Exactly five years today, 29th May 2013, my father, Mr John Abolaji Odufayo Odufowokan of Odunuga dynasty of Ijebu Land answered the call of Almighty. He died at an advanced age, about ninety years old. He was a highly intelligent man despite the fact that he had little education (standard two) but equipped with the good dose of Yoruba traditional philosophy. He was a man that usually held strongly to his positions on issues unless you could convince him with superior positions or arguments. Sometimes, I had intentionally stuck to my position while I engaged him and not expecting him…

There is a strong possibility that one year ahead from this week, President Muhammadu Buhari will be at Eagle Square in Abuja looking considerably older and sadder. The presidential election will be held on February 19, nine months away. When he takes the microphone for the fourth time in 48 hours, it will be the formal start to his campaign for re-election. But it will be a difficult nine months, unless All Progressives Congress, does the unthinkable and denies him the re-run ticket. As an observer, I am going to enjoy watching this effort to swim dressed in an agbada…

I recently attended a PhD seminar in labor economics at Central European University in Budapest. In it, we considered whether the Hungarian government’s scheme to focus on long-term unemployment is working efficiently, and we raised a host of technical problems for the doctoral candidate to address. But I came away disturbed by the experience, wondering whether professional economists (particularly in the West) need to reassess the moral and political context in which they conduct their work. Shouldn’t economists ask themselves whether it is morally justifiable to provide even strictly technical advice to self-dealing, corrupt, or undemocratic governments? To be sure,…

If statistical estimation of Nigeria’s population of 60% youth is anything to go by, then a very few percentage of Nigerian youth, in their multiple of millions, witnessed the reign of terror of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s Head of State between 1994 and 1998. Thus, when President Muhammadu Buhari, last Tuesday, canonized the late General as one unfairly demonized, the import of that eulogy may be totally lost on more than half of Nigerians. Speaking while receiving a delegation of Buhari Support Organization (BSO) which held at the Presidential Villa, Buhari literally said he didn’t care what opinion the whole…