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Opinion

Tuesday, 09 October 2018 05:19

2019: Atiku vs. Buhari - Reuben Abati

There has been some clarity about Nigeria’s 2019 Presidential election, with the end of the October 7 deadline set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of party primaries at all levels. On Saturday, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at its convention held in Abuja, ratified the choice of incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari as its flagbearer, with a curious vote tally of 14. 8 million. President Buhari and his supporters have continuously left no one in doubt that they intend to have a second shot at power and office. The number of party members across Nigeria…

Tuesday, 09 October 2018 05:17

Atiku can defeat Buhari. Here’s how - Farooq Kperogi

I’m frankly not excited about an Atiku presidency. In a previous widely shared Facebook status update, which I developed into a full-length column (see link in comment section), I dismissed Atiku as a cancerous old stager. I also advocated for a third force that is neither Atiku nor Buhari, which Obasanjo quoted in his last public letter to Buhari. Nevertheless, if I have to choose between Atiku and Buhari, I’d choose Atiku with a lot of hesitation. There is no question that Buhari is the absolute worst president Nigeria has ever had the misfortune to be burdened with. He is…

Sunday, 07 October 2018 05:42

Matthew Kukah and banditry that is Nigerian politics - Festus Adedayo

In the last few weeks or so, the blood pressure of Nigeria must have risen tremendously. Though it is a quadrennial affair, this year’s ritual of ascendancy to political offices by Nigerian politicians has generated so many flakes. As usual, the fever of politics has caught every Nigerian, irrespective of their profession. Bankers, journalists, lawyers, doctors etc. are interested in who is vying for what election at the local, state and national level. This is a time when it dawns on all Nigerians that we are all political animals, irrespective of our persuasions, as theorized by political scientists. Perhaps what…

Saturday, 06 October 2018 05:08

On differences within the Nigerian Left - Edwin Madunagu

For almost a year now, since I resumed writing for publication in the media, I have deliberately referred to the Nigerian Left – my primary concern in this ideological and political enterprise – as if it is a homogenous or monolithic entity. But I know that most of my readers know, as much as I do, that the Nigerian Left – described here as the aggregate of Nigerian Marxists, socialists and pro-people radical democrats – is neither homogenous nor monolithic and has never been. Even the Marxist group, the ideological core and the most self-conscious subgroup of the Nigerian Left,…

Wednesday, 03 October 2018 05:11

Nigeria’s certificate scandals - Reuben Abati

The number of persons involved in certificate scandals under the Buhari administration may speak to something far deeper in our society, even beyond the administration, but it is to say the least, disgraceful and embarrassing. Ordinarily considered some of the best educated black persons in the world - one US report indicates that Nigerians are among the most educated immigrants in the United States, vertically and horizontally - it is now shameful that Nigerians today are also ironically poster-characters for fake certificates, 419 qualifications, and dubious academic affiliations. This whole saga started, this time, with the President himself whose school…

Monday, 01 October 2018 05:36

Present at the destruction - Mark Leonard

At the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly this month, there was a widespread sense of foreboding among world leaders. The anxiety went beyond standard concerns about what US President Donald Trump would say, do, or tweet. Even before the summit began, Europeans, Canadians, Mexicans, South Koreans, and Japanese had been consulting in earnest about the need for a new alliance to save the multilateral system. In the late 1960s, former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson looked back at the immediate post-war era and felt as though he had been “present at the creation” of a new…

Sunday, 30 September 2018 06:33

Osun election as Nigeria’s dirty mirror at 58 - Festus Adedayo

It is a few hours to Nigeria’s 58th independence anniversary and right there, by the tip of our noses, providence is using an otherwise small muck to dramatize the huge rot that is Nigeria. And why, at the risk of being labeled a nihilist, redemption may be very far away from this famous country. The small muck is Osun, one of the tiniest states in Nigeria. By the way, there was this very famous poem which Yoruba pupils learnt by rote in primary schools of the 1950s, till about mid-1980s. Close to seven decades after it was penned, it still…

Sunday, 30 September 2018 06:30

‘United’ or ‘Nations’? Balance is UN’s existential question - Ted Anthony

After the world’s leaders spent thousands upon thousands of words on the subject this past week, the foreign minister of Papua New Guinea boiled it down to just six of them on Saturday. “Unity, of course, is the answer,” Rimbink Pato said. Maybe. Also: Maybe not. Depends on who’s talking. The fusillade of oratory this year at the U.N. General Assembly has made clear that one of the most vexing challenges facing the planet’s nations as they muddle through the 21st century is which principle to put first: working together or going it alone. Behind that, though, sits the larger…

Saturday, 29 September 2018 05:20

Decent men don’t do these things - Theresa Brown

Sexual assault is excused as normal and forgivable. It’s not. Ask the women who’ve experienced it. I have a story. So many women do. Mine took place when I was 6 or 7 years old, I think. I wasn’t raped. People seem to always want to parse the details, so I’ll be clear about that. Two older boys, sons of friends of my parents, coerced me into letting them touch my genitals with theirs. They said they would give me money if I let them. When I balked, they called me chicken. What’s disturbing is that it happened, and then…

Friday, 28 September 2018 04:43

Takeaways from the Osun Election - Jideofor Adibe

The September 22 2018 governorship election in Osun state is one of the closest political races in the country’s political history. According to official results, Mr Ademola Adeleke, candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 254,698 while Mr Gboyega Oyetola, candidate of All Progressive Congress (APC) scored 254,345. The margin of victory was only 353 votes. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the election ‘inconclusive’ and ordered a supplementary election at seven polling centres in four local councils on September 27 on the grounds that the margin of victory was less than the 3498 votes it cancelled at the…

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Friday, 28 September 2018 04:38

Wike, PDP and Buhari's re-election - Gabriel Akinadewo

"I don’t know why anyone who wants to be president will be afraid of a venue. Then you are not prepared for the election“Let me warn the party, if you dare, Rivers State will teach the party a lesson. Those days have passed when they took Rivers State for granted. Nobody can use and dump Rivers State.“Nobody should dare Rivers State any longer. Enough is enough. PDP should know that we are not a punching bag. We are not a people you can use and push. We are not harlots. Whenever you want, you come. When you finish, you push…

Thursday, 27 September 2018 05:11

Adeleke and the modern Nigerian tragedy - Abimbola Adelakun

All Progressives Congress is reeling from the shock that their party was almost entirely trounced by the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke (aka “the dancing senator”), at the Osun State governorship election last Saturday. Since the outcome of the election unraveled, their propagandists have been in a full attack mode, frantically calling our attention to the abomination that is about to be institutionalised if Adeleke – a man barely known for anything other than his public dances – becomes the next Osun State Governor. You can sense their panic in the messages they assail you with on WhatsApp,…

Tuesday, 25 September 2018 04:15

Osun: Election as theatre - Reuben Abati

What is going on in Osun state right now is nothing short of political theatre. It is keeping us all entertained, but it has also turned so many observers into emergency lawyers. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the Osun Gubernatorial election of September 22 inconclusive and has ordered a supplementary election at seven polling centres in four local councils on September 27. Many Nigerians are taking a keen interest in the Osun election. This should not be surprising. Every election season in Nigeria, what the law says or does not say is the concern of all kinds of…

Monday, 24 September 2018 04:14

Who really creates value in an economy? - Mariana Mazzucato

After the 2008 global financial crisis, a consensus emerged that the public sector had a responsibility to intervene to bail out systemically important banks and stimulate economic growth. But that consensus proved short-lived, and soon the public sector’s economic interventions came to be viewed as the main cause of the crisis, and thus needed to be reversed. This turned out to be a grave mistake. In Europe, in particular, governments were lambasted for their high debts, even though private debt, not public borrowing, caused the collapse. Many were instructed to introduce austerity, rather than to stimulate growth with counter-cyclical policies.…

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