Nigeria is ranked 120th of the 142 countries in terms of adherence to rule of law, according to the latest global Rule of Law Index released by the World Justice Project (WJP).

The 2023 index released on Wednesday in Washington DC, United States, also showed that out of the 34 countries ranked in the sub-Saharan region, Nigeria is rated 23rd.

According to the WJP report, countries were judged on eight indicators, namely constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice and criminal justice.

While the report noted that Nigeria’s score increased, however, it slipped by two points from the 2022 index where it was ranked 118th out of the 140 countries ranked globally that year.

“This is the sixth consecutive Index marking global declines in the rule of law. This year alone, the rule of law declined in 59 per cent of countries surveyed. However, Nigeria is among the minority of countries to see its Rule of Law Index score increase this year,” the report stated.

Globally, the top-ranked country in the 2023 WJP Rule of Law Index is Denmark, followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Germany.

The country with the lowest score is Venezuela, trailed by Cambodia, Afghanistan, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Nigeria’s performance across indicators

In terms of constraints on government powers, Nigeria was ranked 85th out of 142 countries globally and ranked 14th out of 34 countries in the region. The performance in this indicator was the best performance for Nigeria in any of the indicators.

However, WJP stated that 74 per cent of the countries failed in the area of constraint on government, specifically in terms of the ability of some institutions to check the excess of the executive.

“Over the past seven years, index scores for constraints on government powers have fallen in 74% of countries—including Nigeria. Around the world, legislatures, judiciaries, and civil society—including the media—have all lost ground on checking executive power.

“These and other authoritarian trends continued in 2023, but they are slowing, with fewer countries declining in 2022 and 2023 than in earlier years. Constraints on Government Powers fell in 56 per cent of countries, compared to 58 per cent in 2022 and 70 per cent in 2021. Likewise, a smaller majority of countries saw overall rule of law declines in this year (59 per cent) as compared to the last two (61 per cent and 74 per cent),” WJP stated.

Co-founder and President of WJP, William Neukom, explained that “the world remains gripped by a rule of law recession characterised by executive overreach, curtailing of human rights, and justice systems that are failing to meet people’s needs.”

In terms of absence of corruption, Nigeria ranked 121st out of 142 countries globally, and 23rd out of 34 countries regionally. In the open government category, the country is ranked 104th out of 142 globally and 14th out of 34 in the regional ranking.

Similarly, in order and security, Nigeria is the second worst country in the sub-Saharan region as it is ranked 33rd out of 34 countries. Globally, it is ranked 139 out of 142. In terms of fundamental rights, Nigeria has a global ranking of 116th out of 142 and a regional ranking of 23rd out of 34.

For regulatory enforcement, civil justice and criminal justice, Nigeria is ranked 119th, 100th and 86th respectively out of the 142 countries rated.

Regional ranking

In the sub-Saharan region, WJP ranked the following countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The region’s top performer is Rwanda (ranked 41st out of 142 globally), followed by Namibia and Mauritius. The three countries with the lowest scores in the region are Mauritania, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (138th globally).

WJP stated that since 2016, the rule of law has fallen in 78 per cent of countries studied. The rule of law factor to decline most between 2016 and 2023 is fundamental rights—down in 77 per cent of countries, including Nigeria.

Methodology

WJP is an independent, nonpartisan, multidisciplinary organisation working to create knowledge, build awareness, and stimulate action to advance the rule of law worldwide.

To compile the list, WJP says it relies on more than 149,000 household surveys and 3,400 legal practitioner and expert surveys to measure how the rule of law is experienced and perceived worldwide.

WJP defines the rule of law as a durable system of laws, institutions, norms, and community commitment that delivers: accountability, just laws, open government, and accessible justice.

The report is published annually and subjected to a rigorous methodology. The Index is used by governments, multilateral organisations, businesses, academia, media, and civil society organisations around the world to assess and address gaps in the rule of law.

PT

Ninety percent of depots operated by independent oil marketers are currently closed on the back of a lack of supplies caused by currency volatility and difficulties in the local distribution channel, industry operators say.

Mohammad Salaudeen, Executive Director of Northwest Petroleum and Gas Limited, said marketers licensed to import petrol since deregulation couldn’t because of the cost of operations.

Representing Winifred Akpani, MD/CEO of the firm, on a panel session titled “Africa Fuels’ Update: Overview of Trends and Market Developments,” at the ongoing Oil Trading and Logistics (OTL) Africa Week 2023 in Lagos, Salaudeen said operations from importation to distribution to the end users have been hampered by the unstable dollar/naira exchange rate, leading to a high cost of operations.

“We’ve seen the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited retail stations not operating at some point. If NNPC stations (that are the big boys) are not operating, what happens to people like us?

“The challenge today is that, firstly, we can’t import the product,” he said. “Secondly, the NNPC brings it in in smaller volumes. So what will get to us…We’ll have to wait.”

According to the executive director, when marketers put forth their request, it’s like they are in a queue, “when it gets to your turn, you’ll get it. That is the challenge of today.”

“Unfortunately, we have to wait for quite some time for us to be able to move forward on this and that’s the position that marketers face.”

Earlier at the event, Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory NMDPRA, said that eight (8) wholesale petroleum product suppliers out of 94 licensed oil marketers were granted import permissions and supplied eight cargoes of PMS totaling 251,000 MT (291,238,670.69 litres) between June and September 2023.

However, he expressed confidence that the government’s efforts to restore the stability of the harmonised FX market will assist in the importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, by other oil marketing companies in addition to the state-owned oil companies.

On the other hand, the 21 depots operated by the state-owned oil company are not functioning, according to the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN).

“Without mincing words, none of the depots is working,” said Dele Tajudeen, Zonal Chairman, IPMAN Southwest.

Representing Chinedu Okoronkwo, National President of the Association, Tajudeen said the only option left is to explore private depots across the country.

“Once these depots start working, a marketer in Kaduna won’t have to come to Lagos to move products.

“When all these are put in place, the traffic and the cost of transportation will be better,” he said. “By the time we are in serious full deregulation… The price of the commodity will surely come down.”

Businessday

Federation account allocation committee (FAAC) says it shared N903.48 billion with the three tiers of government for September 2023.

The figure represents a decrease of N196.52 billion compared to the August disbursement of N1.1 trillion.

The committee disclosed this in a communiqué issued on Tuesday at the end of its October meeting in Abuja.

According to the communiqué, the N903.48 billion was drawn from statutory revenue of N423.01 billion, value-added tax (VAT) of N282.66 billion,  N10.98 billion from electronic money transfer levy (EMTL), and N186.81 billion from exchange difference.

FAAC said “N54.426 billion was given to the cost of collection, N347,857 billion allocated to transfers and refunds, while N289 billion was transfered to non oil revenue (savings) for September 2023”.

According to FAAC, the distributable VAT revenue for the period reviewed was N303.55 billion — a decrease from the N345.72 billion distributed in August, by N42.177 billion.

From the distributable VAT revenue of N303.55 billion, the committee said N282.666 billion was distributed to the three tiers of government. The federal government got N42.40 billion, while the states and local governments received N141.33 billion, and N98.933 billion, respectively.

The committee said the distributable gross statutory revenue “of N1,014.953 billion was received for September” — an amount higher than the N891.934 billion received in the preceding month by N123.019 billion.

From the distributable gross statutory revenue, N190.84 billion was allocated to the federal government, states got N96.80 billion, and local governments received N74.62 billion.

FAAC said out of the distributable revenue of N11.44 billion from EMTL, the federal government received N1.64 billion, states were given N5.49 billion, and local government received N3.846 billion.

Also, from the N264.81 billion exchange difference revenue, the federal government was given N85.64 billion, the states got N43.44 billion, and N33.49 billion was allocated to local governments.

FAAC said the balance in the excess crude account (ECA) as at October 24, 2023 was $473,754.57.

The Cable

Department of State Services has freed the embattled ex-Economic and Financial Crimes Commission boss, Abdulrasheed Bawa, after exactly 134 days spent in the custody of the secret police.

Bawa was released from the national headquarters of the secret police, ‘Yellow House,’ in Abuja, Wednesday night.

Bawa was arrested and detained by the DSS on June 14, 2023, following an invite over undisclosed reasons, after he visited President Bola Tinubu earlier on the same day.

Our correspondent gathered that following Bawa’s arrest on June 14, 2023, he was probed for alleged financial impropriety during his years in the anti-graft agency.

Sources privy to the development also revealed that the ex-EFCC boss refused to hire a legal representative despite his confinement.

Punch

UN warns Gaza blockade could force it to sharply cut relief missions as Israeli bombings rise

The U.N. warned Wednesday that it is on the verge of running out of fuel in the Gaza Strip, forcing it to sharply curtail relief efforts in the territory blockaded and devastated by Israeli airstrikes since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.

The warning came as hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources. Meanwhile, the U.N.’s top official faced backlash from Israel after saying the Hamas massacre that sparked the fighting did not “take place in a vacuum.”

Health officials said the death toll was soaring as Israeli jets pounded Gaza. Workers pulled dead and wounded civilians, including many children, out of landscapes of rubble in cities across the territory.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said more than 750 people were killed over the past 24 hours. The Associated Press could not independently verify the death toll, and it was not known if the count included any militants.

The Israeli military, which accuses Hamas of operating among civilians, said its strikes killed militants and destroyed military targets. Gaza militants have fired unrelenting rocket barrages into Israel since the conflict started.

The rising death toll in Gaza — following a reported 704 killed the day before — was unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even greater loss of life could come if Israel launches an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction.

The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 6,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The figure includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital last week.

The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel — mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government. Hamas also holds some 222 hostages in Gaza.

The warning by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, over depleting fuel supplies raised alarm that the humanitarian crisis could quickly worsen.

Gaza’s population has been running out of food, water and medicine, too, under Israel’s seal. About 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled their homes, with nearly half of them crowded into U.N. shelters.

In recent days, Israel let a small number of trucks with aid enter from Egypt but barred deliveries of fuel — needed to power generators — saying it believes Hamas will take it.

UNRWA has been sharing its own fuel supplies so that trucks can distribute aid, bakeries can feed people in shelters, water can be desalinated, and hospitals can keep incubators, life support machines and other vital equipment working.

If it continues doing all of that, fuel will run out by Thursday, so the agency is deciding how to ration its supply, UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai told The Associated Press.

“Do we give for the incubators or the bakeries? Do we bump clean water or do we send trucks to the borders?” she said. “It is an excruciating decision.”

More than half of Gaza’s primary health care facilities and roughly a third of its hospitals have stopped functioning, the World Health Organization said.

At Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, the lack of medicine and clean water have led to “alarming” infection rates, the group Doctors Without Borders said. Amputations are often required to prevent infection from spreading in the wounded, it said.

One surgeon with the group described amputating half the foot of a 9-year-old boy with “slight sedation” on a hallway floor as his mother and sister watched.

A strike Wednesday in the Nuseirat refugee camp killed the wife, son, daughter and grandson of one of Al Jazeera TV’s chief correspondents, Wael Dahdouh. Footage aired on the Qatari based network showed the veteran journalist weeping over his son’s body on a hospital floor.

“They take vengeance on us through our children?” he sobbed.

In a swath of Gaza City’s Yarmouk neighborhood reduced to splinters, a bleeding man hugged a child after both were dug out of the rubble. A bakery in Deir al-Balah was flattened. In a nearby hospital, medics treated a boy with a mangled, half-severed leg. One worker lifted a dead baby out of the shattered concrete and rebar of 15 homes hit in the southern city of Rafah.

The conflict threatened to spread across the region. The Israeli military said it struck military sites in Syria in response to rocket launches from the country. Syrian state media said eight soldiers were killed and seven wounded.

Strikes in Syria also hit the airports of Aleppo and Damascus, in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel has been exchanging near daily fire with Iranian-backed Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah met with top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in their first reported meeting since the war started. Such a meeting could signal coordination between the groups, as Hezbollah officials warned Israel against launching a ground offensive in Gaza.

Hamas’ surprise rampage on Oct. 7 in southern Israel stunned the country with its brutality, its unprecedented toll and the failure of intelligence agencies to know it was coming. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech Wednesday night that he will be held accountable, but only after Hamas was defeated.

“We will get to the bottom of what happened,” he said. “This debacle will be investigated. Everyone will have to give answers, including me.”

U.S. President Joe Biden said that after the conflict comes to an end, Israelis, Palestinians and their partners must work toward a two-state solution. He also decried increasing attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, saying they must “stop now.”

Settler attacks have been part of swelling violence in the occupied West Bank, including clashes between fighters and Israeli troops and shootings of stone-throwing protesters. At least 104 Palestinians have been killed, health authorities say.

Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said his country will stop issuing visas to U.N. personnel after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” It was unclear what the action, if implemented, would mean for U.N. aid personnel working in Gaza and the West Bank.

“It’s time to teach them a lesson,” Erdan told Army Radio, accusing the U.N. chief of justifying a slaughter.

The U.N. chief told the Security Council on Tuesday that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” Guterres said “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

Guterres said Wednesday he is “shocked” at the misinterpretation of his statement “as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas.”

“This is false. It was the opposite,” he told reporters.

AP

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian military getting weaker – Shoigu

Russian Defense Minister Shoigu said on Tuesday that the current situation in the combat zone suggests that the Ukrainian armed forces are losing strength and “panicking.” He cited a substantial takedown of aviation potential to back up his assertion.

Shoigu claimed that his forces downed 24 Ukrainian military planes in just five days, crediting “new weapons systems” for the achievement.

He also pointed to manpower losses reducing Kiev’s offensive potential. “Today’s situation shows that the enemy has fewer and fewer capabilities. And there are fewer of their soldiers thanks exclusively to your combat work,” he told servicemen from the Vostok Group.

“They are in panic, we know their tactics, we know their offensive and retreat plans,” he added.

Shoigu added that in the last three to four weeks many Ukrainians have been captured or have voluntarily surrendered. According to the minister, they speak about the poor psychological condition of their colleagues.

“We now have weapons systems which have taken down 24 planes in five days,” Shoigu was quoted as saying in a press release.

Footage of the discussion published by the military did not include the comments about the new weapons, while Shoigu did not detail the time frame in which the strikes on Ukrainian aircraft were conducted.

The Defense Ministry regularly reports successful engagements of Ukrainian military aircraft by fighter jets and air defense units. Briefings from last Friday to Tuesday claimed that 18 planes had been destroyed in total.

The list included 14 MiG-29s, two Su-24s, one Su-25, and one L-39. The latter is a Czech-produced trainer-fighter plane, rather than a more capable fighter or ground attack plane like the others. A single Mi-8 helicopter was taken down in the same period, according to the ministry.

The ministry’s briefing on Friday noted that in the week starting October 14, Russian forces took out 12 Ukrainian planes, including ten MiG-29s and two Su-25s. Seven of the MiGs were destroyed in a 24-hour period, the report said.

A source close to the Defense Ministry told TASS that Shoigu was referring to the use of the long-range air defense system S-400, with targeting data provided by the A-50 airborne radar. The interceptors fired during the engagement were reportedly armed with new warheads. The claim was not officially confirmed.

Shoigu attended the award ceremony after visiting one of the headquarters involved in the Ukrainian campaign. It was held in a tent in which weapons trophies appeared to be on display alongside portraits of Russian military commanders and Orthodox icons.

** Russia’s top brass reports downing two American ATACMS missiles for first time

Russian air defense forces shot down two US-made ATACMS missiles over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not report earlier about the destruction of ATACMS missiles.

"During the last 24-hour period, air defense capabilities intercepted two US-made ATACMS tactical missiles, an S-200 surface-to-air missile converted for striking ground targets, two HARM anti-radiation missiles and two rockets of the US-manufactured HIMARS multiple launch rocket system," the ministry said in a statement.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia disregards losses, presses on in Ukraine's Avdiivka

Russian forces are disregarding heavy losses and pressing on with a drive to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.

Russia has focused on the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since failing in its initial drive on the capital Kyiv after mounting its invasion in February 2022.

Over the past two weeks, Russia has concentrated on Avdiivka in Donetsk, a town known in peacetime for its big coking plant and now seen as a bulwark of Ukrainian resistance.

"The enemy is trying to move forward and then we beat them back," Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for Ukraine's southern groups of forces, said on national TV.

"So by no means can you speak of a fixed situation of some sort. Heavy fighting is continuing, though activity has subsided somewhat. The enemy is going through some kind of regrouping."

Russian forces were relying on infantry, using small assault groups of 30 to 40 men, Shtupun said, giving Russia's losses in the last six days as 2,500 dead and wounded in the area.

"This is quite significant even for Russia, bearing in mind that they do not look after their own men," Shtupun said.

Vitaliy Barabash, head of Avdiivka's military administration, said Russia was applying pressure from the north but was unable to get past a rail line under Ukrainian control.

He also dismissed reports that Russian troops had secured control of one of the large slag heaps dominating the town's industrial landscape.

"They put up flags there and tried to make some kind of spectacle," Barabash said.

Valeriy Prozapas, a Ukrainian captain, told Espreso TV that the Russians were acting to exploit the fact that Avdiivka was "de facto half surrounded".

"The second issue is political. They have little to be proud of and have to sell to their population some sort of victory, even if it is only an interim one," Prozapas said.

Ukraine's counteroffensive, launched in June, has resulted in the capture of devastated villages in the east and some settlements in the southern sector, but the pace is far slower than last year's advance through the northeast.

Russian accounts of the latest fighting made no mention of Avdiivka, but said Russian troops had repelled 15 Ukrainian attacks near Kupiansk, farther north.

Ukrainian officials also acknowledged heavy fighting near Kupiansk, a town initially seized by troops but taken back by Ukraine in last year's rapid advance through the northeast.

Authorities in Kharkiv region said they were imposing a mandatory evacuation of families from 10 localities in the area.

RT/Tass/Reuters

George Orwell and his classic novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” are having a moment. The book ranks in the top ten on Amazon’s classic literature best seller list, and last year Russian media reported that it was the most downloaded e-book in that country.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk posted a picture on X (formerly Twitter) showing off his new T-shirt emblazoned with “What Would Orwell Think”  —  an ironic homage from a man many see as enabling a resurgence of Orwellian disinformation on the social media platform.

“Nineteen Eighty-Four,” a searing denunciation of totalitarianism, censorship and disinformation, brought us the terms “doublethink” and “Thought Police.” Its relevance in the era of Trump, Putin and Xi has led many to return to the novel or to seek it out for the first time.

The dangerous disinformation campaigns attending the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas earlier this month have only underscored the relevance of Orwell’s critique of those who seek to rewrite history for their own ends.

Yet, while “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is revered for its clear-eyed depiction of tyranny, there have long been those who chafed under the book’s representation of gender.

Now, nearly 75 years since its publication, the novelist Sandra Newman has produced a feminist retelling of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” which asks us to imagine how the story might have looked had it been told from the woman’s perspective.

“Julia” forms part of a long tradition of fictional retellings that complicate the perspective of an original work’s protagonist by telling the story through the eyes of a marginalized character.

Milton’s 17th-century epic poem “Paradise Lost,” which narrates the Old Testament from Satan’s perspective, is the first and arguably the best example of this genre, which also includes novels such as Jean Rhys’ 1966 “Wide Sargasso Sea,” a retelling of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” from the perspective of Bertha, the “madwoman in the attic,” and John Gardner’s “Grendel.” There have also been film and television reinterpretations such as Disney’s latest Star Wars spinoff “Ashoka,” which offers a new female-centered perspective on the fate of the Jedi after the fall of the Empire. As with Newman’s “Julia,” the most successful retellings are both homage to and critique of the original work.

In “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” agents of the totalitarian regime’s Thought Police entrap, arrest, torture and finally mentally break a couple perceived to be dangerously disloyal to Big Brother’s regime. In Big Brother’s eyes, both are threats worth eliminating, but in Orwell’s estimation, they are not equal.

The male member of the couple is the hero of the novel. We know his full name. Winston Smith. We know that he is thirty nine years old, and a factotum in the Records department of the Ministry of Truth (where he spends his days manufacturing fake news), that he has brown eyes, bad teeth and varicose veins. The woman presumably also has a full name, but we never learn it. She is simply Julia.

In fact, according to Orwell, she is not a woman but a “girl,” whom Winston estimates to be in her late 20s. (Tellingly, the reader never learns her age, only Winston’s perception of it.) Her principal traits are her physicality and her voracious sexuality.

They both work in the Ministry of Truth, but while Winston uses his mind to rewrite history, Julia uses her hands in “some mechanical job.” She is uninterested in politics.  She falls asleep when Winston attempts to share with her his revelations about the inner workings of Big Brother’s regime and laughs with delight when he dismissively claims that she is “only a rebel from the waist downwards.”

While they are both caught up in the Thought Police’s net, it’s clear that Winston is the big fish. Julia only meets O’Brien, their captor and interrogator, because Winston invites her to tag along when he pays a visit to the great man’s apartment.

At first reading, Orwell’s marginalization of Julia might seem like simply a product of its time — yet a growing body of work, including most recently Anna Funder’s “Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life,” has emerged suggesting that Orwell was exceptionally misogynistic and patriarchal even by the standards of the 1940s.

Orwell first came under attack from second-wave feminists in the 1980s, including Daphne Patai and Beatrix Campbell, who argued that his work generally ignored the position of women within society and specifically obscured the burdens that poverty places on working-class women.

A spate of archival revelations over the past few years further reinforced existing evidence that he was a philanderer who frequented prostitutes and seemingly never missed an opportunity to proposition both his wife’s friends and his friends’ wives.

So, how would the story of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” have looked different had it been told by a feminist?

For one thing, Julia would have had a last name. Julia Worthing. She would also have a fully developed backstory.  In Newman’s novel, Julia comes from a family of bourgeois socialists who are initially in the vanguard of Big Brother’s revolution.

Her family is first exiled and ultimately murdered when the leader, like the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on whom he was modeled, consolidates his hold on power by eliminating his potential rivals within the party.

Julia’s sexuality and her anti-intellectual practical-mindedness are the tools that help her survive life as an exile and an orphan.  She sleeps her way back from exile and into a good party job in London.

She mentally compartmentalizes the crimes that she is forced to commit to survive, and she possesses a knack for black-marketeering, which keeps her in chocolates, coffee and cigarettes. Whereas Winston’s rebellion is driven by an intellectual rejection of Big Brother, hers is ultimately propelled by love. (Crucially, not love for Winston Smith who is, at best, a minor character in Julia’s story).

It’s an ingenious conceit. At several points, I found myself asking whether this portrait of Julia could really be squared with the two-dimensional picture of her that we get in “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” and whether the story that Newman tells could hold simultaneously with Orwell’s narrative. That they arguably could underscores how differently the world can look depending on your perspective.

Newman’s attempt to turn Orwell’s Oceania on its head and look at it from the perspective of a woman never granted the dignity of a last name is in many ways not dissimilar to this summer’s blockbuster attempt to reclaim “Barbie” for feminism.

Like Barbie Handler, Julia Worthing is a product of the patriarchy who refuses to stay in the box and let herself be objectified and diminished. She insists on being the heroine of her own story and, in doing so, pushes Winston Smith into a life of blond fragility.

But if the Barbie movie largely dodged the problematic question of Barbie’s hypersexualized physical appearance in favor of a focus on her intellectual awakening, Newman’s Julia remains fundamentally a rebel from the waist downwards.

Why doesn’t Julia get to be an intellectual rebel in her own right? Why must she be characterized by the traditional “feminine” traits of empathy, practicality and intuition, not to mention a stereotypical physical attractiveness?

The women’s movement has long been divided between maternalist or biological feminists who view woman as fundamentally different from men and seek to elevate and celebrate that difference, and equal rights feminists who argue that gender differences are largely societal constructs and that, but for patriarchy, empathy would not be deemed a feminine trait nor intellect a masculine one. (Others, of course, would argue that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.)

In doubling down on Orwell’s depiction of Julia as a practical-minded anti-intellectual, Newman’s book appears to come down firmly in the former camp.

One of my favorite parts of the original “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is a rare instance in which Orwell grants Julia intelligence and agency, with the narrator even conceding that, “In some ways she was far more acute than Winston.”

This moment comes as the couple are discussing the seemingly endless war between Oceania and its rivals, when “she startle[s] him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, ‘just to keep people frightened’. This was an idea that had literally never occurred to him.”

Perhaps this is just evidence of Julia’s feminine intuition, but it at least hints that she possesses a power of reasoning equal to if not beyond Winston’s.

In exalting Julia’s feminine practicality above Winston’s idealism, Newman is arguably adhering to Orwell’s original pessimistic message about the futility of clinging to notions of intellectual freedom under absolute tyranny. But it is cold comfort to imagine that Julia might have survived by forfeiting her right to think for herself.

Matt Higgins’ “number one” piece of advice for finding a highly successful mentor: Don’t ask anyone to mentor you.

The “Shark Tank” investor and RSE Ventures CEO doesn’t like it when people cold-message him with mentorship requests, he said during Tuesday’s CNBC Make It: Your Money virtual event. “Mentorships don’t just form from two strangers,” he said.

A request for mentorship from a stranger might seem demanding and come off transactional, Higgins said. Instead, if you have someone you want to enlist as a mentor, reach out with a specific question that you want advice on. Then, you can start to build a relationship that might lead to mentorship down the line.

You could ask Higgins, for example: “I heard on ‘Shark Tank’ that you struggle with impostor syndrome. Tomorrow, I have a huge interview. Can you give me one sentence of advice?”

“I am going to answer that,” Higgins said, adding: “Ask a discrete question that makes it easier for somebody to help you and maybe over time an authentic relationship will form, and they will lean in.”

Putting ego aside and asking for help isn’t embarrassing, Higgins said. And though he says he wasn’t always comfortable with it, he’s learned to embrace “the indignity of putting [himself] out there and DMing folks and explaining [his] mission.”

Higgins isn’t the only “Shark Tank” star to weigh in on the value of mentorship. In a 2020 interview, Mark Cuban said that he isn’t “a big mentor guy” because he views them as a “shortcut” to success. 

“That’s not to say that mentors and coaches can’t be of value,” Cuban said. ”[But] there are people telling you, “I’m going to make you rich’ and ’I’ve got the solution,” when they have never really done it themselves.”

Daymond John, another “Shark Tank” investor, is less skeptical. Learning how to bounce back from failure from mentors “changed his life,” he told Make It in 2021. Those mentors weren’t necessarily billionaires or CEOs, he added — they were simply people in his family and community who were willing to help him out.

“You may not be able to get a hold of Daymond John or Barbara Corcoran,” John said. “But mentors are all around in our community. They’re just in disguise.”

CNBC

Attahiru Jega, a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says the commission must probe why the presidential poll results failed to upload to the INEC results viewing portal (IReV).

Speaking in an interview on Arise Television on Tuesday, Jega said as a former chairman of the commission, he could relate to many of the challenges faced during the general election.

“And if you are so confident with the planning process, and at the end of it all, there is a failure somewhere, you will take the blame because you are the leader,” he said.

“But it does not mean you are the one who has deliberately done it because you are compromised. We need to be fair in our assessment.”

The former INEC chairman said before he left the commission, an evaluation of the success and failure rate of the card reader was carried out.

“The card reader failed in five percent of places of deployment which is 95 percent success. But the pressmen and politicians were just focused on where it failed. But it can never be perfect,” Jega said.

“I can tell you that the BVAS that was developed to replace the card reader is of significant value to the electoral process. The major failure experienced during the polls relates to the upload to the IREV as promised by the chairman.

“I think we need to interrogate why the uploading, specifically with regards to the presidential election, failed.

“This needs to be done, not just in-house by INEC, but in a very transparent manner. I think there will be a lot of revelations with regards to what happened in order to properly apportion blame to who is responsible for what happened.”

The Cable

Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has, in his latest jibe at President Bola Tinubu, said titles don’t honour men but men bring honour to titles.

In a veiled reference to the President, Obi in a statement posted to his verified X handle on Tuesday, declared that identity crisis and controversies have continued to haunt the Nigerian citadel of power since the February 25, 2023 presidential elections.

He said: “There is this saying that ‘It is not titles that honour men, but men honour titles’.

“The lofty titles that decorate people in power have little meaning if there is a hollowness and falsehood underneath them. Titles such as “President”, “Governor” etc, which decorate those in public office, mean nothing if they are not original and are fake if those who bear them have no honour to support the weight of the titles they carry.

“In situations where there is public doubt as to the veracity and authenticity of these titles and the claims behind them, it is the role of the judiciary, when called upon, to uphold the honour of the titles through transparent rulings.

… judiciary

“It is only through such judicial interventions that the public can be protected from the tyranny of dubious and duplicitous characters and identity fraudsters.

“In such situations, the judiciary has a bounding duty in this regard to protect the value system of the society. This is one of the obligations of an impartial judiciary in a democracy.

“The rule of law remains the lifeblood of democracy in all societies and by whatever definition across time. It remains the foundation for all our basic rights as humans.

“It is the rule of law that binds society together. The expectation by the high and the low alike that their rights will be protected and respected by fair judges in transparent courts is what keeps citizens’ loyalty and belief in democracy.

“People, irrespective of their station in life, approach the courts whenever they feel their rights are assailed in the expectation that fair courts will serve them justice according to law.

“However, when the fairness of the judiciary is not assured and the transparency of judiciary operatives is uncertain, the rule of law will come under severe threat.

“Once ordinary people lose faith in the fairness of the judiciary, the rule of law is threatened. With it, faith in democracy comes under threat as well.

“A society is endangered when the rule of the powerful, the rich and the mighty replaces the rule of law.

“When that obtains, justice becomes a commodity to be traded on between the rich and powerful on the one hand and a cult of corrupt judiciary operatives on the other.

“When a democracy lives based on faulty justice, it opens society to obvious dangers. Governments become subject to impunity and casual violations of the rights of ordinary citizens.

“The rich and powerful can trample on the rights of the lowly as there are no consequences for infractions or lawless acts. This can be the groundwork for a democracy to graduate into an autocracy.

“US President Joe Biden could not be more apt when he said ‘For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law’.”

Vanguard