] Nigeria’s president is one of the most powerful state executives in the world. The constitution provides very little limitations on his authority. When this is combined with a supine National Assembly whose members are in awe of the president and commander-in-chief, we end up with an autocrat in Aso Rock. The immense powers of…
When Will Buhari Stand Up?
[responsivevoice] At a time the country is severely challenged on all fronts, Muhammadu Buhari, the president who’s not a president, takes a break from his hibernation in the fortified confines of Aso Rock. He’s in his hometown, Daura, Katsina State, on what’s officially described as a one-week working holiday. He has no qualms enjoying the…
Trump’s Nigerian Wailing Wailers
It’s now official. Nigeria has slid into another recession after two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Hardly surprising. Even those who’re not economists saw it coming. The corona pandemic and its unprecedented global economic dislocation guaranteed it for Nigeria. And even more so because we’ve had an inept and clueless government led by a president…
A Yellow Card For The Rulers
Change can be both evolutionary and revolutionary. When it’s slow, steady and constructive, that’s evolution. When it’s rapid, even sudden, and transformative in a positive way, that’s revolution. But revolution is oftentimes violent in changing a nation’s political landscape. And it usually happens when all the institutions of the state have failed and the leadership…
We All Are Now Wailing Wailers
Politicians will say and do anything and everything to win elections. Just see how President Donald Trump is willfully distorting facts, inventing fictions to strengthen the narratives that suit him and creating an alternative reality of the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economy that has tanked. Trump is desperate to get re-elected on…
Nigeria’s Democrazy and Its Undertakers
Adams Oshiomhole is on a roll. He’s revelling wantonly in his unrestrained power to do as he pleases. The ex-comrade and former governor has achieved his aim. He’s now the sovereign of APC and self-anointed godfather of Edo State politics. He believes that, as national chairman, he’s beyond the constraints of his party’s constitution and…
It’s Mourning in Nigeria
The Muhammadu Buhari administration exists in a parallel world, where alternative facts rule and reality is willfully distorted. Five years on, their Nigeria, according to them, has turned the corner. It is on the road to becoming “a shining city on a hill”, as President Ronald Reagan once described his United States of America. A…
