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Opinion

Monday, 24 June 2019 05:30

Getting Nigerian Passport with tears – Simon Kolawole

By their PRO you shall know them. Sometime in February this year, I got a distress call from a friend’s wife in the UK. She said there was a spelling error in her new Nigerian passport which she needed to correct urgently because of some critical deadline she had to meet. She had gone to the Nigerian high commission in London and the official who attended to her said the change could only be effected from Abuja. I confidently told her not to worry, that it would be corrected. Fellow Nigerians, it took three months to fix a one-alphabet spelling…

Monday, 24 June 2019 05:27

Facebook’s Libra must be stopped - Katharina Pistor

After years of disregarding privacy, exploiting user data, and failing to control its platform, Facebook has now unveiled a cryptocurrency and payment system that could take down the entire global economy. Governments must intervene before a company that "moves fast and breaks things" ends up breaking everything. Facebook has just unveiled its latest bid for world domination: Libra, a cryptocurrency designed to function as private money anywhere on the planet. In preparing the venture, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been in negotiations with central banks, regulators, and 27 partner companies, each of which will contribute at least $10 million. For…

Sunday, 23 June 2019 05:01

Buratai’s bruises on Nigerian troops - Festus Adedayo

Whether Chief of Army Staff, Mr Tukur Buratai, failed to think through his statement last Tuesday condemning Nigerian military troops who are on the frontline of fighting Boko Haram insurgency or he was just being magisterial like all bosses do, the import and symbolism of that waffling condemnation, it will seem, are far too fatal than he probably can guess. His allegation against the hapless soldiers, shunned of hyperboles, is treason. At the opening ceremony of a workshop tagged “Transformational leadership” organized by Army Headquarters Department of Transformation and Innovation, which held at Army Resource Centre in Abuja, Buratai had…

Friday, 21 June 2019 05:35

The Festus Adedayo they thought they could pull down - Festus Adedayo

I was just informed a few minutes ago of the withdrawal of the appointment offered me as Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Senate President, Mr Ahmed Lawan. I had hitherto enjoyed every of the diatribes provoked by the appointment. I was told it was the most discussed issue in Nigeria in the last few days. Of course, it was not humanly possible for me to read the over 5000 tweets and thousands of comments on other social media. As at the time of writing this, the issue was said to be the most-discussed in Nigeria on the social…

Friday, 21 June 2019 05:34

Wobbly start for Ihedioha - Jideofor Adibe

There must be something about political power that makes otherwise good men to act contrary to expectations once in power. And it can be very dispiriting. Let me mention immediately that I do not know Governor Emeka Ihedioha from Adam. But by reputation, he was one of the politicians (alongside the likes of Messers Kayode Fayemi, Datti Baba Ahmed and Kingsley Moghalu) often embraced by public intellectuals as urbane, who, if given the chance, would help to sanitize the political stage. As Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives, Mr Ihedioha managed to avoid any ruinous scandal – despite emerging as…

Thursday, 20 June 2019 05:24

The wave that could carry Trump to re-election - Matthew Continetti

Political professionals are so focused on the micro-details of the 2020 elections that they miss the macro trends favoring President Trump as he kicks off his re-election campaign in Florida. They are looking at national and state polls when our “America First” president ought to be viewed in a global context. The lobbyists, consultants and pundits inside the Beltway are obsessed with recent data that show Mr. Trump losing to several Democratic challengers. But surveys taken more than a year before Election Day are meaningless. More important, Mr. Trump benefits from incumbency and continued economic recovery, and he’s riding a…

Sunday, 16 June 2019 04:58

A slavish parliament and the road to Buhari’s life presidency - Farooq A. Kperogi

On June 11, 2019, Nigeria inaugurated what promises to be the most servile and least independent National Assembly in Nigeria’s entire history. The new Senate President and new Speaker of House of Representatives, whose ascendancy to their positions was enabled by nakedly transparent executive manipulation, are unabashedly obsequious grovelers to the presidency. New Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege’s cringe-worthily sycophantic genuflection to President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa on June 11 is perhaps the most symbolic affirmation yet of the loss of any pretense to legislative autonomy in the coming months and years. The National Assembly will no longer…

Sunday, 16 June 2019 04:50

Boycotting killers’ bloody beef in Kumuyi’s cow country - Festus Adedayo

As one of the two guest lecturers at a June 12, 1993 election commemorative anniversary and celebration of the unique proclamation of the day as Democracy Day in Nigeria by President Muhammadu Buhari, held in Ibadan, Oyo State last week, I walked out of my wont: I showered effusive praises on Buhari for this unique feat. Conversely, I literally asked that hot coal be poured on ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo for his disdain and hatred for the person of MKO Abiola, his classmate at the Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta. I asked psychologists, political scientists to help posterity by downloading and…

Thursday, 13 June 2019 04:37

Dino Melaye: Not ‘distinguished’, but a damn good senator - Kehinde Ogunwumiju

Hmmm! How did you arrive at the conclusion that Dino Melaye is an Idiot? Yes he is dramatic. He is flamboyant. He is theatrical. His dress sense is loud. He is brash and may not be described as 'distinguished'. The essence of representation at the National Assembly is that a person from your senatorial district or federal constituency speaks out on your behalf and influences the passage of policies or laws to favour and protect you. My Senator has not moved one motion. Neither has he sponsored a bill on the floor. I'm from Ondo state. He is distinguished though.…

Thursday, 13 June 2019 04:35

The end of the polling booth - Tina Rosenberg

We’ve been thinking about elections backward. “The ballot belongs to the voter, not the government,” said Phil Keisling, the former secretary of state of Oregon. “As long as it can be done with safety and integrity, it’s the obligation of the government to get it to me. It’s not my responsibility to qualify for it and get it.” Many states are taking that goal seriously, and to meet it, they are taking steps to abolish the traditional polling booth. Voting as a right should not be controversial. But in many places, election officials are trying to make voting more difficult.…

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Tuesday, 11 June 2019 05:45

How do populists win? - Daron Acemoglu

At first blush, a populist message of "us vs. them" might seem less effective than a message of "all of us together," given that elections are won with broad coalitions. But under conditions of widespread alienation and distrust, the political gamble of an exclusionary, anti-pluralist message can pay off big. In the Middle Ages, Italian city-states led the European “commercial revolution” with innovations in finance, trade, and technology. Then something strange happened. In 1264, to take one example, the people of Ferrara decreedthat, “The magnificent and illustrious Lord Obizzo … is to be Governor and Ruler and General and permanent…

Monday, 10 June 2019 05:07

The end of the world as we know it - Joschka Fischer

After three decades of moving toward a single global market governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization, the international order has undergone a fundamental change. The United States and China are locked in a tariff war that at first seemed to be about the bilateral trade balance, but has turned out to be about much more. Until recently, one could find hope in the fact that, despite frequent exchanges of threats, the two countries were negotiating. Not anymore. Last month, under pressure from US President Donald Trump’s administration, Google terminatedits cooperation with Huawei, thereby depriving the Chinese smartphone…

Sunday, 09 June 2019 05:37

Oyo’s N3,000 school fees debacle - Festus Adedayo

Did Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State realize that, in his first official pronouncement on May 29, 2019 stopping the payment of N3,000 by school pupils, he had unwittingly provoked a strong ideological sentiment which had been bottled overtime? Discussions on this issue have polarized indigenes and residents along divides of ideology, class and beliefs. My confession: I was very upset with the new governor at this pronouncement. Not strictly on the pedestal of ideology, I felt Makinde was merely playing to the gallery. Why would a governor stop the payment of a meager fee of N3,000, payable by parents…

Sunday, 09 June 2019 05:36

As the visa noose tightens - Muyiwa Adetiba

On Monday, I had a conversation with a lady who calls me daddy and whom I am proud to regard as a daughter. She is a manager in a bank. Her husband is a medical doctor. They are both in their 40s. Ordinarily, the likes of these two, should be the backbone of any society. They should be the archetypal middle class with a home in the better part of town and kids in posh schools. They should qualify to be members of the top social and sporting clubs in their area. That was what it was in my time.…

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